early trading in asia

Financial policies in China With the end of the Tang dynasty in the early tenth century and the emergence of competing polities (a period generally known as the Five Dynasties), many of these states pursued what Richard Von Glahn calls ‘bullionist’ policies, whereby they accumulated copper coins and issued debased versions for commerce.12 The emergence of the Song as the dominant polity among the competing states in the 960s saw various polities making efforts to prevent the flow of copper coins to the northern Tangut (Xi-xia) and Khitan (Liao) kingdoms. At the same time, the Song began minting large volumes of copper cash. In 996, 800,000 strings of cash (nominally 800 million coins)13 were minted, well exceeding the maximum annual output of 327,000 strings during the Tang dynasty.14 This expanded to 1.83 million strings in 1007, but mining restraints limited further growth and, in 1021, a fixed output of 1.05 million strings per year was decided upon. However, much of this coinage disappeared as quickly as it was produced, because the value of the metal was greater than the face value of the coin. Silver also flowed out of the Chinese economy and this outflow was blamed on merchants from the South Seas15 as well as the steppes.16 Von Glahn notes that the price of silver against gold was low in China compared to Japan and the Muslim world, which naturally induced outflow. But the demand for copper coins in Southeast Asia must have been enormous as Southeast Asian merchants brought silver to the ports of southern China to trade for coin, reportedly offering one liang of silver for one string of coins, triple the domestic price.17 The inability of the Song to keep their copper coins in circulation was exacerbated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries through further outflow via the maritime trade routes. This was stimulated by the increasing monetisation of Asian economies from Korea and Japan to Southeast Asia, despite these economies producing little money of their own. The Song banned the export of coin to Korea and Japan in 1199, but with minimum effort. In the early 1250s, it was reported that 40 to 50 ships laden with nothing but coin departed Ningbo for Japan each year.18 The Sinan wreck, found off the Korean coast and dated to the early fourteenth century, carried a cargo of about 8 million copper coins.19 It was during the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) that the coin economy was really replaced by one in which silver and paper money were intimately linked. The silver ingot initially became the monetary standard of the Mongol empire

Trade between Arabia and the Empires of Rome and Asia

Frankincense and myrrh, highly prized in antiquity as fragrances, could only be obtained from trees growing in southern Arabia, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Arab merchants brought these goods to Roman markets by means of camel caravans along the Incense Route. The Incense Route originally commenced at Shabwah in Hadhramaut, the easternmost kingdom of South Arabia, and ended at Gaza, a port north of the Sinai Peninsula on the Mediterranean Sea. Both the camel caravan routes across the deserts of Arabia and the ports along the coast of South Arabia were part of a vast trade network covering most of the world then known to Greco-Roman geographers as Arabia Felix. South Arabian merchants utilized the Incense Route to transport not only frankincense and myrrh but also spices, gold, ivory, pearls,    The Incense Route originally commenced at Shabwah in Hadhramaut, the easternmost kingdom of South Arabia, and ended at Gaza, a port north of the Sinai Peninsula on the Mediterranean Sea. Both the camel caravan routes across the deserts of Arabia and the ports along the coast of South Arabia were part of a vast trade network covering most of the world then known to Greco-Roman geographers as Arabia Felix. South Arabian merchants utilized the Incense Route to transport not only frankincense and myrrh but also spices, gold, ivory, pearls, precious stones, and textiles—all of which arrived at the local ports from Africa, India, and the Far East. The geographer Strabo compared the immense traffic along the desert routes to that of an army. The Incense Route ran along the western edge of Arabia’s central desert about 100 miles inland from the Red Sea coast; Pliny the Elder stated that the journey consisted of sixty-five stages divided by halts for the camels. Both the

Nabataeans

 and the South Arabians grew tremendously wealthy through the transport of goods destined for lands beyond the Arabian Peninsula.