In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Western Xia and Jin dynasties rose one after another. After the Jin people swallowed Liao and destroyed the Song Dynasty, Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty became the two major political forces in northern China at that time, and the Xia-Jin relationship profoundly influenced the political and economic pattern of China in the 12th and 13th centuries.
In the history of ethnic relations in ancient China, whether the economic and trade exchanges between ethnic regimes were smooth or not was often a "barometer" of the development of relations between the two sides. Under certain historical conditions, economic and trade issues are still the main reason for the outbreak of ethnic contradictions. However, the Xia-Jin relationship seemed to be different, and after the Jin Dynasty occupied the Central Plains, Western Xia no longer bordered the Southern Song Dynasty, and the Jin Dynasty became Western Xia's main economic trade partner.
On the whole, except for the brief war between Xia and Jin, which broke out in the late Western Xia Dynasty due to the rise of Mongolia, the two countries basically maintained long-term peaceful and friendly relations, which was very different from the Xia and Song confrontation periods. But contrary to this political peace and friendship, trade between Xiakin was not smooth. The Jin Dynasty adopted a very strict trade restriction policy towards Western Xia, and although Western Xia was extremely dissatisfied with this, it still deferentially treated the Jin Dynasty, forming a peculiar phenomenon of political heat and economic cold.
Chakin relationship
At the beginning of the 12th century AD, northern China was in a complex and ever-changing political landscape, alternating between old and new. The Western Xia and Northern Song dynasties in northwest China clashed on the border, while maintaining close relations with the Liao Dynasty. In 1115, the Jurchens rebelled against the Liao Dynasty and established a regime that ruled northeast and north China, with the state name "Jin", and successively destroyed the Liao and Song dynasties.
After that, the Jin Dynasty became the main target country of Western Xia's "foreign" exchanges. During the more than 100 years of coexistence between the Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty, the two sides have always maintained stable relations, and the Xia-Jin relationship at this stage has become the main line of development of ethnic relations in Northwest China. In the course of Xia Jin's more than 100 years of exchanges, the relationship between the two sides has continued to develop and change.
At the beginning of the 12th century, the outstanding leader of the Jurchen tribe, Wanyan Ah Bone Da responded to the needs of the anti-Liao struggle and established the Jin State in 1115 AD. Under the fierce attack of the powerful Jin army, the Liao army was defeated one after another and was about to be destroyed. In May of the same year, the Western Xia commander Qianshun sent the general Li Liangfu to lead 30,000 troops to Tiande to reinforce the Liao army, but because he was too underestimating the enemy, he was defeated by the Jin army at Yu Yishui.
Although the Liao Dynasty was running out of strength at this time, and the canonization of the Liao Dynasty was insignificant to Western Xia, the Lord of Western Xia still assisted the Liao Emperor many times. This series of measures also marked that the relations between the two countries had entered the stage of Western Xia's aid to Liaoning and resisting Jin, and the initial contact between Xia and Jinjin began on the Liaojin battlefield.
The Jin Dynasty knew that the Liaoxia alliance must be destroyed in order to completely destroy the Liao Dynasty, so it attached great importance to the existence of Western Xia military power. In order to win Western Xia's backsliding, the Jin Dynasty began to adjust its strategy against Western Xia and launched a reconciliation offensive. In the first year of the Jin Tianhui (1123), the Jin lord A Bone Da sent his son Wanyan Zongwang to send an envoy to lure Western Xia down.
The Jin Dynasty issued an edict to Western Xia, confirming its suzerainty status among Xia and Jin, and pointed out that the Western Xia army should be subordinate to the Jin Dynasty, and the two countries needed to establish a strategic military cooperation. In the process of "taking the oath" and "giving the oath", the Western Xia and Jin dynasties finally established the relationship between the two monarchs and the clans and their related responsibilities and etiquette.
At this point, the Xia-Liao relationship ended, and the political relationship between Xia and Jin and Xia Jin was formally concluded as a monarch.
In the early days of Xia-Jin's friendship, in the process of using Western Xia to contain the Song Dynasty, although the territorial issue caused disputes between the two sides, due to the disparity in Xiajin's military strength, Western Xia sought its own survival and development, and both sides made concessions in the struggle, so the contradiction did not intensify to the extent that bilateral relations were completely broken.
During the reign of Kim Sejong and Xia Renzong, Xia-Kim relations reached the most friendly period. Xia Renzong reigned for fifty-six years, occupying most of the period of peaceful development between Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty. Later Zhangzong basically inherited the laws of governing the country during the Sejong period, but repeatedly restricted the travel of Western Xia Gong envoys.
At the beginning of the 13th century, the Mongol Empire rose up and became powerful in northern Mobei and began a war of expansion. With the rise of Mongolia, the friendly relationship between the two countries changed from a friendly relationship known as a monarch to a hostile relationship of mutual aggression and war. The rise of Mongolia in the early 13th century completely broke the stable relationship between Chakin. The Mongols achieved their intended goal: to use Western Xia as a breakthrough point into the Central Plains to conquer the favorable situation of the Jin Dynasty. However, even during the war between the Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty, the exchange of tribute between the two countries was not broken.
Trade between Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty
At the beginning of the 12th century, the Jurchens arose, the Jin Dynasty destroyed the Liao and the Song Dynasty, occupied the Shaanxi region that was originally part of the Northern Song Dynasty, and geographically separated the Western Xia from the Southern Song Dynasty, and the two were almost severed. Therefore, the Jin Dynasty became the main target country of Western Xia's exchanges and contacts with "foreign".
As a result, the Western Xia and Jin dynasties maintained a long period of interaction, in which economic ties were a major aspect of the exchange between the two sides, so the two countries developed limited trade in a peaceful environment. Because the Western Xia and Jin Dynasties were the establishment of ethnic minority regimes, and since the Jin Dynasty established local separatist regimes in the Central Plains, the trade exchanges between Xia and Jin were very different from those of the Song Dynasty, which was the agrarian national regime in the Central Plains.
The form of Xiakin trade was mainly tributary trade and field trade. Tribute trade is the form of mutual sending of envoys between the Xiakin regimes to trade, in which tribute and return are the official trade of the government, and the economic and trade activities carried by the envoys along the way are incidental tribute trade. The Choba Trade was a large-scale official trade market set up by the Jin Dynasty on the Xiajin border. In addition to the above normal legal trade, there is also the smuggling trade, that is, the unofficial channel for the exchange of illegal import-controlled goods at the border between the two sides when the trade channels are interrupted.
In addition to the above-mentioned officially recognized and presided over tribute trade, there is also a form of illegal smuggling trade that is not officially recognized or even severely cracked down. Smuggling is a trading activity outside the scope of the law, mainly the sale of prohibited goods and all other goods that are profitable but cannot be satisfied through the field. Due to the many salt lakes in Xixia, the pond salt resources are rich and considerable, so green and white salt are the main commodities exchanged with "foreign".
epilogue
Trade with "foreign" plays a pivotal role for Western Xia and occupies a major position in social and economic activities. In the process of trade between the Xia and Song Dynasties, due to the poor and weak situation of the Northern Song Dynasty, it was necessary to consolidate the stable relationship between the Xia and Song Dynasties through the channels of trade exchanges. Since the rise of the Jin Dynasty, it was able to confront the Northern Song Dynasty for a long time and seize the ruling power of the Central Plains, which shows that its economic and military strength is strong. Therefore, in the Xiajin trade, the Jin Dynasty's economic demand for Western Xia was small, and the Jin Dynasty was often on the initiative side, holding the initiative of the Xiajin trade.