A Study Of Pirates In The Northern Song Dynasty

Piracy is a kind of social phenomenon.The emergence,development and extinction of any social phenomenon are closely related to the background of The Times.The history of China began in the Northern Song Dynasty.Under the influence of the changes of economic environment,political situation,progress of science and technology and the ruler’s policy to encourage the development of commerce,the foreign economy and trade achieved great development in this period,followed by the increasingly fierce pirate activities coveted here.The oppression and control of the relevant groups in coastal society by the Song Court and the rich gentry is another important social background of piracy.There were three characteristics of piracy in this period.First,it was widely distributed from the coast of Jingdong Lu,which was mainly located in today’s Shandong Province,to the coast of Guangnan Lu,which was mainly located in today’s Guangxi and Guangdong areas.Second,the number of times is more,according to statistics at least 40 times;Third,it lasted for a long time,almost throughout the Northern Song Dynasty.These features are unprecedented.Piracy also draws from a much more diverse group of coastal civilians and businessmen,as well as fugitive soldiers and even some foreigners.Because the pirate activities seriously damaged the social order in the coastal areas,affected the normal maritime trade order and threatened the imperial rule of the Song Court,the first official countermeasures of the Northern Song Dynasty were to fight against it with the help of the coastal naval forces.Although the official and folk of the Northern Song Dynasty implemented a series of diversified measures to combat and prevent pirates,but because of the characteristics of pirates and external reasons,the implementation of these measures brought unsatisfactory effects,piracy was still more and more rampant throughout the Northern Song Dynasty.The pirate activity in the Northern Song Dynasty was a social phenomenon occurring in a specific historical period and its limited geographical environment,and was an important manifestation of the social and economic development in the Northern Song Dynasty.Therefore,from the perspective of pirates and their interaction with the officials and the folk of the Northern Song Dynasty,the study of the historical law of their activities can give a glimpse of the history of the Northern Song Dynasty in a more comprehensive way.