At the beginning of human beings, they all exchanged goods for goods. During the exchange process, some items were widely popular and their value was easy to estimate, so they gradually evolved into early currencies. Most of the earliest currencies of human beings were shells. The shells are small and hard, easy to carry and store. In addition, for the early Chinese literary menstruation located in the inland, shells were not easy to obtain, were rarity, and were not easy to depreciate. Most of the characters related to money in Chinese characters are "结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结结
Later, with the increase of productivity, shells slowly lost their currency function, and people began to mint metal currency . During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were a variety of metal currencies, each country was the same, including knife coins , cloth coins , grimace money, etc. Qin Shihuang After unifying the six countries, the currency was unified into a circular square hole money . Round square hole money. The shape of the round square hole money was used from to the early years of the Republic of China, so that the ancients affectionately called the money " Kong Fang brother ".
From the Qin Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty, China had three main forms of currency - copper coins, paper money, and silver. In the Qin Dynasty, it was called half a liangqian, and in the Han Dynasty, it was called Wuzhuqian. Wuzhu coins were used from Han Wudi to Han Gaozu during the reign of Han Gaozu , and were minted for more than 700 years.
The Emperor Gaozu of Tang started to cast " Kaiyuan Tongbao ". There is a crescent pattern the size of a fingernail on the back of Kaiyuan Tongbao. There are many interesting stories about the origin of this crescent pattern. The most legendary saying is: a concubine in the harem took a wax-like look at Kaiyuan Tongbao and accidentally left nail marks on it. The craftsmen did not dare to fan and remove the marks, so the cast Kaiyuan Tongbao had crescent patterns.
Currency historian Peng Xinwei believes that the crescent pattern on Kaiyuan Tongbao may be affected by the star moon pattern on pencils of Persia and other countries. Tang Dynasty was indeed a dynasty that was greatly influenced by the Hu culture. Starting from Kaiyuan Tongbao, copper coins in later generations were called "Xiao- Tongbao " or "Xiao-yuanbao", and have been passed down for more than 1,300 years.
The last copper coins in the imperial era in history were "Hong Xiantongbao" minted by the Beiyang Mint when Yuan Shikai became emperor . During the Republic of China, Fujian also issued a kind of " Fujian Tongbao ". In order to distinguish it from the copper coins of the imperial era, Fujian Tongbao adopted a round-shaped round hole shape.
In ancient times, copper mine was not as good as today, and the market demand for copper coins was very high, and there was often insufficient copper. This wine caused "copper waste" and " money waste ". When the "money shortage" is serious, the government has to cast iron coins to supplement it. Iron coins are a strange thing in the history of Chinese currency. They have existed intermittently for five or six hundred years, especially in , the Song Dynasty, appeared in large numbers.
There were also paper money in ancient times, such as Jiaozi during the Song Dynasty, Baochao used during the Yuan and Ming dynasties. However, in ancient times, paper money did not have corresponding issuance reserves, and lacked credit guarantee , so it would not take long to be like waste paper. The Qing government learned from the lessons of the Yuan and Ming dynasties in the western region and was very cautious about issuing paper money. In the early stage, the banknotes were basically not issued: in the later stage, due to the encirclement and suppression of Taiping Army and the natural disaster of , , it was unable to issue two banknotes "Ministry of Revenue Official Ticket" and "Da Qing Baochao" during the Xianfeng period. But they did not escape the fate of rapid depreciation and were discontinued in less than 10 years.
Before the Song Dynasty, silver was basically not used on the market. The Song Dynasty also used less silver, and silver became the common currency on the market, circulating currency was already the event after Ming Dynasty . There are three main reasons for this.
First, before the Ming Dynasty, the amount of silver in my country was very limited, and there was not that much silver to use. During the Ming Dynasty, the new route of was opened, and a large amount of American silver flowed into China, making silver the main currency in circulation. Scholars estimate that in the late 100 years of the Ming Dynasty, 14,000 tons of silver inflows overseas, nearly 10 times the total amount of silver produced in China.Secondly, the development of the commodity economy requires a large amount of currency to be used for payment, and the purchasing power of silver is much higher than that of copper coins, making it more suitable for bulk transactions. Finally, the orientation of national policies has changed. In the early Ming Dynasty, silver was also banned and paper money was used, but the paper money depreciated too quickly, and the country had to lift the silver ban. Zhang Juzheng was in charge of the administration of the government and implemented the " One Whip Law ", which even encouraged payment with silver. The above reasons led to silver becoming the main circulating currency since the Ming Dynasty, and formed a monetary system with "silver as the main and copper coins as the auxiliary", which continued until , , late Qing Dynasty. The Ming and Qing dynasties were the "Silver Age" in the history of Chinese monetary.
Gold was generally not used as circulating currency in ancient times, but only as storage and payment currency. Nobles often paid in gold, such as royal rewards or tributes. The era when gold was the most tyrant of using it was . The Western Han Dynasty . There are countless records of the use of gold in historical books. For example, Emperor Wu of Han gave Wei Qing .2 million jin at one time, which is about 50 jin today. After the Western Han Dynasty, there were not so many gold rewards. Why is this? One theory is that most of the gold in the Han Dynasty was buried underground along with the gold and the nobles. There is also a saying that the "gold" rewarded by the Han Dynasty was not gold, but a large part of it was copper.
