During the Western Han Dynasty, in order to make up for the financial deficit caused by the successive years of war between Han and Hungary, Emperor Wu nationalized the minting rights delegated to the people in the early Han Dynasty. At this point, coinage became an act of the state, and the people had no right to touch it, and this tradition has continued for nearly two thousand years.
Monopolizing the issuance of money, the centralized government added a new fiscal revenue. But the rulers had to face the embarrassing fact that the supply of copper coins was insufficient.
Figure 1 The Western Han Dynasty Five Baht, an ancient coin of the Western Han Dynasty
There are many reasons for the shortage of copper coins.
First, copper is mined in small quantities.
In ancient times, when there were no explosives, miners generally used a primitive method called the incineration method to mine ore. The veins are first burned with firewood, and when the temperature reaches the required level, it is poured with cold water. Under the thermal expansion and contraction, the ore is loosened, and then the ore is mined with tools. The inefficiency of this primitive mining method, coupled with the small number of copper mines in China, has long constrained the growth of copper production in ancient China.
The second is that the demand for copper coins exceeds the government's currency issuance plan.
The policy of recuperation and recuperation in the early Han Dynasty greatly promoted the development of the economy, and by the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, the total economic volume was a geometric multiple of a hundred years ago. The Book of Han records that "from the first five baht coins cast by the three officials in the fifth year of Xiaowu Yuan's hunting, to the beginning of the Ping Emperor's Yuan Dynasty, it became more than 28 billion yuan." "And this number was only 400 million in the early Han Dynasty."
Figure 2 Iron money is a product of a period when the contradiction between money and commodity economy in China's feudal society, which is dominated by bronze coinage, is relatively sharpened
Faced with the dilemma of the people's money shortage, the Han Dynasty and all subsequent dynasties most of the time adopted the means of issuing bad money to cope with it. However, when the people notice that the quality of the currency around them has declined, they will deliberately save the better quality copper coins and no longer use them, and those inferior copper coins will be greatly shortened because of the poor quality, and the final result is that there are fewer copper coins circulating in the market.
The emergence of iron coins may alleviate the dilemma of insufficient copper coins, but this huge metal does not have the characteristics of monetary funds, and the high weight and low value make iron coins unpopular with users at the beginning of the market.
The first to issue iron money was gongsun Shu, a warlord of the Eastern Han Dynasty. "In the sixth year of Jianwu (30 AD), it was said that copper coins were wasted and iron officials were purchased, and the people's money and goods were not good." In the Western Han Dynasty, King Mang reformed the system, the world was in strife, Gongsun Shu occupied Shu land, established himself as king, in order to compete with the Han Dynasty government and prevent the outflow of copper coins, Gongsun Shu abolished the Shu copper coins and used iron coins instead.
Gongsun Shu set a very bad example for the chaotic world that followed. In the event of chaos, the most direct way for local separatist forces to absorb civilian wealth as soon as possible to replenish armaments is to issue iron money. From the Eastern Han Dynasty to the late Tang Dynasty, iron coins also often became a supplement to the central government's insufficient issuance of copper coins.
Figure 3 Kaiyuan Tongbao is a currency of the Tang Dynasty
Tang Gaozu scrapped five baht to mint Kaiyuan Tongbao in an attempt to fundamentally solve the problem of money shortage, but the Tang Dynasty's loose commercial policy promoted the development of commercial trade, but made the problem of money shortage more serious.
Fortunately, printing had already appeared at this time, and profit-seeking merchants took advantage of this and invented the revolutionary "flying money". The New Book of Tang Dynasty Records of Food and Goods records that when the merchant Jia went to the Beijing Division, entrusted money to the various roads into the concert hall and the various armies and envoys, the rich families tended to go around with light clothing, and the coupons were taken, and the number was "flying money". Flying money is similar to modern acceptance bills of exchange, which is a named withdrawal voucher. Feiqian is the product of technological innovation with the help of scientific and technological inventions, which provides a useful reference for the upcoming ancient banknotes.
Time comes to the Northern Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty was the weakest dynasty in history, but it was the most economically prosperous dynasty.
The establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty ended the chaotic Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and also inherited the economic model of various short-lived dynasties. Hou Shu, one of the Ten Kingdoms, because of the lack of copper in its territory, cast iron coins to make up for the shortage of copper coins. The Northern Song Dynasty replaced the Later Shu Mengshi and plundered all the copper coins in Shudi to consolidate the economy of the Central Plains, turning the Sichuan region, which was originally mixed with copper coins and iron coins, into a complete iron money use area. Since then, the people of Shudi have only been able to carry heavy iron money for trade.
The industrious people of Sichuan have turned Shudi into the second largest economic zone in the Northern Song Dynasty after the Yangzhou region, and the contradiction between economic development and payment difficulties has enveloped Shudi for decades.
Figure 4 Northern Song Dynasty copper coins: Chunhua Yuanbao
The turning point came after Wang Xiaobo's uprising.
In 993, an armed rebellion broke out in Sichuan led by Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun. The Northern Song government had to shut down the money jail and stop the minting of coins to prevent the rebel army from plundering the coins to strengthen its own strength. Suddenly, the pressure of the money shortage was worse than the rebellion, but this pressure was soon released.
Before the rebellion, the people of Shudi could not bear the pain of iron money and actively explored more convenient payment methods. A printed matter called "Jiaozi" circulated in a non-mainstream way in the folk.
Jiaozi, like flying money, initially appeared as a deposit and withdrawal voucher, except that the use of Jiaozi is anonymous.
The original Jiaozi was only issued on a small scale in a few qianzhuang in Shudi. After the outbreak of the rebellion, the lack of iron money greatly increased the demand for Jiaozi, and the primitive paper money of Jiaozi immediately became the darling of market transactions, and the people were willing to accept this light currency.
Figure 5 Northern Song Dynasty Jiaozi
When Jiaozi became the mainstream currency of Shudi, problems followed. Jiaozi appears as a deposit and withdrawal voucher, and the bank must have a corresponding amount of iron money as a reserve for the issuance of how many jiaozi are issued. However, some unscrupulous merchants secretly make more money for profit, because these fictitious currencies do not have corresponding reserves, once there is a run, private merchants will become direct victims.
In order to standardize the issuance of Jiaozi, during the song zhenzong period, the first reform of the jiaozi distribution was carried out, limiting the number of qianzhuang with the right to issue the jiaozi to sixteen; during the song renzong period, after the abolition and survival of the jiaozi, the Northern Song government nationalized the distribution right of the jiaozi and prohibited private distribution. At this point, the state monopoly of the new type of currency issuance of Jiaozi has been completed.
Jiaozi is the world's earliest paper money, it appeared in China is not unexpected, it is the result of the collision of printing and papermaking two kinds of science and technology, but also the folk wisdom of the government's monopoly of economic and financial resistance, but the folk blossom, picking the fruit is the government.
Figure 6 Song Zhenzong, Zhao Heng (968–1022)
From the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, Jiaozi has existed as a mainstream currency, and the surrounding nomadic countries have also been fascinated by this emerging currency. The Jin Dynasty, the Liao State, and the Western Xia all issued paper money to supplement the shortage of metal currency.
However, whether it is the Song Dynasty or the surrounding countries that issue paper money, or later dynasties have all fallen into the trap of paper money issuance. Due to the low cost of the distribution of the sons, this printed material became a tool for the dynasties to supplement their financial revenues, and although the rulers of the dynasty gained huge wealth in a short period of time, they prematurely hollowed out the private wealth, so that when the family country survived, the great country was left with only a shell.
Like the problems encountered in modern currency issuance, ancient paper money issuance is still plagued by counterfeit money. Paper money has only been in circulation for about two decades, counterfeit money has appeared on the market, and various dynasties have carried out technological innovations to cope with the increasing proliferation of counterfeit money.
During the Song Dynasty, Sichuan set up the "Yizhou JiaoziWu" to be responsible for the issuance of paper money. In the printing paper selection of the choice of "water grain paper", this high-end paper with two kinds of light and dark printing is similar to the modern watermark paper used to print money, is a Specialty of Sichuan, other regions can not imitate.
Figure 7 Northern Song Dynasty Jiaozi copper plate
Banknote printing abandoned the traditional woodblock printing and replaced it with copper plate. The pattern of copperplate printing is more delicate. The most important thing is that the copperplate engraving technology is difficult and extremely difficult for non-professionals to imitate.
A series of anti-counterfeiting technologies such as three-color overprinting, stamping "Dragon Stacked Seal", using special raw materials to make paper, etc. are integrated, making the ancient banknotes "materials that are fine, the work system is not meticulous, and the people's desire is counterfeit, which is still difficult or difficult." (History of the Song Dynasty)
In addition to technological innovation, the legal penalties for the production of counterfeit money in ancient times were also quite large. During the Song Dynasty, counterfeiters were exiled for three thousand miles, and the leaders were the leaders; during the Ming Dynasty, those who made counterfeit money were shot and killed, and those who were meritorious in reporting and printing counterfeit money could obtain half of the counterfeiter's property.
In the late Qing Dynasty, due to the introduction of paper money printing technology from Western developed countries, the paper money of the Qing Dynasty was not much different from modern paper money in terms of form and workmanship.
Text: Zeng Fucheng
References: "New Book of Tang Dynasty, Food And Goods", "Hanshu Food And Goods", "Song Shi , Food and Goods"
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author