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This is the author's fifth collection of essays, which includes 13 articles on Song and Xixia history published in the past five years, as well as 8 articles commemorating and recalling his predecessors in history. Also included are 15 reviews on the domestic economic history research status of Liao, Song, Xixia, Jin and Yuan from 1999 to 2014.

The whole book focuses on several unique characteristics of the Song Dynasty in the history of ancient China since the Qin and Han Dynasties: First, the Song Dynasty was an era that did not compete with the nomadic fishing and hunting peoples from beginning to end. In the past, it was thought that the main reason for the weakness of the Song Dynasty was that the Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongolian people were too strong. In fact, this is not the case. There are also very profound social, historical and cultural reasons. Second, the Song Dynasty pursued a military-raising policy and maintained a huge army that mainly recruited soldiers, which was unique in ancient Chinese history. The huge military-raising costs had a profound impact on the monetary, fiscal, and economic and urban market prosperity of the Song Dynasty. Third, the Song Dynasty had a large number of scholars selected from the imperial examinations, the status of civil servants was high, and the entire cultural atmosphere was the highest among all dynasties since the Qin and Han Dynasties. The scholar-bureaucrat group promoted the political reform of the Song Dynasty and promoted the historical transition of the Southern Song Dynasty society. Song Studies and Sinology have become the two most representative types of economics in ancient China. The formation of the Song Study style and changes in biblical exegesis methods are not only changes in the internal logic of thought and culture, but also reflect changes in social and historical content and concepts.

Focusing on the grand theme of the attributes and historical status of the Xixia civilization, this book conducts comprehensive and systematic observations and discussions on the aspects of ethnicity, religion, politics, law, history, literature, art, language, characters and historical background on the basis of sorting out the fruitful results achieved in the study of Xixia history at home and abroad. It puts forward the view that the Xixia civilization from the 11th to the 13th century is a reconstruction of the Chinese civilization of the Han and Tang Dynasties. With rich content and broad vision, it represents an important breakthrough and significant progress in the field of Xixia history research.