Numismatic Appreciation: Ancient coins highlight the veins and brilliant achievements of Chinese civilization

"Do you know how money is generated? How much did the ancient five-baht coin weigh? Why is silver called silver? "In the national museum of China's newly launched exhibition of ancient Chinese numismatics, these questions can be found. It is reported that the exhibition selected more than 1,800 treasures from the more than 200,000 coins collected by the National Museum, supplemented by more than 200 cultural relics of other categories, systematically presenting the development process of ancient Chinese coins and its rich connotation, with coins as the carrier, reflecting the development context and brilliant achievements of Chinese civilization.

The exhibition of ancient Chinese numismatics launched by the National Museum of China this time mostly ranges from primitive sea shells to early knife cloth coins and round coins, to square hole round coins that lasted for 2,000 years, until the late Qing Dynasty, the mechanism of copper and silver dollars, with a clear inheritance and a wide range of categories. Among them, there are both metal coins of different forms and various colors of paper money since the Yuan Dynasty; there are both circulating currencies and town treasury money, palace money, offering money, zodiac money, disgusting money, game money, etc. that reflect the ancient Chinese folk culture; there are representative coins that reflect the superb calligraphy art of ancient China, and there are also various money models, mother coins and banknote plates that reflect the development level of ancient minting technology. It is reported that the exhibition of ancient Chinese coins is a permanent exhibition and has been open to the public for a long time since its opening.

In order to explore the development history of ancient Chinese coins, the author has carried out the pursuit and analysis of relevant historical relics of ancient Chinese coins with the development context of Chinese civilization and brilliant achievements, from which the following three parts are summarized, and two ancient coins of "ancient shell coin" and "carved mother coin" are used as examples for the reference of ancient coin researchers and collectors, from which relevant knowledge can be further inherited and expanded.

In ancient times, sophisticated coinage technology was the key to the state issuing currency and maintaining long-term peace and stability. In the pre-Qin period, China's coinage process included "selection of materials, ingredients, preparation of billets, molding, pouring, engraving" and other links, seemingly monotonous minting process but contains the consideration of cracking down on private minting, silver circulation, coinage storage, melting and re-minting and many other factors, the above aspects, gradually evolved into today's issuance field in the field of currency anti-counterfeiting, cash circulation, warehouse management, clearing operations and other related business content.

Interpreting these words and analyzing the sources, it is not difficult to find that the naming of coins fully reflects the influence of social culture on language: or embodies spiritual worship, or immerses in social psychology, or because of historical allusions. The culture of currency issuance is the sum of material culture and spiritual culture that the country has gradually formed in the long-term historical process of currency issuance. It includes three aspects: institutional culture, business culture and spiritual culture, of which spiritual culture is the core and the fundamental driving force and source of the construction of currency issuance culture.

Historically, China's coinage income since ancient times was higher, and the gross profit margin of the Guangning Minting Supervisor in Jiangzhou in the Northern Song Dynasty reached 15%, and the minting itself has become a fiscal revenue, and it is also possible to obtain higher profits through minting. The Han Dynasty was free to mint coins, and some nobles and wealthy merchants manipulated the right to mint coins. During the Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms, the coinage provided it with strong financial support. In the Han Dynasty, the minting agency , Shanglin Yuan , was inherited from generation to generation, and seigniorage became an important part of the state's revenue. The establishment of specialized agencies and the implementation of the management mode of establishing rules and regulations have become the general practice of currency issuance management methods, which also shows the importance of the normative system for the issuance business, social stability and even the national economy.

Recently, at the Shandong Museum's "Three Thousand Linglongs - Chinese Marine Shellfish Exhibition", seven Shell Coins from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties were exhibited, which are still crystal clear and jade after 3,000 years, telling the audience ancient stories. According to the data, 4000-6000 years ago, the seafood shells eaten by the coastal ancestors were piled up like mountains, widely distributed in the Coastal Area from the Liaodong Peninsula to the coast of Guangdong, which is now called "Shell Hill". Some of the shell mounds are mixed with a variety of marine fish bones, fish scales and fishing tools. Some shell mound sites contain more than 20 species of molluscs. It can be seen that there are many types of shellfish that our ancestors dabbled in, and the ancestors are also accumulating knowledge of marine shellfish in production and life practice.

Regarding the value of the shell coins, it is calculated according to the inscription on a bronze vessel from the Western Zhou Dynasty: the price of Yuzhang is eighty friends of the shell coins, which is equivalent to ten fields of land. Ten shells are a friend, and about one hundred acres of land is a field. That is, a shell can actually buy an acre of land! No wonder the protagonist in the Book of Poetry, Xiaoya Jingjing, is so happy, because "if you see a gentleman, give me a hundred friends"! Speaking of this, a question arises: why did the ancients choose shells as currency, especially in the vast areas of the Yellow River Basin, why did they use sea shells produced thousands of miles away as currency? Because the shell itself is a valuable ornament, this makes itself have use value, which is also an important condition for it to become a currency.

Because the shell is hard and wear-resistant, not easy to damage, suitable for repeated use as currency without reducing the number, coupled with the small number of shells, it is easy to string into larger units of use, and it is easy to disperse into smaller units of use, while the Central Plains region is not easy to get, so the value is higher. In addition, Qianbei Qianxiang, which is unique in the world, is also its greatest value. Therefore, today's shell coins have become a treasure in the collecting world, and due to its rarity, its collection price is not exaggerated.

In recent years, many sea shells, bone coins, copper, tin and gold coins have been excavated in some Shang Dynasty tombs, which can fully confirm this. At that time, the unit that calculated "bei" was called "peng", and the original meaning of the text of "peng" was a string or two strings of "bei" in parallel, and 5 or 10 "bei" were "one friend". Due to the scarcity of the source of shellfish, it was gradually replaced by bone coins. The ancestors used "shell coins" as currency, which not only played an important role in China's ancient economic development, but also had a profound impact on Chinese culture and customs. From the current Chinese characters, we can see most of the things related to coins, such as goods, jia, bribes, wealth, greed, poverty, fees, compensation, redemption, etc., the meaning of these words is mostly related to the word "bei". This also fully shows that when the mainland created and used words, the shell was already currency. In daily life, many parents call their children "baby" and "babe", which also has a certain meaning. Therefore, although "Shell Coin" is small, it combines economic, historical, cultural and other meanings.

In the collecting world, coin collectors know that there is an ancient coin called "carved mother money". The so-called "carved mother money" refers to the "mother money" carved by hand, also known as "ancestral money", which is the most critical process product in ancient currency minting, and it is also a "weather vane" to measure currency minting, especially copper coin minting. In currency minting, the first step that needs to be carried out is to "make a money mold", first of all, the professional craftsmen carve the mother money by hand, and submit it to the central government for approval, and then the central government issues it to the local minting agency to cast the mother, and the mother or directly use the carving mother to cast several mother coins as the mother money of the minted currency, commonly known as the "casting mother".

In the Capital Museum, there is a kind of "carved mother coin" with a diameter of 3.3 centimeters and a weight of 14.8 grams, which is the best in the continental numismatic cultural relics. The money is slightly larger than the line money, the copper material is very sophisticated, the carving is also delicate, the outer edge is flat and flawless, the money body is thick, the contour is peugeot, deep and powerful, the money is delicate, and the pulp is warm. On the front side, "Tongzhi Zhongbao" is sent to Guo, cross straight reading, italic script, similar to Song style, the back is the Chinese ji value "Dang Ten" from top to bottom, and from left to right is the Manchu word "Baoyuan". Unlike most copper coins, the middle perforation of this coin is not completely chiseled, but there is still a small round hole, commonly known as "gold mouth not opened".

Tongzhi is the era name of Emperor Muzong of the Qing Dynasty, which means the reason for the tongzhi of the Eastern and Western Palaces. The Tongzhi Emperor ascended the throne at an early age, thanks to the assistance of prince Gong Yixuan, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and other famous ministers, there was a rare revival period in the late Qing Dynasty, known in history as "Tongzhi Zhongxing". Politically, it adopted the principle of revising the order of internal rule, formulated the direction of "mastering the art of mastering the army to control the yi", and vigorously developed the foreign affairs movement; militarily, it absorbed local armed forces and successfully quelled the rebellion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom; economically, it greatly reduced rural taxes, encouraged farming and the distribution of grain seeds, and appeased the people's resistance; culturally, it vigorously promoted the examination and examination quota to attract talented people and maintain its own rule; diplomatically, it sought joint cooperation with foreign powers and purchased a large number of foreign arms and arms.

After the Manchu Qing Entered the Customs, in order to stabilize the state power, the Qing Dynasty continued the practice of the previous generation in terms of currency system, and began to mint a large number of year number coins. In terms of minting technology, the same continuation of the previous generation of practice, the implementation of the sand minting process, the process needs to go through the production of money molds, the production of paradigms, the model of fixation, pouring of coins four steps, by Song Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu", is also a scientific and technological masterpiece of this period, the book has a detailed record of the sand minting. At that time, the minting agency was the Baoyuan Bureau, which was subordinate to the Ministry of Works, and was an official monetary financial institution established in the Ming and Qing dynasties, specializing in the minting of coins. The Qing Dynasty followed the Ming system, setting up the Baoyuan Bureau and the Baoquan Bureau in the Ministry of Works and the Household Department, and setting up local casting bureaus in various provinces.

In the 61st year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1722), it was stipulated that each province should have only one bureau, and the names of each provincial bureau were uniformly titled with the word "Bao", and the word of the province was used as "Bao Zhejiang Bureau" in Zhejiang. The deposits of the foundry bureaus set up in various provinces have increased and decreased frequently, and as many as dozens of them have been set up successively. By the time of the Qing Dynasty, only the baoyuan and baoquan bureaus in Beijing remained, and the casting bureaus of other provinces were abolished one after another. In the thirty-first year of Sui Guangxu (1905), the Baoyuan Bureau was abolished and withdrew from the stage of history. It is generally believed that the "golden mouth is not opened" carved mother money, most of which is one of the carved mother money that has not been officially used, and its reasons are multifaceted, and this article will not be studied in detail.

Due to the huge amount of money used in this kind of "Tongzhi Heavy Treasure" line, it can be considered that the original number of carved mother coins has met the minting conditions, so it has not been used, so that it has been left behind for some reason. According to the Qing Dynasty quan scholar Bao Kang's "Catalogue of Big Money", each money bureau will first take refined brass to make a carved mother every time they open the furnace to mint money, and then use the carving mother to recast a number of mother money, and finally use the mother money to turn the sand to cast the circulation money, because the carving mother is hand-carved, so each one has differences. The carving mother is in a very important position in the coin minting process, because of its special nature, coupled with the fact that the money bureau is often archived and stored in the warehouse after use, so the folk circulation is very rare, because of the particularity of its craftsmanship, so that the carving mother has an artistic appreciation value and an important collection value that cannot be compared with the circulating money. Therefore, the current stock in society is small, which has become very precious.