Effect Of Western Xia On The Northern Song’s "Money Shortage"

Northern Song Dynasty had the largest quantity of casting coins with most varieties in Chinese history, but "Money Shortage" still appeared frequently, this has drawn the extensive attention from the academic circles and for reasons Be attributed to four aspects: many coins were destroyed to be used to cast utensils; part of coins were privately taken possession and stockpiled by officials; part of coins drained to other countries;"Bad money drove out good", etc. in which the third article mainly took Qidan, Japan, North Korea, South Asia, West Asia, etc. as the example, rarely mentioned or completely ignored the influence of the Western Xia regime. In recent years, a large quantity of the Northern Song Dynasty copper coins had been discovered from the Western Xia coin hoards in all places nationwide. The academic circles knew from their studies that the Northern Song Dynasty copper coins were the main coins in circulation within the territory of Western Xia Regime. In addition to the circulation needs, Western Xia Regime also destroyed and melted large quantity of copper coins to cast currency or a variety of daily utensils. Due to the Northern Song Dynasty copper and Western Xia Regime were in a hostile state for a long period, coupled with the "stringent monetary policy" were strictly implemented by Northern Song Dynasty for prohibiting the copper coins to flow into Western Xia Regime. Therefore, the Western Xia Regime attached considerable importance on the Northern Song copper coins and tried its utmost to protect them from the outflow. The Western Xia followed the Northern Song Dynasty to set up the special zone for using the iron coins, particularly set up the iron coin area in the border areas to have the iron coins externally circulated, and "New Laws and Rules of Tiansheng Era" were officially promulgated in Tiansheng era of the Western Xia (1149-1169) to strengthen the management of the currency circulation, and then made the coins of Northern Song Dynasty formed a situation of "only flow into, never outflow" within the territory of Western Xia Regime. So the occurrence of the Northern Song’s "Money Shortage" is closely connected with the Western Xia and the circulation and use of a large quantity of the Northern Song copper coins have objectively intensified the Northern Song "Money Shortage".