An Analysis on the Copper Coin Trade between China and Japan in the Tang and Song Dynasties

Abstract

Copper coins, as one of the important contents of trade exchanges between China and Japan in the history, has always played an important role. However, during the Tang and Song Dynasties, there were differences in copper coin trade between China and Japan. What are the reasons? To answer this question, from the perspective of Sino-Japanese cultural exchange, this paper will first analyze the status of copper coins in the currency circulation systems of Tang and Song Dynasties, and then combines the Sino-Japanese trade policy, foreign policy, output of copper coins to discuss the differences and reasons of copper coin trade between China and Japan in two different periods. Through analysis we hypothesize that, more copper coins flowed into Japan in the Song Dynasty than in the Tang Dynasty, the shortage of copper coins in the Tang Dynasty was mainly caused by internal reasons and the outflow of copper coins affected the shortage of copper coins in the Song Dynasty. Although there are same phenomena in two different periods, the reasons are quite different.