There are not many currency content in the historical materials of the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and these historical materials are also vague or contradictory, resulting in deviations in the understanding of relevant histories by future generations. Now, without speculating on the shallowness, as far as one's eyesight is concerned, a few are omitted and dialectical, so as to teach the Fang family.
1. Dong Zhuoqian's inscription
At the end of the Han Dynasty, the world was in chaos. Dong Zhuo once minted an inferior coin, and regarding the shape of this coin, the Book of Wei and the Biography of Dong Zhuo in volume VI of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms records: "The Bronze Man, the Bell Worm, and the Bad Five Baht Coin." More minted into small money, large five points, no article, good meat without wheels, not grinding. From this point of view, the coins minted by Dong Zhuo belong to a class of inferior small coins, not only small in size, but also roughly minted, and even the money is not written. As a result, scholars once generally believed that Dong Zhuoqian had no inscription.
However, the Book of Jin has a different record. The Book of Jin and the Chronicle of Food and Goods describes the money minted by Dong Zhuo as follows: "The five baht coins were bad, and even small coins were minted, and the genus of the copper people feilian in Chang'an and Luoyang was collected and cast with drums." And the money has no wheel, and the article is inconvenient. Although the "Book of Jin" accounts of Dong Zhuo's money form system in much the same way as the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the "Book of Jin" clearly states that Dong Zhuo qian has an inscription, not "no article", but because the casting technology is low and the text is not recognizable, it is called "inconvenient article". Therefore, the "inconvenience" here should be a false error of "unrecognizable", meaning that the money text is illegible.
The same record is also recorded in Yuan Hong's Later Han Dynasty: in June of the first year of chuping (190), "Zhuofa Luoyang Tombs and Ministers' Tombs, bad Luoyang City Bells, minted as money, are unwritten." More minted five baht money, the article city Guo can not control. "Yuan Hong was a Jin dynasty, very close to the end of the Han Dynasty, and what he said was naturally more accurate than his book. The "Later Han Dynasty" clearly mentions that dong Zhuo's coins are "not written" because of the haste of minting money, that is to say, the numismatic text is illegible due to minting technology, but the text is there. Based on the physical data excavated from archaeology, we determined that Dong Zhuoqian's inscription was the word "five baht".
Dong Zhuo's main intention in minting money this time is to loot the people's money, because metal and copper in ancient times has always been a scarce resource representing a fixed value, Dong Zhuo tried to mint inferior money with the same denomination as before, but the weight was greatly reduced, in exchange for the full value stored in the hands of the people, so as to achieve the purpose of rapid plundering of wealth. Moreover, the coins circulating throughout the Eastern Han Dynasty were five-baht coins, and Dong Zhuo had no need to re-mint a new coin style, which would only increase the user's antipathy and hinder market circulation, so it was believed that this small coin had writing and also belonged to a kind of five-baht coin.
Second, the time for the Cao Wei regime to restore the five-baht coin
The inferior small money minted by Dong Zhuo not only destroyed the five-baht money system formed since the Western Han Dynasty, but also caused extreme price increases, resulting in chaos in market transactions. In order to improve the currency trading environment, the Cao Wei regime tried to restore the five-baht system. Regarding the time of the restoration of the five-baht coin, there are two views in the historical records: the first is from the record of the "Book of Jin and Food Goods":
And in the early ping of the emperor, Dong Zhuonai minted small money, from light goods to expensive goods, and Gu Yihu to millions of dollars. To Wei Wu as the phase, so he dismissed it, and also used five baht. It is not a long time to mint money, the cost is not much, and there is no gain, so the valley is cheap.
As we all know, in the eleventh year of Jian'an (206), Cao Cao basically unified the north; Thirteen years later (208), the army was defeated by Chibi, and in the same year, "the Three Dukes of Han rebelled, and the Chancellor and The Imperial Historian were placed." In the summer of June, the prince was the prime minister. Since it was "to Wei Wu as the prime minister, so it was dismissed, and five baht was also used", then the Book of Jin believes that the specific time for the Cao Wei regime to restore the five baht money should be in Jian'an thirteen years.
The second view is derived from the records of the Book of Wei and Emperor Wen of the Second Book of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: in the spring and March of the second year, the first five baht coins were restored. The "second year" here is the second year of the Huang Dynasty, that is, 221 AD. The Zizhi Tongjian, volume 69, "The Second Year of Emperor Wen's Huang Chu", adds: "The first five baht money. In the first year of the First Ping of the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhuo was five baht bad and is now back. According to this theory, after Dong Zhuo destroyed the five-baht money system in the first year of the Chuping Dynasty, it was not until the second year of the Huang Chu of Emperor Wen of Wei that the five-baht money system since the Eastern Han Dynasty was restored, which was a full thirteen years later than the time when "Wei Wu was the prime minister and also used five baht".
I think that the history books are correct in both records of the restoration of the five-baht coin. At the time of Cao Cao's claim, Dong Zhuoqian had been in circulation for seventeen years, and Cao Cao was very aware of the destructive influence of this inferior coin, so he announced at the time of "the peace in the sea" that the use of this coin would be stopped and the five baht would be restored. However, as recorded in the Shen Jian, Cao Cao was worried that after the resumption of the use of coins, there would be a situation in other countries that "the useless money, the useful things of the city and me, are close and the rich are also". Therefore, although Cao Cao announced the resumption of the use of five baht coins, in fact, the country still attaches importance to the exchange of goods, which is mainly cloth and cloth, which is itself an important material. After Emperor Wen Cao Pi succeeded to the throne, the large-scale wars between the three kingdoms gradually decreased, and the rulers mostly attached importance to restoring the economy, at this time the domestic "did not mint money for a long time, the goods were not much, and there was no gain, so the valley was untouchable", because there was no currency in the market for a long time, so gradually showed various problems, "Qian Gui Gu Cheap" was one of them, so Emperor Wen had to reiterate again in the second year of the Huang Dynasty the importance of restoring five baht money.
III. Cheng Gongsui and the Theory of Money God
The Western Jin Dynasty scholar Lu praised "the greed of wounded times" and wrote the futi essay "The Theory of Money Theory", which satirized and criticized the phenomenon of monetary fetishism that prevailed in society at that time, and was a famous article in the history of mainland literature. Scholars generally believe that before Lu Bao's writing, there was already a work of the same name circulating in society, and its author was Cheng Gongsui at the time of Wei and Jin, and Lu Bao's "Theory of Qian Shen" was further supplemented and played on the basis of Cheng Gongsui. Regarding the source of this article, scholars rarely involve it, but because its content was also included by the Qing dynasty Yan Kejun in the "Three Dynasties of the Three Dynasties of Qin and Han in the Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties", thus recognizing the authenticity of this article. After consulting relevant materials, this article was first found in the "Taiping Imperial Records" volume 836 "Assets Department" article "Under money", the original text cloud:
Cheng Gong Sui Qian God theory: the road is one after another, pedestrians are leisurely, carrying and driving, only money is asked. Zhu Yisu belt, when the Tu people, love my brother, are powerless. Holding my hand, always speaking of points, not about the advantages and disadvantages, whether it is possible or not, the guests are spoke, and the door is often like the city. Proverb: Money has no ears, how can it be secretly made, and it is not vain!
The above related content is highly consistent with the "Treatise on Qian Shen" written by Lu Zhao, especially the words and sentences in it, and even have exact similarities, which were later included in the "Cheng Gong Sui" entry in volume 59 of the Quan Jin Wen. Looking at the "Book of Jin" volume 92 "Wenyuan Biography", it can be seen that Cheng Gongsui was born in the fifth year of The Wei Ming Emperor Taihe (231), died in the ninth year of the reign of Emperor Tai of the Jin Dynasty (273), was a famous dispenser at the time of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and was recommended by Zhang Huazhi as Taichang, enlisted as a doctor, and later successively served as secretary Lang and Zhongshu Lang. Regarding his life and writings, "more than ten volumes of poetry and miscellaneous pens have been passed down in the world", which have basically survived intact, but this "Theory of Qian Theology" is not found, and the "Book of Jin" and other documents also do not mention this. Combined with the background of the era in which Cheng Gongsui lived, at this time the whole country had not yet been unified, the northern economy had not yet recovered, the commodity economy was not yet active, and it did not match the characteristics of the era described in the content of the article, so I think the authenticity of this article is questionable. Some scholars even pointed out: "The so-called "Theory of Qian Shen" should be a paragraph in Lu Bao's "Theory of Qian God", and the compilers of the "Imperial Catalogue" mistakenly adopted it as Cheng Gongsui's work. If this is the case, it is not like the academic community used to think, Cheng Gongsui's article influenced and inspired Lu Zhao's creation.
The ratio of the fourth and fifth elements of the big cloth to the Yongtong Universals
In the third year of The Reign of Emperor Gong of Western Wei (557), Yuwen Juedai Western Wei was called emperor, and was known as Emperor Xiaomin, the capital Chang'an, the state name Zhou, and the history of Northern Zhou. At the beginning of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the old money of the former dynasty was used. In July of the first year of Baoding (561), Emperor Wu minted buquan coins, one as five, parallel to five baht coins. In the third year of Jiande (574), five elements of large cloth money were minted, one when ten, parallel to the Buquan money. In the first year of the Jing Emperor's elephant (579), he re-minted the Yongtong Wanguo Money, one when it was ten, parallel to the five elements of the great cloth. This is the famous "Northern Wednesday Spring" in numismatic circles.
There are different records in the historical records of the exchange ratio between the five elements of the great cloth and the Yongtong Wanguo coins. Book VII of the Book of Zhou, "The Chronicle of Emperor Xuan", says: "Ding Wei, the first coin of Yongtong Wanguo, with one as ten, parallel to the five elements of the great cloth. Books such as the Book of Sui and the Chronicle of Food Goods, the Tongdian and the Yuangui of the Book of Records have the same discussion. However, the "History of the North" is cloudy: "Ding Wei, the first casting of Yongtong Wanguo Money, a thousand, parallel to the Five Elements Of the Great Cloth." Classics such as the Zizhi Tongjian and the Taiping Imperial Records are also written as "thousand", not "ten". Taiwanese scholar Chen Yanliang believes: "Yuwen Yun is a historical emperor known for his absurdity and tyranny, although he reigned for less than two years, but the extravagance of his birthday is uncountable, and he has begun to build palaces on a large scale. Looking at this, it is not impossible to cast the money of all nations with a thousand five-element cloth. ”
Personally, I think that historical records such as the Book of Zhou should be taken as true, and it is "ten" instead of "thousand". First of all, the above-mentioned historical books are the earliest written in the "Book of Zhou" and the "Book of Sui", and the two were compiled in the tenth year of Tang Zhenguan (636), and most of the participants in the compilation were well-versed in the history of the classics at that time, which belonged to the representative works of the Tang Dynasty official revision history books, and the two books recorded a large number of canonical systems of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, with informative content. In the process of compiling the "History of the North", Li Yanshou referred to the "Book of Zhou", "Book of Sui" and other historical books, and some of them were abridged and merged, and it is very likely that in the process of copying and understanding, there was a mistake in the process of copying and understanding, and the "ten" was mistakenly written as "thousand", and the subsequent classics such as "Zizhi Tongjian" and "Taiping Imperial Records" did not go through rigorous examination, and then used the records of the "Northern History".
Secondly, since Yongtong Wanguo and the Five Elements Of Cloth and The Five Baht Money are "used together with the Three Products" (at that time, the Buquan Money was abolished), there should be no exchange ratio of 1:1000:50000. If the value of the five-baht coin is too low, there is no need to issue it, on the contrary, the value of Yongtong Wanguo is too high, and it is almost impossible to promote it. Imagine that when such a large denomination of coin is issued, who in the market can accept the use of it? However, from the current excavation situation, Yongtong Wanguo money is not uncommon, indicating that although Yongtong Wanguo belongs to the virtual value of the currency, it is not outrageously high, or it flows through the market for a period of time, which can also reflect that the exchange ratio between the two will not produce too much gap, and it is impossible to be "one thousand".
V. "Quite pirate casting" and "no pirate casting"
In the seventh year of Yuan Jia (430), the Liu Song regime "established a money office and minted four baht money", which was four baht for Yuan Jia. Because the newly issued four-baht coin is slightly lower in face value than the original five-baht coin in circulation, it has led to the phenomenon of cutting and chiseling copper in the folk, and the Book of Song, volume 66, "He Shangzhi" is passed on: "The folk are quite pirated, and more cut and chiseled ancient money to take copper." "The so-called shearing and chiseling of copper is to adapt to the weight standard (four baht) of the new money, using shearing, grinding and other means to trim and process the original circulation of five-baht coins, without affecting the premise of continued use, intercept and take out a part of the broken copper, collect it for small profits.
Regarding this matter, the Book of Song, vol. 75, "The Biography of Yan Jun", has a similar record: "First of all, Yuan Jiazhong cast four baht money, the wheel guo-shaped system, the same as the five baht, the cost of loss, no profit, so the people did not steal the casting." We noticed that the same is to expound the social situation after the issuance of the four-baht coin, before He Shangzhi passed on the cloud people "quite pirated casting", while Yan Junchuan said that the people "do not steal and cast", what is the matter?
To solve this problem, we must first understand what is pirate casting. In general, the so-called pirate minting is the act of minting coins privately for profit under the state of prohibition. The means of stealing coins are diverse, for example, once the government issues inflated money, the minting of money will produce high profits, and private pirates only need to imitate the national legal tender in appearance and weight, and they can profit from it. As for the rulers, they needed to enact strict laws to crack down on the minting of money by the people, so as to ensure that this profit could only be enjoyed exclusively by the imperial court. On the contrary, if the coins issued by the government are minted neatly and weigh enough, then the situation described in the "Biography of Yan Jun" will occur, "the cost is lost, there is no profit", and the people will no longer participate in the minting behavior.
Of course, this is not to say that the government issuing sufficient value will not cause theft. When the face value of the newly issued coins is lower than the original circulating ancient money, another means of profit appears in the folk, that is, the use of cutting and chiseling to intercept excess copper in the ancient money to balance it with the face value of the new money. Although this method does not imitate minting, it only uses the methods of retouching, grinding and other ways to reprocess the coins, which can also be regarded as an act of piracy. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a time when coins were cut in two. He Shangzhi did not mention the casting at all in the upper play, but Yun "ordered and worried about cutting and chiseling for more days, so as to disappear", which shows that he regarded cutting and chiseling copper as a means of stealing casting, so there will be a sentence of "folk quite pirated casting, cut and chisel ancient money to take copper". From this point of view, the shearing and chiseling of copper is mainly aimed at the ancient money circulating in the market, while the "no pirated minting" in Yan Jun's biography is aimed at the newly issued four-baht coins. Therefore, the "quite pirate casting" and "no pirate casting" in the historical records are both objective reflections of the situation at that time, and they are all correct, but different people have different understandings of the means of stealing and casting. In addition to the above two situations, cheap metals such as lead and tin can also be used instead of copper, and coins with lower actual value can be minted, which is also an act of piracy.
SIXTH, "iron money two for one"
In the fourth year of Liang's reign (523), Emperor Wu of Liang listened to the advice given to Prince Yun and "began to cast iron coins at noon on the fifth day of December". This was the first time in the history of mainland currency that the feudal government issued iron money in a centralized manner, and it was also the first time that iron money was used instead of copper coins, with iron money as the legal standard currency.
After Emperor Wu of Liang issued iron money, regarding the exchange ratio of iron money to copper coins, scholars often quoted a poem by Ren Fang as evidence, the original poem said: "Iron money is two when one, hundreds of generations change their names, for the sake of Huidang in time, there is no waiting for a cool autumn day." The poem is included in the "History of the South" volume 25 "To the Legend of The Flood", according to which most scholars believe that a copper coin can be used against two iron coins.
In fact, this view is wrong, check the "Book of Liang" volume 14 "Ren Fang Biography" can be seen, Ren Fang's poem was written during the second year of Tianjian's tenure as Yixing Taishou, and Ren Fang himself died in the seventh year of Tianjian, minting iron money is fifteen years after this, so the historical material is not enough to use as evidence. However, Ren Fang mentioned iron money during the Tianjian years, indicating that before Emperor Wu of Liang was officially issued, signs of iron money circulation had already begun to appear in Xiao Liang.
7. The release time of Chen Wubaht
In the second year of Taiping (557), Chen Ba's ancestor Liang was called emperor, and the capital Jiankang was established, and the state was named Chen. According to historical records, the Chen Dynasty minted coins twice, the first of which occurred during the Tianjia period. Book of Chen, vol. 3, Shizuji Yun: Tianjia Three Years (562), "Leap February Jiazi, recast five baht coins." Regarding the specific time of the coinage, there is another view in the historical records, the Book of Sui, volume 24, "Food And Goods", which says: "To the fifth year of Emperor Wen Tianjia, recast five baht." "The History of the South follows the view of the Book of Chen, believing that it was three years of casting by Tianjia; Historical books such as the Sui Shu and Food Commodity Chronicle, the Tongdian and the Zizhi Tongjian are all believed to have been cast in the fifth year of Tianjia (564).
I think that the time of this coinage should be recorded in the Book of Chen. First of all, the above-mentioned historical books were first written in the Book of Chen, compiled in the tenth year of Zhenguan (636), and the "Food Goods Chronicle" in the Book of Sui was derived from the book "History of the Five Dynasties" and was not completed until the first year of Emperor Gaozong of Tang (656). Secondly, Yao Cha, the author of the "Chen Shu Shizu Ji", also entered the Chen Dynasty, successively serving as a secretary supervisor and an official Shangshu, and personally experienced the major events of the Chen Dynasty's state affairs, so he accurately recorded the specific time of minting money. Zha Chenyuan's "Twenty Shi Shuo Leap Tables", Tianjia three years did exist leap February Jiazi Day, so it should be believed. Finally, in December of the second year of Tianjia (561), the crown prince Yu Li (虞荔) and Yushi Zhongzhong (御史中丞孔奂) were underused by the state, and "the boiling sea salt and the section of the boiled sea salt were established and implemented", which also provided a policy guarantee for the issuance of currency three months later.
This article was originally published in "Collected Essays commemorating the 70th Birthday of Professor Zhang Xuhua", Zhengzhou University Press, 2022 edition. Comments from omitted, please call the original text.