Southern Song dynasty coinage

The Southern Song dynasty refers to an era of the Song dynasty after Kaifeng was captured by the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in 1127.^[1][2] The government of the Song was forced to establish a new capital city at Lin'an (present day Hangzhou) which wasn't near any sources of copper so the quality of the cash coins produced under the Southern Song significantly deteriorated compared to the cast copper-alloy cash coins of the Northern Song dynasty.^[3] The Southern Song government preferred to invest in their defenses (as its incapable military easily fell to the Jin dynasty) while trying to remain passive towards the Jin dynasty establishing a long peace until the Mongols eventually annexed the Jin before marching down to the Song establishing the Yuan dynasty.^[3]

Coins from the Song dynasty have appeared in variants written in either standard (top-bottom-right-left) or clockwise (top-right-bottom-left).^[3]

The Southern Song dynasty saw the emergence of paper money, while coins were increasingly becoming a rarity.^[4] Iron cash coins also started to be used in greater numbers, at first due to the lack of copper, but later even as more copper was found the production of iron cash coins remained cheaper and an abundance of iron made it more attractive for the government to produce, while several problems such as the fact that iron is harder to inscribe, and that iron corrodes faster ensured the continued production of copper cash coins.^[5] Despite the chronic shortages of copper the Southern Song used special coins as a form of psychological warfare against Jin army defectors,^[6] and copper coins (and later silver sycees) would remain the standard of administration even for the newly introduced paper money.^[7]