ABSTRACT
Chinese goods were continuously carried to Japan by Chinese merchant ships in late years of the Tang Dynasty and therefore the Japanese imperial members and nobles could easily enjoy all kinds of Chinese things. The frequent exchanges between the two sides helped bring about the golden age of Sino-Japanese relations in history. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Chinese merchant ships travelled between China and Japan about once every two years, according to a conservative estimate based on written records. The period between the late Tang Dynasty and the end of the Northern Song Dynasty happened to be the heyday of the Japanese Heian period when the real power of Japan was in the hands of the Fujiwara clan. The representative Japanese monks who travelled to China during the Northern Song Dynasty were the few eminent monks in Japan. The Fujiwara clan forbade the Japanese to have contacts with the foreign countries.
