According to a large number of documents and cultural relics that have been excavated today, China has a relatively long history of currency use and is one of the earliest countries in the world to use currency.
The history of the use of China's currency is at least 4,000 years. From the original shellfish currency at the beginning to the cloth coins, knife coins, ant coins and other currencies in the Spring and Autumn And Warring States periods, and then to the square hole coins used by the Qin Dynasty after the same China as Qin Shi Huang. Monetary culture in China can be described as a long tradition and has a long history.
Before the Ming and Qing dynasties, China was actually not much different from the monetary systems of other countries in the world, and the currencies of various countries were basically physical currencies and mostly precious metals. However, on the road of modern times, with the continuous development of the Western world, the great strides in the economy, the budding development of capitalism, the West began to hover between gold and silver, and then even to the road of the gold standard, and at this time, China's daily life is still inseparable from "money", the people at the lower levels use copper and iron coins, while the upper people generally use silver and gold coins.
This phenomenon is often regarded in the academic circles as an important sign of the underdevelopment of industry and commerce in China at that time. But what is unexpected is that the world's earliest paper money was born in China.
In fact, before silver gradually became an important part of China's currency in the Ming and Qing dynasties, China still had a long but not long, short paper money history. Among them, the earliest paper money that was invented was a kind of coin called "Jiaozi".
This kind of paper money was originally printed by rich merchants in Shudi, because copper coins in Sichuan were very scarce, and iron money was bulky and very inconvenient to transport. Therefore, there are 16 wealthy merchants in Chengdu, who jointly raise funds, a total of 360,000 taels as reserves, to ensure the effectiveness and authority of "jiaozi". At that time, paper was very popular in Shudi, and the paper quality of the paper was very wear-resistant and soft, which was very suitable for making paper money. Therefore, the paper was used as the raw material for making money. Because of the guarantee of a rich merchant and a large household, Jiaozi has a high degree of credibility. So it soon became popular in the Sichuan region.
With the development of folk friends, it soon entered the vision of the official family. In the second year of the Song Dynasty's Renzong Tiansheng (1024), the official Jiaozi was officially issued.
In fact, China has bred paper money under the condition that it is still a bronze coin standard, and even the paper money system that is later matched has deep social roots. During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, separatist forces rose and fell throughout the country, and political changes in various regions were frequent, and the political situation was turbulent. However, because of the rugged terrain, the natural advantages of the Sichuan-Shu region, which is not easy to enter Shu, and that it is easy to defend and difficult to attack, have enabled the region to be in a safe corner in the midst of war and chaos, and maintain relative stability internally. But at the same time, it also made the feudal forces continue to grow. Especially during the reign of Later Shu, the rulers coveted pleasure and were extravagant and lascivious. Squeeze the money of the local people to satisfy their luxurious lives. Later, in order to defend against the intrusion of other countries, he began to recruit troops to collect grain, which further increased the burden on the local people and intensified the contradictions in this area.
Later, the court of the Northern Song Dynasty, because of the need for unification, wanted to concentrate power, troops, and wealth on the central court and overstay this region. Many people's lives are in a desperate situation, and they are forced to flee to Shudi. When the large-scale war of the Northern Song Dynasty ended and the unification of the Northern Song Dynasty was realized, the situation in the Sichuan-Shu region changed.
In order to achieve social stability, people's rich lives, and the country's financial wealth, the rulers of the Northern Song Dynasty adjusted the strategy of governing the country, aimed the policies at the people, gave the people policy favors, reduced unreasonable taxes during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, vigorously promoted the policy of honest government, required officials to cultivate themselves and love the people, and issued special edicts and warnings on the code of conduct of officials. At the same time, in terms of foreign policy, the hostile foreign policy has been put an end, creating a good environment for national development.
During this period, the Sichuan and Shu regions also relied on such a governing strategy to get the opportunity to recuperate. During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Northern Song Dynasty, Chengdu once developed into the grand situation of "Yang Yiyi II" in the Tang Dynasty. The economy of the whole country developed during this period, the volume of trade increased day by day, and the scale of commercial trade gradually expanded. However, at the same time, the Northern Song government strictly controlled the circulation of money, requiring that the money in circulation should be in full, and the minting should be carried out in strict accordance with the required shape, material and weight. This is a policy that benefits business activities. However, such a provision caused the face value of currency to differ from that of the previous generation, and the value of iron money in circulation as a commodity was higher than its value as currency.
Therefore, although the Song Dynasty government strictly prohibited the destruction of money, it could not stop the practice of destroying money mints by the people. As a result, a considerable amount of iron money withdrew from the circulation of the market, coupled with the destruction of Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun's uprising, reducing the supply of coins. In the face of a rapidly developing economy, the problem of money shortage has become more and more prominent. In this social context, due to the development of tea, horses and other trade in Sichuan, iron money is bulky, and its own unique geographical conditions have increased the difficulty of transporting coins. Therefore, "Jiaozi" was eventually born in the Sichuan region of the Song Dynasty.
In the process of Transforming Shudi from a private currency to a national credit currency, Jiaozi can be roughly seen as going through three stages. First of all, the Sichuan-Shu region became an important market because of the policy support of the Song Dynasty, attracting long-distance traders from other parts of the country to come here with coins to buy goods. In the beginning, these foreign merchants would exchange their money in their hands for notes with shop labels in some financial shops, which could be used both in the purchase and sale of commodities and for cash at designated locations. It gives bills a monetary function and can be circulated instead of iron money.
At this time, the use of these bills mainly relies on the credit of the issuer and the credit of the shop. By the second stage, after being selected by the government, 16 rich families with strength and good reputation were selected in Sichuan to jointly raise funds and use 360,000 taels as a guarantee fund. It is jointly guaranteed by 16 households to issue the handbook. Only the cash payment can be exchanged for the same denomination of the exchange, and when the exchange of the cash is exchanged, an additional thirty yuan is charged as a handling fee. During this period, because of the security fund and the credit of 16 merchants, Jiaozi was more widely recognized and developed rapidly in the Sichuan and Shu regions.
Subsequently, it gradually came to the government to accept jurisdiction. The government puts the interests of the rich and large businessmen first, and in the face of the impact of force majeure, it is difficult for the collective credibility to play a role. As a result, it is easy to trigger a run, and many holders of jiaozi have flocked to the jiaozi shop for exchange. Therefore, some officials have written to believe that jiaozi should be put into the country's credit system, normal management should be carried out, and when the society is stable and there is no large-scale run, they will not interfere too much with jiaozi. After adopting this suggestion and handing over the handover to the government, it has the national credibility as a guarantee, coupled with its own small, portable and other advantages that make it widely popular in the Sichuan-Shu region, which has played a great role in promoting the economic development of Sichuan-Shu.
As a medium of exchange, "Jiaozi" provides great convenience for commercial activities. His outstanding contribution to commerce has also made it a part of the national treasury.
Like other dynasties, the Song Dynasty used the country's manpower and material resources for border defense and border warfare.
During the Song Dynasty's war with the Western Xia, the imperial court recruited more than one million people to join the war. In order to supply food, clothing and other military supplies on the front line, the government hoped to exert the power of merchants and encourage them to go to the front lines of the war to transport military supplies. So the government offered businessmen a kind of promissory note called "cross-introduction". When merchants brought grain and grass and other military supplies to the front, the government used such promissory notes to make deliveries. Merchants could use this "exchange" in Kaifeng's "榷貨務", the market management agency of the Song Dynasty to exchange copper coins.
Later, it was allowed by the government. Some merchants can trade notes directly. The practice of promissory notes saves the cost of transporting currency by merchants, and has the support of merchants, and the operation of "interlocution" has been virtuous. But later, under the premise of Wang Anshi's radical change, the frontier war showed an expanding trend, the fiscal expenditure increased, the government began to overshoot, and the amount of money in circulation began to expand sharply. The situation of smooth circulation and economic development of Jiaozi was not maintained in the end.
The main reason for this is mainly in the government.
The government has not been able to effectively control the circulation of "jiaozi" and has not mastered the power in its hands. Once the government is faced with excessive government budget expenditure, the first solution that the government thinks of is to use the power in its hands to increase the issuance of currency. And will not try to restrain their own behavior to achieve the effect. It is because the government has abused its credibility in this way, and the circulation of Jiaozi is unbalanced, and by the time of the Northern Song Dynasty Zhezong Yuanfu, the exchange ratio of new and old issued "Jiaozi" has risen to a ratio of 1:5. A large number of jiaozi become a tool for the government to accumulate wealth, and the jiaozi who lose their credibility eventually become a piece of waste paper.
After that, the rulers of the Northern Song Dynasty did not even restrain themselves and became more and more rampant. As a result, the credit of the banknotes fell again and again. Later, the people have refused to accept paper money, and those who have paper money in their hands are trying to hope to be able to exchange the paper money in their hands. There was even a flood of paper money in the market, and copper coins were rare to see. In the midst of this chaos, the country's monetary system was gradually on the verge of collapse, and the Northern Song Dynasty also went to extinction in this turmoil.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, although the Northern Song Dynasty had perished, the paper money system created by the Northern Song Dynasty continued and continued to be implemented in the Southern Song Dynasty. In addition to the original "Jiaozi", he also invented the paper money "Huizi" and "Guanzi".
In the early days, the Southern Song Dynasty was still relatively strict about money, but later, in the face of the government's financial suffering, the Southern Song government gradually began to issue paper money indiscriminately, prices soared, and paper money gradually lost its monetary function. The disorder of the monetary system triggered a series of chain reactions, which eventually led to the collapse of the economic system of the Southern Song Dynasty, which also became one of the important reasons for the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty. The two great dynasties of the Southern Song Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty initially enjoyed the dividends brought by paper money, but later, the collapse of the dynasty had the reason for paper money, which became a weapon to destroy a dynasty.
It can be said that Jiaozi witnessed the entire historical process of the Song Dynasty's economy from rejuvenation to decline. By the time the issuance of paper money in the Yuan Dynasty reached its peak, the "Zhongtong Banknote" and "Zhiyuan Banknote" of the Yuan Dynasty had depreciated in large amounts, and later, people had little trust in paper money, and the ming Dynasty's transactions could only be carried out by barter. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, as the last scene of China's ancient monetary history, the paper money from the Song Dynasty has basically disappeared.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the paper money "Daming Bao Banknote" was also issued for a period of time, but it also encountered a large amount of depreciation, and the Ming government then decided to stop issuing paper money, and paper money was no longer used in market transactions for exchange. At the same time, it recognizes the monetary role of silver, and stipulates that silver can be used in the future when the people pay taxes. Since then, silver has become the value standard and value scale of the Ming dynasty and the Qing Dynasty. Although during this period, some people also wrote to the emperor to propose the issuance of paper money, but they were rejected by the emperor.
However, during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, in order to maintain the war, the Qing government also issued paper money for a short period of time. The unified paper money system in modern China began in 1935.
Today, paper money is widely popular all over the world. Paper money in all countries has a common feature, that is, it relies on the credit of the country to survive. The power of issuance is owned by the state, and there are special institutions and personnel for the issuance and management of paper money, and among these characteristics, the shadow of jiaozi can be seen.
Therefore, no matter whether people in later generations have this good or bad evaluation of money, they all have a very high praise for jiaozi. As a "cross-friend" with a history of thousands of years, it still plays an important role in people's lives today, so it is still worth our more and more in-depth research to guide people's lives today.
bibliography:
"From Jiaozi to Guanzi - Witnessing the Song Dynasty's Economy from Prosperity to Decline" - Wang Zhongya
"The Fate of Jiaozi from Popularity to Abandonment" - Xu Jin
"Research on the Historical Inevitability and Innovative Development of the Birth of Jiaozi in the Early Northern Song Dynasty" - Luo Tianyun
"Why Paper Money First Appeared in China" - Wang Ning