The Song Dynasty (960–1279) which succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period was the first government to issue banknotes or paper money in the world history. It was an era of administrative sophistication and complex social organization.

How was Song Dynasty founded?

In 960, General Zhao Kuangyin of the Later Zhou Dynasty (951 - 960) staged a mutiny at Chenqiao (a town in Fengqiu County in Henan Province) about 20 km (12 miles) northeast of Kaifeng City (in Henan Province). Then he dethroned Emperor Gong of the Later Zhou and established the Northern Song Dynasty with Kaifeng as its capital.After founding his dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, Emperor Taizu, cut the throats of the surviving members of the Later Zhou, and crushed the separatist regimes of Jingnan, Later Shu, Southern Han and Southern Tang through 19 years of fighting in the north and south.

Later, Emperor Taizong, Zhao Kuangyin’s younger brother Zhao Kuangyi pacified the Northern Han (951 - 979). Thus, China was basically unified again after experiencing 225 years of division and internecine warfare.

What were the two periods of Song Dynasty?

Northern Song (960-1127)

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the Song capital was in the northern city of Bianjing (now Kaifeng in Henan Province). The dynasty controlled most of inner China.

Agriculture

Agriculture, as the basis of the national economy of China experienced considerable improvements during the Song Dynasty. Although the Song rulers were in steady military conflict with their northern neighbors, the civilian kind of rule that determined the Song politics from the beginning, created a stable environment in which the population increased steadily.

When the Jurchen conquered northern China, many peasants fled to the south and resumed their agricultural business in the south, a region that was naturally more favored to agriculture than northern China. This demographic pressure lead to a shortage in arable fields, and every inch of soil in mountainous regions had to be opened for agriculture. In very steep hills, the famous terrace fields were created.

Agrarian tools and irrigation technique improved substantially. Irron harrows, hay cutters, and sickles were forged with improved standards, and water wheels driven by human or animal power were common throughout Song China. The regulation of water supply of wet fields ensured the regularity of harvest. Improved techniques of ploughing, fertilizing and weeding lead to a substantial increase in agricultural output, especially in the lower Yangtse region, where at least two harvests could be obtained within a year.
Within the united empire, the spread of particular field crops was actively promoted by the government. Millet, wheat and beans were imported from the northern regions to Yangtze River, and rice was cultivated in the north where possible. From Inner Asia, water melons became a popular fruit in northern China, and from the kingdom of Champa in modern Vietnam, an unpretending kind of rice was introduced in southern China.
The difference between northern China and the south became more and more evident. The withdrawal of the Song government to the south made the Yangtze valley has since long become the economical centre of China. Large parts of the north were not fertile, and people left these areas fallow not only because of the danger of military campaigns between the Song Empire and the Liao, Jin and Western Xia empires. Contrary to the north, the lower Yangtze area was the most fertile regions of China. The less populated regions of the mountainous areas of the south and southwest were economically still backward, but fertile.