The Study Of Northern Song’s Overseas Trade Legal System

Northern Song dynasty is the transformation of feudal society in China, which is also the critical period of overseas trade development in ancient China. The overseas trade legal system to adjust legal relations of overseas trade once has been progressively developed in Northern Song dynasty, and occupied an important position in overseas trade legal system of ancient China. But due to the clutter of historical data and the limitations of scholars’ awareness, discussions on Northern Song dynasty overseas trade legal system in current academic circles are rare, and are not summarized comprehensively enough. This paper is written on the basis of researching existing historical materials, and strives to present overseas trade legal system of Northern Song dynasty completely, to make people know more about it and learn from it.Northern Song’s overseas trade legal system includes abroad tributary system and civil overseas trade legal system.During Northern Song dynasty, ruling classes focused on the development of the overseas tribute trade, and enacted legal regulations to manage each stage of abroad tributary trade inheriting existing system.At the same time, this period is also an important stage in the development of civil overseas trade legislation. As civil foreign maritime trade to flourish, the civil overseas trade legal system with Shi Bo management law as the core and separate regulations to manage external maritime trade as a secondary grew up rapidly.This article is divided into four parts to research Northern Song dynasty’s overseas trade legal system:Part Ⅰ overviews the development of Northern Song dynasty’s overseas trade legal system. By expounding the legal origin, the background of legal system reform, and two types of overseas trade and their legal control, this paper attends to make readers understand overall the overseas trade legal system in Northern Song.Part Ⅱ describes the main contents of Northern Song dynasty’s overseas tribute trade legal norms. This section makes Northern Song dynasty’s tribute trade process:tribute- given as a clue to summarize relevant legal system, in order to let people have a more comprehensive and innovative awareness of Northern Song dynasty’s overseas tribute trade legal system.Part Ⅲ describes the main contents of Northern Song dynasty’s civil overseas trade legal system. Northern Song’s ruling classes enacted legal provisions from the central to the local about how to set up Shi Bo’s organization and officials, the main functions of Shi Bo, how to manage overseas traders, and the system of praying for wind, etc.Part IV describes the characteristics of overseas trade legal system in Northern Song dynasty and its historical influence. Northern Song dynasty’s overseas trade legal system has its own distinctive characteristics in format, structure and content, so it has a high place in our history, not only promoting Northern Song’s social economy, particularly in the development of overseas trade, but also has been enriched and perfected the succeeding generations’overseas trade legislation.