The coin and the system of currency in the Western Xia followed the Northern Song dynasty’s currency system and the shape of the coin. In the Western Xia, people used coins that had round outer shape and a square center hole(方孔圓形) and inscribed with the era names(年號錢). Since the region of the Western Xia was the place that shorted in copper and iron at that time, they employed mainly the coins of the Northern Song dynasty or the Jin dynasty.
In 1044(Qingli(慶曆) 4), the Northern Song dynasty and the Western Xia signed a peace treaty. Yuanhao(元昊) canceled to term himself as Emperor, and the Northern Song dynasty recognized him as the ruler of Xia lands(夏國主). Also the Northern Song dynasty agreed to pay lots of coins as the annual tribute. There were also a outflow of the coins of the Northern Song dynasty to the Western Xia by trade on the border. In this process, the Western Xia owned a massive coins of the Song dynasty and used them in a variety of ways.
Furthermore, the Western Xia minted their own coins. Western Xia first established the Supervisory house of Currency(通濟監) which were responsible for cast coin in 1158(Tiansheng(天盛) 10), and issued coin that called ‘Tian Sheng Yuan Bao(天盛元寶).’ The coin produced in Western Xia were cast in Chinese characters.
In the Northern Song dynasty, there were a close connection among the lack of coinage, the development of commodity economy, and the circulation of money. The lack of coinage was caused by a combination of those main factors. The outflow of Song dynasty’s coins was one of the main occasions of the lack of coinage. In the early period of the Northern Song dynasty, the government imposed a strong ban on the outflow of coinage to foreign countries. There are a little bit records about the outflow of the Northern Song’s coin. But the writer was able to figure out the situation of the outflow of the Northern Song’s coinage by checking the policy to ban the outflow of coinage and the trade policies in the Northern Song dynasty. It shows the inflow of the Northern Song’s coinage in large quantity to the Western Xia by the trade between the Western Xia and the Northern Song dynasty. This outflow of the Northern Song’s coinage was one of the reasons to accelerate the lack of coinage in the Northern Song dynasty.
The Western Xia was a sovereign nation, but small in quantity of the coinage. In the Western Xia, there were more iron coins than copper coins. It was because the Western Xia had to supply the demands due to the socio-economic development. By the public and private trade, border trade, smuggling, and etc, the lots of coinage of the Northern Song dynasty flowed to the Western Xia. The coins aside from the necessary demand for circulation was used as material to make weapons or object. Thus, in the Western Xia, people treasured the Northern Song’s coinage. The Western Xia established the district of iron coin to prevent the outflow of cooper coins, and strictly managed the circulation of coinage through the announcement of the law.
In this paper, the writer intend to review the relationship of the coinage exchange between the Northern Song dynasty and the Western Xia through the analysis about the Western Xia’s monetary system and the inflow route to the Western Xia of the Northern Song’s coin.