Northern Song Dynasty

• Dates: 960-1127
• Chinese: 北宋 (Bei-Song)

The Northern Song Dynasty, with its capital at Kaifeng (then called Baijing), united China around 960 following the fractured period known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. It was a period of particular cultural, economic, and technological flourishing for China, but ended with the loss of the northern half of the country to Jurchen invasion in 1127. At that time, the Court fled south, making its new capital at Hangzhou (then called Lin'an), marking the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty.

The last emperor of the Northern Song, Emperor Huizong (r. 1100-1126), is known as a particular lover of the arts. He is famous for his distinctive "Slender Gold" style of calligraphy, and for several paintings which are easily among the most famous Chinese paintings today.

Auspicious Cranes, painting and calligraphy by Emperor Huizong, 1112.

Economics

The Song court's revenues far exceeded those of any other major government in the world, at that time. More than half of the state's revenues were obtained through monopolies imposed on the production of rice wine, and key mineral resources such as salt, copper, and alum. Private commerce was quite active in a great variety of fields, ranging from iron mining and metallurgy to sericulture, textiles, tea, porcelain, paper, and sugar. Government involvement in private enterprise consisted chiefly of actions taken to ensure the free flow of goods, and the prevention of monopolistic or cartel behaviors. Certain goods, such as iron, books, and bronze coin, believed to be of particular strategic importance, were forbidden from being exported (but flowed out of the country, including into Japan, nevertheless).

In the late 10th century, private merchants in western China began to issue their own private forms of bills of exchange, which customers could then exchange at agents in other regions for actual coinage, or for goods and services. These were replaced in 1024 by the government's establishment of an official system of paper money, the first paper money in the world.

By the 1020s, the Song government was minting far more coinage than any previous dynasty. In the 1070s, it was producing nearly 6 billion coins per year, a process which required 9600 tons of copper each year. But even this volume of coinage could not fulfill the needs of the economy, and so paper money continued to play a large role.

References

Preceded by: Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Northern Song Dynasty 960-1127

Succeeded by: Southern Song Dynasty