Song China invented lasting paper money and a standing navy
Ruling 960 to 1279, the Song dynasty reunited China after the Five Dynasties scramble and split into Northern (Kaifeng) and Southern (after 1127) eras. It issued the world’s first true banknotes, kept a permanent navy, and recorded gunpowder formulas.
Emperor Taizu seized the Later Zhou throne in 960 and spent sixteen years conquering the rest of China proper, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms upheaval. Northern Song governed from Kaifeng. As cities grew and a national market formed, the central government stepped back from running the economy and the lower gentry took over much local administration.
Beyond banknotes and gunpowder, the era produced the first known use of a compass to find true north, the first recorded description of the pound lock, and better astronomical clocks; its economy is estimated at three times the size of Europe’s. Diplomacy reached Chola India, Fatimid Egypt, Srivijaya, the Kara-Khanids, Goryeo, and Vietnam, and Chinese records note an embassy sent by Byzantine emperor Michael VII Doukas that arrived in 1081.
The polymath Shen Kuo led early eleventh-century campaigns against the Tanguts that ended in failure after a rival officer ignored orders. At court, Chancellor Fan Zhongyan’s reforms drew fierce backlash, and Wang Anshi’s New Policies under Shenzong clashed with Sima Guang’s conservatives. Cai Jing, in power until 1125, revived the reforms while hounding opponents and tolerating graft.
Distracted, the court let official Tong Guan persuade Emperor Huizong into the Alliance Conducted at Sea with the Jurchen Jin, which destroyed the Liao state by 1125. Song troops had cleared the defensive forest along the old frontier, and the Jin, having seen how weak the Song army was, broke the pact and raced across the North China Plain. In the Jingkang Incident they took Kaifeng along with Huizong, his successor Qinzong, and most of the court, forcing the dynasty south.
Source: Song dynasty
