Research On Tea - Horse Trade In Ordos And Its Marginal Areas In The Tang And Song Dynasties

The historical economic geography is an important branch of the historical geography, the study of economic phenomena and laws on the historical time is significant. Tea-horse trade was the important economic phenomenon on the historical time,and from the current research,the study has been mainly focused on the Ming Dynasty in time, and on the southwest and the northwest area in space.From the present research conditions, this paper chooses Ordos and its fringe areas as the study area,the study time is Tang and Song Dynasties, trying hard to make the research taking on some academic research and practical significance. Tea-horse trade had a strong inheritance and development, studying its development processes and laws can provide a useful reference for the regional and export-oriented economy and ethnic relations.Specifically,this paper is divided into five parts:The first part is the exordium,which mainly includes the reason for choosing this theme, research status and contents and methods to study. The second part gives general descriptions of the political and natural foundations of the Tea-horse trade in the Tang and Song Dynasties. The third and fourth parts have some similarities.,They first expatiate national economic situations and traffic patterns,including ethnic distributions, the developments of agriculture and animal husbandry and traffic roads. Then they respectively analyze market distributions, commodities and their sources of Tea-horse trade in the Tang and Song Dynasties. The fifth part is a comparative study of Tea-horse trade. It summarizes the differents of trade objects, regions, ways and forms in the Tang and Song Dynasties.Through a preliminary study of Tea-horse trade in the Tang and Song Dynasties in the Ordos and its fringe areas,this paper draws the following conclusions:First, the economics between minorities in the Ordos and its fringe areas and the Central Plains have a complementarity in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and this is the beginning and growing of inevitability of Tea-horse trade. Second,Tea-horse trade taked Silk-horse trade as representation in the Tang Dynasties in the Ordos and its fringe areas,and formed two larger market areas in the southern margin of the Ordos region and the north shore of the Yellow River. Third,Tea-horse trade developed rapidly in the Song Dynasties, being reflected in Song and Xia trade and Xixia and Liao trade. The market was mainly distributed in the border area of Song and Xixia and along the"Liao"Post Road,which the southern margin, north and northeast region of the Ordos. Fourth markets, roads and market areas, which the combination of points, lines, surfaces was an important feature of Tea-horse trade in the Tang and Song Dynasties in the Ordos and its fringe areas. Fifth, Tea-horse trade was transit export-oriented trade in main, supplemented with regional trade in the Tang Dynasty in the Ordos and its fringe areas. In the Song Dynasty Tea-horse trade was border regional trade between Song and Xixia and Xixia and Liao. And Xiazhou’s centrality was very prominent in Tang and Song Dynasties. Sixth, as an important economic form blending into political and economic interests, the role of Tea-horse trade played could not be ignored in different times. It occupies an important position in the history of Ancient economic and ethnic relations.