Numismatic culture is a treasure of traditional Chinese culture. According to the study of relevant topics, refer to the "Illustrated Chinese Coins" written by Mr. Fu Weiqun of the SH History Museum and the lectures of Mr. Zhou Xiang, etc., and integrate the materials into writing. Try to interpret the ancient Chinese economy, politics and social style through monetary history and culture, so as to enrich the connotation of historical learning. This article is originally involved in numismatics, and is for reference only.

1. The origin and origin of ancient coins

Money is a product of the exchange of goods. The earliest money that appeared at the end of primitive societies was physical money. Generally speaking, nomadic people use livestock and animal skins to achieve monetary functions, while agricultural peoples use grains, cloth, agricultural tools, pottery, seashells, pearls and jade as the earliest physical currency. According to archaeological excavations, a large number of clay pots were unearthed as burial objects in late Neolithic sites, such as Banpo; The Dawenkou culture buried a large number of pig heads and jaw bones, indicating that pigs and pottery played the function of monetary wealth in the late primitive society. But as we all know, the ancient physical currency that is widely circulated is "shellfish". Because it acts as a physical currency, cattle, sheep, pigs and other livestock cannot be divided, the grains will rot, there are too few pearls, and the knives and shovels are bulky, so they are finally concentrated on the physical currency of seashells. Seashells can be used as neck ornaments, have use value, easy to carry and count, so they are chosen as the main currency in long-term commodity exchanges. In the archaeological excavations, a large number of natural shellfish have been unearthed in the Xia Dynasty and Shang Dynasty sites, and the shellfish has been used as a physical currency until the Spring and Autumn Period. Therefore, most of the characters related to wealth and value in Chinese characters are related to the character "bei". Such as: expensive, capital, greedy, poor, wealth, purchase, etc.

China was the first country in the world to use coinage. Three thousand years ago, the tombs of the late Yin Shang dynasty unearthed a lot of "unwritten copper shells", which were the most primitive metal currency. In addition to shellfish coins in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, some metal weighing currencies such as loose copper blocks, copper slags, and copper ingots without a certain shape were also circulated, which were also unearthed in archaeological excavations.

To sum up, the main form of currency from the late primitive society to the Xia, Shang and Zhou eras was physical money, and the most widely circulated was natural shellfish. In the later period, a small amount of metal weighing currency and coinage appeared, which belonged to the period of currency germination and formation.

2. A preliminary study of pre-Qin currency

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, with the development of the commodity economy, the metal weighing currency that had to be divided and identified in circulation was gradually not adapted, and was replaced by metal coinage.

From the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States Period, the four major monetary systems of cloth coins, knife goods, ant nose money, and ring money have been established.

1. In the Central Plains, namely the Zhao, Han, Wei and Zhou royal families, cloth coins are mainly popular. The cloth coin was born from the bronze shovel-shaped agricultural tool, and "" and "cloth" were borrowed with the same sound. The cloth coins of the Spring and Autumn Period were mainly hollow cloths, that is, hollow hammers with handles. The cloth coins of the Warring States period are mainly flat head cloth, that is, relative to the "empty head cloth", there is no hollow chisel with a handle, and the shape is like a shovel-shaped copper sheet, and the shape of the cloth coin is roughly divided into flat shoulders, shrugging shoulders, round shoulders and square feet, pointed feet, round feet and other categories, the most generally by the flat shoulder flat bottom cloth or flat shoulder square foot shrug shoulder pointed foot cloth, round shoulder round foot cloth evolution, the region later expanded to Chu and Yan and other places.

2. The Qi Kingdom in the east and the Yan Kingdom in the north mainly use knife coins. There are two types of knife coins: "Yanming knife" and "Qi knife". The shape of the knife coin is taken from the knife tools used by the northern nomadic peoples such as Shanjung and Beidi. Because the face of the knife has the word "Hua", it is called "knife". The shape of the knife back is divided into arc back, folded back, straight back, the head of the knife has a flat head, a sharp head, and it is also a kind of bronze coinage in the early days of our country.

3. The Qin State in the northwest used a ring coin, and its shape was derived from the spinning wheel or jade wall. There are two types of ring coins: round holes and square holes. During the Warring States Period, the early casting line was a round round hole, and after Qin Huiwen Wang, Qin Shi Huang cast a round square hole "half a tael" money. The round ring coin is the original state of the square hole coin.

4. The copper shell coinage of the Southern Chu State is called the ant nose coin, which evolved from the shell coin. The copper shell money text "" resembles a grimace, which is a combination of the words "shellfish". The ant nose is a metaphor for small, which means small money. Chu has a bronze shell coinage, commonly known as "grimace money" and "ant nose money". In addition to ant-nose money, the state of Chu also had a gold weighing currency, and it was the only country that used gold as the currency in circulation during the Warring States period.

In short, the four major monetary systems that emerged during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period evolved from labor production tools such as knives, shovels, and spinning wheels, which can be seen from the regional characteristics and social features of economic life such as warfare, fishing and hunting, pottery making, textiles and trade exchanges in various places at that time. At the same time, the formation of the four major currency areas is also the product of the division of the candidates. With the development of the economy and commodity trading. The currencies of various countries circulate with each other, which requires and correspondingly promotes the trend of unification and standardization of currency systems.

Third, the history of the past dynasties

Gang money refers to a type of coin issued by the state or local government. From the different versions of a gang money, the "eye money" is derived. The outline is a list of numismatics. Take the money as a clue to understand the history of monetary evolution; Using the eye money as a clue can be involved in ancient numismatic appreciation and archaeology. The following mainly interprets the political, economic and historical changes related to ancient times from the history of the Gang Qian of the previous dynasties.

The money system can be divided into two stages from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties. The first stage: the Qin, Han and Sui and Tang dynasties were mainly copper coinage, and the Qin "half two coins" and the Han "five baht coins" were the two main baht system stages. In the second stage, from the Tang and Song dynasties to the Ming Dynasty, the coinage was cleared, and the Baowen system was different from the two systems of the former baht, and the paper money and silver standard systems also appeared, which are described below.

(1) Qin and Han Dynasty "half two coins"

After Qin unified the six countries, the unification of the government required economic unification as the foundation, and Qin Shi Huang conformed to the trend of historical development, unifying the language, weights and measures, and at the same time, also unified the currency. It is stipulated that "gold" is the upper coin, Eridium (20 taels) is the unit, the round square hole copper coin is the lower coin, and the unit is half a tael. The "half tael" of the money is consistent with the actual weight, and this kind of square-hole round money has been the main form of Chinese currency for more than 2,000 years. Why this form? The main ring shape is easy to carry, while the square hole through the rope copper coin is not easy to rotate and can prevent wear and tear. It is also believed that this form expresses the ancient people's cosmology of the round sky and the earth. The Qin Dynasty square hole yuan was the world's first legal tender by the government.

Identifying the "half two coins" of the Warring States and Qin dynasties can be started with calligraphy. The Warring States coin and coin "half tael" is a large seal: while the Qin Dynasty coin and coin "half a tael" is a small seal. According to legend, the Qin coin was written by the prime minister Li Si. Probably influenced by this, most of the money and literature after the Qin Dynasty came from the hands of high-ranking officials or famous calligraphers. The Song Dynasty also saw the appearance of the emperor's imperial book money. One of the differences between ancient Chinese coins and Western currencies is that the layout of ancient Chinese coins is dominated by money and texts, and there are very few patterns in circulating coins, while Western coins are dominated by patterns of animals, plants, human elephants, etc. The art of calligraphy on ancient coins is another topic.

It is said that Qin Shi Huang collected the world's weapons and cast twelve gold men in order to prevent the people from rebelling. This will inevitably affect the amount of copper coins minted. Because the price of copper is extremely high and the currency circulation is insufficient, the value of Qin's half tael is very high. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, there was a problem of "Qin money is heavy (high) and difficult to use". The Han Cheng and Qin system continued to use half a tael of money, but when Liu Bang was the emperor, the country was very poor, and many small coins were recast, and there were successively "elm pods half two eight baht and half two, four baht and a half tael, etc." One tael is twenty-four baht, because of the substantial weight loss of Qin half tael, the name of "half tael" does not match. In particular, a small half-tael, shaped like an elm fruit and called "elm pod half-tael", weighs less than 1 gram and has a diameter of less than 1 centimeter. The Han Dynasty also allowed private minting and county coinage, which caused currency disorder and inflation, until Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty reformed the currency system.

(2) Han "five baht money" and its evolution

1. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty pioneered the "five-baht coin".

After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ascended the throne, "foreign affairs are all four, and internal utilitarianism is prosperous" urgently needs to open up financial resources. At the same time, the county minted money freely, causing chaos in the currency system and rising prices, threatening the central government's finances. Therefore, in 118 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered the abolition of the coinage rights of the early Han Dynasty and the unified coinage of the central government. Set up "Shanglin Sanguan", that is, Zhongguan (palm coinage), copper (palm raw materials), and Junyi (palm system), forming a central minting agency responsible for minting five baht coins, also known as Shanglin money and Sanguan money. The high quality of the five-baht coin has changed the phenomenon of monetary chaos and is conducive to centralization and economic development. From Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Western Han Dynasty, the Xinmang, the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Wei, the Jin, the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang dynasties for more than 700 years. Five baht has long been the legal tender of all dynasties. Due to the weight of the five iron coins, China's square-hole round coins with the "five baht" as the main form also affected Japan, Annam, Korea and other countries. The current monetary unit in Thailand is still called "baht", which is not unrelated to this.

2. The chaos of the new coin system and the advent of coinage products.

In the late Western Han Dynasty, Wang Mang established a new dynasty, reformed the ancient system, and issued currency indiscriminately. For example, "Daquan 50" is a kind of big money minted by Wang Mang to solve the economic crisis after he came to power. "Quan" is a borrowing of the word "money". Wang Mang believed in Wei Theory, after he seized the world surnamed Liu, in order to avoid the word "Liu", the word Liu is composed of three characters: Mao, Jin, and Dao, so the word "Jin" is not used in Qian Wen and "Quan". The weight of a "Daquan 50" is only two and a half times the weight of the Western Han Dynasty five-baht coin, but it should be used as 50 five-baht coins. It means that every big coin issued will take away forty-seven and a half baht wealth from the hands of the people, which will inevitably cause dissatisfaction among the people, so the people still use five baht to trade. For this reason, Wang Mang stipulated in the heavy punishment cruel law: Anyone who dares to hide five baht money privately will be used as a prisoner to fill the army. From the chaos of the currency system, it can be seen that Wang Mang's rule is unpopular and will undoubtedly collapse. In addition, there is also a kind of big money, called "Daoping 5000", that is, a big coin is 5,000 and 5 baht coins. Such a large amount of money must have been forged by someone who risked his life. In order to prevent theft and mint private money, in addition to the promulgation of the criminal law, a new coin shape was created, that is, the ancient knife coin and the round coin were combined to create the world's first two-color metal coin. In order to prevent counterfeiting and private minting, the official coins such as "Daquan Fifty" and "Daoping Five Thousand" were "exquisitely made", and this distorted style also made future generations sigh for thousands of years.

In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Dong Zhuo entered Beijing to destroy the five-baht coin, and even minted small coins, causing inflation and the monetary system falling into chaos again.

3. "Six dynasties and five baht" is inferior money

The Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were a period of division in China, with frequent wars, political turmoil, and social and economic destruction. In order to save copper, the five-baht money is getting smaller and smaller, known as "goose eye" and "chicken eye", and there are more cut and chiseled edge circles, called cutting edge five baht, one coin is changed to two, but the denomination is large, and it is used for a thousand years. The numismatic world refers to the five baht coins of this period as "six dynasties and five baht". The Six Dynasties are the Three Kingdoms Wu, Eastern Jin Dynasty, Southern Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen dynasties that established their capital in Nanjing. During this period, the five-baht coin was not only poorly minted and the money was not in a special period, and the strokes were incomplete. There are those who write "five baht" as "hardware", and there are also those who write the reverse text "baht five". However, there are some exceptions to the five-baht money during the period, such as the Northern Wei Dynasty "Taihe Five Baht", "Yongan Five Baht", which is known as "heavy as its text", and is of high quality, which not only reminds people of a series of successful reforms of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty.

4. Sui Dynasty "Five Baht Money" and rumors.

Emperor Wen of Sui in the Sui Dynasty minted the "Kaihuang Five Baht" to end the complicated situation of the money system for more than 300 years since the end of the Han Dynasty, and it was also the last dynasty to use five baht coins. The tyranny of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, some people identified the "five" of the Sui "five baht money" and the five baht, that is, the vertical | on the left side of the word "X". X", which seems to be the word "fierce" after being put down. So some people say that it is a bad omen of Sui, indicating that its demise is not far off. Therefore, the Sui Dynasty's "five baht money" is easier to identify. In fact, this kind of writing also existed in the Northern Wei Dynasty, which was just a common people cursing the tyranny of the Sui Dynasty.

(3) Since the Tang Dynasty, the square hole yuan coin has changed from the baht two system to the era name and treasure text system with "Wen" as the unit, and it has evolved from the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, which is the second stage of monetary development.

1. Tang Gaozu pioneered "Baowen" and "Year Money"

The Tang Dynasty was a powerful dynasty with a developed economy and culture. According to the 621 years of Gaozu Wude of the Tang Dynasty, the "Kaiyuan Tongbao" money was minted, which ended the numismatic system named after the weight of baht since the Qin and Han dynasties, and created the era name of "Wen" as the unit after the Tang and Song dynasties, and the copper coinage of the Baowen system. "Kaiyuan" has the meaning of founding, the first to create, and "Tongbao" is the circulation of treasures. It has a big breakthrough in the unit of weight, and the ancient method of weighing twenty-four baht is one tael. "Kaiyuan Tongbao" created a decimal system, each weighing two baht four for one penny, accumulating ten pennies weighing one tael, that is, ten coins and one tael "to money instead of baht". Kaiyuan Tongbao was minted in the Tang Dynasty for more than 200 years, and the currency system was stable for a long time. The Tang Dynasty counted with "Wen", and the Baowen money system with two pieces of weight as the unit of weight was inherited to the Qing Dynasty for thousands of years. According to other legends, the "Kaiyuan Tongbao" of Tang Gaozu was written by Ouyang Jian, a calligrapher in the early Tang Dynasty, and was known as a calligraphy coin.

After the Anshi Rebellion, Tang Suzong was called "Qianyuan Heavy Treasure" in order to deal with financial difficulties and mint a lot of money. This is the earliest "heavy treasure" money, a heavy treasure when the opening of the yuan money ten Wen, causing currency depreciation, soaring prices, theft of strict zhòng, people are uneasy. At the late Tang and Tang dynasties, Wuzong abolished the Buddha and took a large amount of Buddha copper to cast "Huichang Kaiyuan" money, so that the deflationary phenomenon that lasted for half a century was eased. "Qianyuan" and "Huichang" are all chronicles.

The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms was a period of warlord division and chaos, and it was a period of currency chaos due to the large number of political regimes and various currencies. In addition to copper, there are also tin, iron, etc. Large coins should be ten when hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. The chaos and complexity of the money system reflect the economic deterioration caused by the war and separatism.

To sum up, the copper coinage square hole round coin changed from the baht two-dollar system to the era name, and the Baowen system was a major turning point in the development of money.

(4) In addition to the elimination of copper coinage from the Song Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, there was also another turning point in the development of paper money and silver system.

1. Two Song Dynasty "Year Money", "Imperial Book Coin" and "Paper Money"

The copper coinage of the Two Song Dynasty is characterized by the use of era names. According to research, the era name was first created by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and the "year name money" began with the "Han Xing money" of Li Shou of SC Chengdu during the Sixteen Kingdoms. The last year coin is Yuan Shikai's restoration of the imperial casting line, "the first year of Hongxian, when ten copper yuan." "With the fall of Yuan Shikai, this money was deposited for less than four months." "The year name coin" is marked with the date of minting, so that people can see at a glance when researching the age of ancient coins, which is a progress in the development of the coin form. Among the coins of the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, the coins of the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties are the easiest to collect.

In addition, the calligraphy of the past dynasties should be seen in the Song Dynasty. According to legend, the Yuanfeng money cast by Song Shenzong Yuanfeng has four kinds of calligraphy: seal, li, Kai and grass, among which Su Dongpo's handwritten Lishu Qian Wen is calm and heroic, and is called "Dongpo Yuanfeng". During the reign of Song Zhezong, Sima Guang and Su Dongpo used two kinds of calligraphy to write the text "Yuanyu Tongbao". Make the Song Dynasty popular book coins against literary coins. The emperor, who is good at calligraphy, can't bear loneliness, and often shows his skills in Qian Wen. The "imperial book money" written by the emperor, according to research, the first person was Zhao Jiong, Taizong of the Song Dynasty, and the highest calligraphy achievement among the emperors of the past dynasties was Zhao Ji of Song Huizong. He was incompetent in governing the country, and the "Shame of Jingkang" was taken captive as a Jin soldier together with his son Qinzong. But he has a special fondness for piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, especially the calligraphy "thin gold body" iron painting silver hook, which has a unique skill. The calligraphy coins of the Song Dynasty are not unrelated to the emperor's body lì line admiration, especially the popularity of the era name imperial book money. This Qian style changed to the Ming Dynasty. Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Qian Wen has been written by craftsmen, and the font is rigid, not to talk about the layout structure, and there is no talk of calligraphy art.

During the Song and Song dynasties, copper and iron coins were coined in parallel, because bronze coins were more valuable than copper coins, there was a phenomenon of destroying money casters, and iron coins appeared when copper coins were rare. In addition, with the southward shift of the economic center of gravity, the circulation of money expanded, and the banknotes produced by the two Song Dynasty were the earliest banknotes in the world. This banknote is a symbolic currency, which is the product of the development of the social commodity economy to a certain stage, and is also related to the progress of papermaking and printing technology. The paper money of the Northern Song Dynasty mainly has Jiaozi, and the Southern Song Dynasty has Huizi and Guanzi. Jiaozi and Huizi were common names for bills, securities, and securities at that time. The stability of the currency has become a barometer of the economic and fiscal situation.

The Liao, Song, Xixia and other northern minority regimes, influenced by the economic and cultural influence of the Central Plains in their exchanges with the Han people, in addition to using copper coins minted by the Tang and Song dynasties, also issued copper coins in ethnic languages and Chinese languages.

2. The meta-token system is mainly based on paper money

During the Yuan Dynasty, a small number of copper coins were minted, but the currency was mainly paper money. This was more prominent in ancient China. The banknotes of the Yuan Dynasty were called banknotes. The original banknotes are not allowed to be misappropriated, and there are strict restrictions on the amount of banknotes issued. However, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the government was corrupt, the royal family was extravagant, the military expenditure was huge, and the government had to rely on the indiscriminate issuance of paper money to make up for it, causing prices to soar. In addition, the Yellow River was diverted and flooded, and natural and man-made disasters caused it to be called "the root cause of the disaster of opening the river and changing money", which shows that the indiscriminate issuance of paper money is very related to the fall of the Yuan Dynasty.

3. The Ming Dynasty changed from a paper money policy to a system based on silver and supplemented by money.

Although the issuance of paper money is a step forward in the history of money, successive rulers have used it to exploit and plunder the people and collapse the paper money policy. For example, at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang implemented the paper money policy and issued "Ming treasure banknotes" and copper coins. However, the Ming treasure banknotes are not fixed to be issued, and there are no reserves, which will soon lead to inflation, so after the Jiajing period in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the treasure banknotes have been impassable, and the people mainly use silver and copper coins. For example, in the Ming Dynasty, the "class craftsmen" used silver as a substitute for service, hired workers' wages, and the wealthy accumulated family property. The amount of silver was cast into a certain standard of silver ingots from the Yuan Dynasty, from the Yuan Dynasty to the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the silver ingots called themselves "ingots", which was the beginning of the Chinese call silver ingots "ingots". At the same time, the folk popular copper money, the material from bronze to brass, cast the bank with the name of the year as the name of the treasure money.

4. Qing Dynasty copper coins, banknotes and machine-made coins

Qing Dynasty copper coins followed the system of the Ming Dynasty, and mainly minted small flat coins. In the Qing Dynasty, the Xianfeng money is the most complicated, and the money is divided into Tongbao, Chongbao and ingots, with different face values and different money bureaus. In the Qing Dynasty, most of the private business used silver, and small money used money, and money and silver were parallel.

In the first 100 years of the Qing Dynasty, silver ingots were the main currency, and more than one tael of taxes must be collected. Because the central government does not cast a unified circulation of silver, the silver used by the people may not be pure silver, and the shape, fineness, and flat yard of silver ingots are different in various places, so every time before paying taxes, the silversmiths and silver shops will melt and cast the folk loose silver into pure silver. Some silversmiths colluded with officials to take advantage of the opportunity to exploit the people in terms of the quality of silver, causing many complicated social problems.

In the late Qing Dynasty, silver ingots began to be converted into silver dollars. From the middle of the Ming Dynasty onwards, foreign merchants used their silver dollars to buy Chinese silk, tea, porcelain, etc., in foreign trade, so that various foreign silver dollars began to become popular in China. In the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, from the signing of the unequal "Treaty of Nanjing", the silver dollars used for indemnities were all "foreign money", and China itself did not have silver dollars at that time. The inventory of foreign money was insufficient to offset the sharp increase in foreign indemnities, so the government of the late Qing Dynasty began to mint silver dollars on its own. China's earliest mechanism Western-style silver dollar is the "Guangxu Yuanbao" in the Guangxu period, commonly known as "Longyang", because the back of the silver dollar is generally cast with a dragon pattern. At the same time, there is a mechanism copper yuan, also known as "copper plate". The emergence of machine-made silver coins and copper dollars was a huge impact on China's traditional silver currency and the copper coin system based on square holes and circles.

The paper money issued in the Qing Dynasty is complex, there are official banknotes and private banknotes, the official banknotes are issued by the government financial institutions, and the private banknotes are issued by private financial institutions, and the banknotes can be divided into four types: copper money tickets (can be exchanged for huàn square hole copper coins), copper yuan bills (can be exchanged for huàn copper dollars), silver two bills (can be exchanged for huàn silver), and silver dollar tickets (can be exchanged for huàn silver dollars). The issuance of banknotes began to have treasury silver reserves and banknote certificates.

To sum up, from the Song Dynasty to the Ming and Qing dynasties, the production and circulation of paper money, the increasing status of silver currency, the establishment of the silver standard paper money system in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the emergence of the mechanism currency system in the late Qing Dynasty were the second stage of the development of China's monetary history.

The above is listed as the history of circulating coins, and there are many non-circulating currencies in the numismatic world, such as the winning money used to suppress evil spirits, the tomb money used to pray for blessings and ward off evil spirits, and the commemorative coins commemorating important historical events and outstanding historical figures. These coins, commonly known as "spending money", are insignificant in monetary circulation, but they can provide valuable historical materials for the study of folklore.

In short, numismatics is a science, combined with historical teaching activities to get involved in the knowledge of ancient coins, for the understanding and interpretation of ancient Chinese historical changes and broaden the historical horizon, I hope this article has inspiration and reference for you, for correction.

Reprinted to Baidu