We all know that shell coins are the earliest currency in China, that is, shells by the sea, but there is no weight, no face value size, how did the ancients distinguish the face value and value measurement standard of shell coins?
The earliest clearly documented use of the shell as a currency in Chinese history dates back to the Xia Dynasty, and there is a record of "Xuanbei after the Xia" in the "Salt and Iron Theory of Wrong Coins". What determines the value of the shell coin is its size. "Hanshu Food Goods Chronicle" is divided into five products according to the size of the shell, the fifth product is too small to be counted as shellfish, in fact, it is the first four products, which are divided into large shells, strong shells, monopiles, and small shells, which each have a certain size and a standard for folding money. For example, large shells, more than four inches and eight minutes long, are worth two hundred and sixteen; small shells, more than one inch and two minutes long, are worth ten. In ancient times, five shells were one string, and two strings were a friend.
During the Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties, the Bei coin was already the main currency in circulation. After Qin Shi Huang unified the Six Kingdoms, the Central Plains unified the currency system, abolishing shellfish, knives, cloth and other coins.
However, in the remote ethnic minority areas of Yunnan, shellfish are still used as a medium of exchange for goods. The New Book of Tang, Nan Man Shang, Nan Zhao Shang, states: "Zēng (yēng) and Bei Shi Yi. The shell is as big as a finger, and sixteen pieces are one. At the beginning of the Nanzhao Kingdom (an ancient kingdom that arose on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in the eighth century), "the mainland did not use money", and the sea shell was used as currency, called "Bazi".
Shell coins of the Shang Dynasty
It was not until the late Ming and early Qing dynasties after the death of Zhang Xianzhong that the Great Western Peasant Army led by Sun Kewang and Liu Wenxiu entered Yunnan and promulgated in 1648 that "minted money for the Xing Dynasty, prohibited the use of shellfish, and those who violated his order were killed (torture with their noses cut off)...", which ended the history of shell money in China.
As a necessary place for the ancient Silk Road, Yunnan has trade exchanges with all countries in the world, down to India and Pakistan, and up to European countries. Therefore, not only in China, but also in other parts of the world in the early days, shell coins can be described as a universal currency.
Shell coins in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty
Gong Zhen, who went to the West with Zheng He, recorded in his book "Chronicles of the Western Fanguo" that the local commercial trade in the Slippery Mountain Country (Maldives in ancient times) was traded in silver coins, but interestingly, it supplied the foreign currency , the bei.
Haweh's "History of Burma" records that "the residents are easy to use, commonly used sea shells, one currency". The Arabian merchant Suleiman's Travels to the East, written in 851, records: "The kingdom of Lakhma ... The inhabitants exchanged shells, which were the currency of the kingdom, that is to say, the property of the kingdom..." Another Arab historian, Massudhi (943), also recorded the same: "Shells for trade [in the Kingdom of Ramach], shells are the national currency." ”