In the early years of the Republic of China, the purchasing power of an ocean was equivalent to 2,500 yuan now
Nowadays, the fashionable "ocean" collection is hot, and there are only a few oceans in the Republic of China-themed TV series. What is the ocean? Why didn't you meet me?
The surface of the silver ingot is a bit dark
Watching the costume TV series again, the hero waved his hand: "Little Er, check out!" Xiao Er's ass turned upside down: "Uncle, it's a total of one or two or seven dollars of silver!" The hero put down a piece of silver: "This is two taels of silver, don't look for it!" Then he departed in style. Strictly from the perspective of historical research, such a scene should not have appeared in the era before the Ming Dynasty.
1. Silver Empire
A strong government will inevitably have a monopoly on the issuance of money. Before silver became the mainstream currency, it was mainly copper coins and paper money that appeared in the Song Dynasty. However, the quality of copper coins is sometimes good and sometimes bad, and it is easy to deteriorate and decay after a long time, and it is bulky and not suitable for large transactions; Although the ancient paper money was light, it was often issued indiscriminately when the dynasty was in financial difficulties, which led to the rapid depreciation of the paper money, a vicious circle, and accelerated the collapse of the dynasty.
Is there a currency that is portable and stable? The basic common sense learned in high school - gold and silver are naturally money. But why hasn't gold and silver been spread out on a large scale? There are two basic reasons: one is that the gold and silver mines in ancient China were very limited, including that China is still not a rich country rich in gold and silver; Another reason is the restriction of China's strong feudal economy on the commodity economy, which is not developed enough.
Map of the flow of world silver in the 17th-19th centuries
Two factors changed in the middle and late Ming Dynasty: in the late Ming Dynasty, the commodity economy in the southeast developed rapidly, and even the budding capitalism appeared, and there was an urgent need for a stable currency; With the development of the Americas during the Age of Discovery, Spain and other colonial powers discovered many huge silver deposits from Mexico and other places in the Americas (so far, the world's top ten silver mines, the Americas account for eight, Latin America accounts for seven, and the largest output is the Saucito silver mine in Mexico). A large amount of mined silver ore flowed into China (Ming Dynasty) through commodity trade, laying the economic foundation for the Ming Dynasty to establish the "silver standard". Monetary reform is on the horizon. During the reign of Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Juzheng, the first assistant, implemented the "One Whip Law", and the most substantial significance for currency is that all kinds of taxes and levies are changed from physical goods or copper coins to silver. Silver became the currency recognized by both the government and the people.
Silver ore
Until the Opium Wars, China used silver coins in parallel, with the official exchange ratio of silver and copper coins being used for large amounts and copper coins for small amounts, as well as paper money (the name of the silver ticket better reflects this period). During this period, the Ming and Qing empires were truly "silver empires". The court documents of the Qing Dynasty were frequent
2. Western silver coins entered China
The event came in the middle of the 19th century, when the domestic copper mines were depleted, the quality of copper coins declined, and the development of the commodity economy could not be satisfied. And what about the domestic silver taels (silver ingots)? The good and the bad are uneven, the fake is passed off as the real and the shoddy is shoddy, the official cannot unify the standards, and the conversion of silver taels in various places is complicated, which seriously delays the development of commodity trade.
Buddha's head silver dollar and double column silver dollar
At this time, the standardized foreign silver dollars produced by the machine came in. The shape is unified, the value is stable, the amount of silver is sufficient, it is also easy to identify, and it is also beautiful. Represented by the Spanish and its colonial silver dollars. The front is the Spanish national coat of arms and crown, the north is the east and west hemisphere machine double column pattern of the Chinese commonly known as the "double column", the silver dollar cast with the head of the Spanish king is commonly known as the "Buddha head" in China, and the Mexican silver dollar with the eagle emblem is called "Eagle Yang".
Mexican "Eagle Ocean"
However, foreign countries changed the minting time of silver coins to insufficient silver, and then purchased Chinese silver taels at a low price, minted new silver dollars "with water", and harvested the silver bags of the Chinese in a circular manner. The Qing government and the common people knew nothing about this. According to statistics, the Qing government lost 170 million taels of silver in foreign silver dollar arbitrage alone. With such great interests, the Western boss Britain, emerging powers the United States and Japan have followed suit. Japanese silver coins are printed with a flying dragon motif and are known as "Japanese Ryuyo".
Japanese Longyo
3. The birth of Chinese silver coins
Slowly, the Qing government also came to its senses! Minister: "Your Majesty, the foreigners are insidious and cunning, and they are muffled in the Qing Dynasty, if this continues, the silver of the Qing Dynasty will be shorted!" The emperor: "What can I do?" Minister: "No, let's mint silver dollars ourselves!" The Emperor: "Quasi-play!" Of course, it was certainly not that simple, and it took decades of back and forth before I finally decided to mint my own silver coins.
In 1890, the first silver dollar of the Qing Dynasty was born, the fineness is exactly the same as that of foreign silver dollars, the front is engraved with "made in Guangdong Province", and the back is a dragon pattern, so it is commonly known as "Longyang".
Guangdong Province made Longyang
In 1895, Zhang Zhidong opened a furnace in Hubei to mint silver dollars, and the standard was based on Guangdong. Subsequently, the governors of the provinces began to preside over the minting of silver dollars in each province, which caused chaos in the currency market to a certain extent due to differences in standard, weight, and fineness. There is an urgent need for the central government to unify the currency system.
Beiyang makes Longyang
In 1910, the second year of Xuantong, the Qing government promulgated the "Currency System Regulations", stipulating that the Chinese national currency unit should be named Yuan, and silver should be used as the standard for the time being. The central government unified the casting of "Xuantong ingots" Longyang, about 200 million yuan of silver dollars, after the Qing Dynasty perished.
Rare Xuantong three-year silver coins
Subsequently, the government of the Republic of China continued to mint and issue silver dollars.
The most famous "Yuan Datou"
In 1933, the Nationalist Government announced the "abolition of the two yuan and the change of yuan", realizing the currency replacement of the silver dollar with the traditional silver ingot.
Sun Yat-sen's head is a silver dollar
The mainstream of the world's advanced powers are the gold standard, China's silver standard policy is a helpless choice for its own gold reserves are small, but under the silver standard policy, China's silver dollar is real silver, and the government has no way to over-issue currency, so the Republic of China before 1935 did not have much inflation, and the social and economic structure is relatively stable.
IV. The End of the Silver Dollar
The legal tender of the Republic of China
With the different voices of the gold standard policy within the Nationalist Government, coupled with the soaring international silver price, the Nationalist Government began to play the idea of recovering silver coins to earn the international price difference. On November 3, 1935, Finance Minister Kong Xiangxi convened a meeting of the banking circles in Shanghai and announced the implementation of the "Emergency Monetary and Financial Measures", the Nationalist Government stopped using the silver dollar, no longer used as legal tender, implemented the legal tender policy, implemented the paper money policy, did not allow the exercise of the silver dollar, and used the "legal tender" to exchange the silver dollar. Although the silver dollar occasionally appeared on the market or was stored by individuals, the era of the silver dollar as the main currency came to an end.
Silver dollars in museums
Time has passed to the present, and "Ocean" has completely become a collector's item.