Study On The Frontier Defence Law Of North Song Dynasty To Xia State

With the establishment of northern song dynasty,the western force Tanguts rose up gradually and Xia state was formally established during the reign of Songrenzong emperor.Northern song dynasty could not treat Xia state in accordance with the same policy that central plains dynasties did to its political power around.However,the various contact from officially and folk between Northern song dynasty and Xia state inevitably lead to all kinds of problems.And northern song dynasty regulated these problems by law,which contains undertake transfer of personnel control,penalized about smuggled goods and some special legal provisions for stabling frontier.There are two forms of personnel mobility,on the one hand,traffic in persons and citizens illegally departed country from northern song dynasty to Xia state.On the other hand,Xia tribes immigrated and spies illegally entered into northern song dynasty.For northern song dynasty,the criminal behaviors like traffic in persons,citizens illegally departed country,Xia spies illegally entry were punished severely.However,with the influence of war between northern song and Xia,the attitude of northern song toward Xia tribes immigration was different.In the flow of goods and materials,compared with copper cash flowing into other foreign areas,northern song could punished criminals heavier if they smuggled copper cash to Xia,which was related to the prosperous external trade in northern song and the important position of copper cash in market transaction in that time.The horse trade was dominated by authority between northern song and Xia,which prohibited Xia’s horse in folk private market,and also prohibited resell behavior.Since Tang dynasty,it has been forbidden the folk merchants to sell weapons or mould to Tanguts,and northern song inherited the legal provisions.Except for the control of the frontier personnel and material flow,in order to maintain the stability of the frontier between northern song and Xia,a series of legal measures were taken to regulate the frontier public security and to crack down the crimes of tribes.Northern song dynasty inherited and developed the frontier defence law of Xia on the base of former central plains dynasties’ policy toward Tanguts.Meanwhile,northern song dynasty also created a lot of new laws according to the circumstance against unprecedented problems which were raised from temporal change.These laws reflected the progress of legal system of northern song dynasty,expressed its basic thought of managing northwest frontier,and even included in the whole concept of governing ideas.