Chapter 20 Section 2 Introduction to the Currency System of the Song and Song Dynasties

Soon after the founding of the Song Dynasty, coins were issued.During Renzong's reign, paper money was officially issued, and a currency system in which coins, silver, and paper money were circulated equally was implemented.In the past 300 years, this currency system has experienced ups and downs and changes with the turmoil of the current situation.In general, there is more chaos than peace.In the early Northern Song Dynasty and the Xiaozong period of the Southern Song Dynasty (AD 1163-1189), it was slightly stable, and the currency value was relatively stable.In Huizong and the late Southern Song Dynasty, due to the shortage of money caused by inflation, the currency finally collapsed.The characteristics of the currency system in the Song Dynasty are: complex and changeable, duplicity, self-talk, and not keeping promises.The overall review is bad in the end.Specifically, the currency system in the Song Dynasty has the following five characteristics:

First, casting and management are highly centralized.The Song Dynasty held the power of currency minting and issuance management in the hands of the emperor, and implemented a high degree of centralization.In each period of the Song Dynasty, the money of the year or the name of the country was cast to show the authority of the emperor.Song Taizu first cast the country name money Song Yuan Tongbao, and later two Songs each cast three and four country name coins.The Taiping Tongbao first cast by Emperor Taizong was the first year coin in the Song Dynasty.In total, the Nine Emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty changed the year name 35 times, and cast 28 kinds of year name coins.The nine emperors of the Southern Song Dynasty (including the last two kings who fled in Fujian and Guangdong) changed their year names 22 times and cast 18 kinds of year names.Except for the last two kings, a new type of money was minted almost once the year was changed.

Second, the currency is complex and changeable.There seem to be only a few types of banknotes, but they change frequently.Each banknote is not used for a long time.The names, types and internal structures of coins are also varied.It is generally called Tongbao, Yuanbao, and Chongbao, and some have more names, such as Jiading copper and iron coins, with a total of more than 30 treasure names.From the metal composition of money, there are copper, iron, lead, tin and various alloy coins.If it is divided according to weight and size, fineness grade, coin material structure, year version, characteristics or special shape, chronology and age supervision, customary names of various places and other marks, there are countless.For example, there are more than 100 versions of Xining and Yuanfeng coins.It is even more impossible to count the private mints and bad money that have continuously appeared in various places in the Song and Song dynasties.The Southern Song Dynasty also cast "money cards", which are substitute currencies with the nature of passes.There are three types: upper circle and lower circle, upper circle and lower circle, and rectangle.On the surface, there is the words "Lin'an Fuxing", and on the back of the card, there are words indicating various currency values ​​such as "Quasi-Two Hundred Wen Province".Counting the credit currency, it is even more difficult to tell how many currencies there are.

Third, long-term feudal separatism and the promotion of iron money.Regarding the issuance and circulation of banknotes and coins, there are various official regulations and folk customs.In the early Song Dynasty, iron coins were banned, and a supervisory foundry was established in Baizhang, Yazhou in the third year of Kaibao (970 A.D.); after that, iron coins were expanded to be cast in many places.During the Yuanfeng period of Emperor Shenzong (1078-1085 A.D.), there were 26 money prisons, including nine iron money prisons and 889,234 cast iron coins, accounting for 15% of the total number of coins cast.Iron money is also used as the banknote (issuance reserve) to issue banknotes.Due to the extensive parallelism of iron coins and copper and iron coins, the locality of coin issuance and circulation has been formed.At that time, Chengdu, Zizhou, Lizhou, and Kuizhou four roads exclusively used iron coins, while Shaanxi and Hedongxi roads used both copper and iron coins, and copper coins were mostly circulated in other areas.Iron coins in Sichuan and Shu are limited to self-casting in this area, and copper and iron coins from other areas are not allowed to flow in, and money in this area is not allowed to flow out.Because the copper and iron coins cast in various places are different in weight, size, fineness, shape and usage habits, they can only be used in the region, which deepens the local separatism of coin circulation.Some are mutually exclusive, and some are interpenetrating, forming currency wars between regions.This situation was even more intense in the late Southern Song Dynasty.

Fourth, there are various shapes and calligraphy of coins.In the Song Dynasty, money was divided into different sizes, which has become a regular system.Each kind of new money generally has two different sizes of "Xiaoping" and "Dangling";In the Southern Song Dynasty, there was also Chunyou Tongbao as a hundred copper and iron coins.The various grades of copper and iron coins are not distinguished exactly according to the amount indicated on the face of the coin. Some of them are lighter and lighter than Xiaoping when they are folded in two or three.There is no certain price comparison between copper and iron coins and their various grades. Even if the official price comparison is sometimes stipulated, it cannot be maintained.

There are various Song coins of different sizes, as well as various rich and colorful Qianwen calligraphy.The beautiful coins of the Song Dynasty are precious historical relics, treasures in the history of Chinese calligraphy and writing development, and even a book that is respected both at home and abroad.Its calligraphy is generally written by famous masters, and it is indeed a true and reliable historical material for the study of Chinese calligraphy and characters.The Qian Wen calligraphy of these Song coins includes seal script, official script, running script, cursive script, regular script, and real script.Generally, there are two kinds of calligraphy styles for general money, forming pairs of money, and some have three kinds.For example, "Chunhua Yuanbao", there are three calligraphy styles of Zhen, Xing and Cao written by Emperor Taizong of Song Dynasty, that is, Yubi money.Since then, Qian Wen has used cursive script. Both the authentic script style in "Chongning Tongbao" and the characters in "Daguan Tongbao" were written by Huizong Zhao Ji, with silver hooks painted on iron, known as "thin gold style", which is fascinating.The nine-fold seal character "Huangsong Tongbao" cast during the Baoyuan period of Renzong (AD 1038-1040) is even more rare and has been discovered in China.From Renzong to Zhezong's four generations, Qian Wen calligraphy was written by famous masters, such as "Yuanyou Tongbao" Qian Wen, which was written by famous masters Sima Guang and Su Shi.The admiration, collection, appreciation, copying, and study of Qian Wen calligraphy of Song Qian have never stopped for hundreds of years.In the future, more excavations and in-depth research are needed.

Fifth, the color of Song coins is poor and the quality is low.When Song Yuan Tongbao was launched in the early Song Dynasty, Kaiyuan coins in the early Tang Dynasty were used as samples, and they were strictly kept unchanged.In fact, the quality and fineness of Song money cast in various places are not as good as Tang money, and it will go from bad to worse in the future, with a big difference.Kaiyuan coins in the early Tang Dynasty generally contained more than 83% copper.The best Song money, such as Taiping Tongbao, contains 65.98% copper, and Tianxi Tongbao contains 64.44% copper. After that, the proportion of copper in the coins of each generation gradually decreased.For example, the tin coins cast by Cai Jing, which contain 57.14% copper, will be used as two copper coins by the government, and the value will be depreciated by more than half.Nearly half of the money after Shaoxing (1131-1162 A.D.) was mixed.Such as Shaoxing Tongbao, the copper content is reduced to 54.48%.And the so-called big money such as three discounts, five discounts, and ten discounts is even more inconsistent with the name and reality, and the public weight loss and depreciation.For example, in Chongning (1102-1106 A.D.), the "Qian Gang Test Sample Method" was established, requiring that when ten coins are used for each coin (one thousand coins), more than nine catties and seven liang of copper, half of lead, and 1/3 of tin should be used. .During Renzong's time, it was stipulated that one thousand coins of Tongbao Xiaoping in the Emperor Song Dynasty weighed five catties, of which copper was three catties and ten taels, lead was one catty and eight taels, and tin was eight and ten taels.At the same time, Jianzhou copper coins increased by five taels of copper and reduced by five taels of lead.In this way, the copper content of Dangshi coins is only less than three times higher than that of Xiaoping coins, while the value of the coins is ten times larger.Another example is the weight of Song money, and the official cast money also varies in size and weight.For example, in Xiaoping money, the highest weight is 3.8 grams, including Tianxi, Zhenghe, Xuanhe and Santong coins; the second weight is 3.7 grams, including Huangsong Tongbao and Chunhua, Jingde, Tiansheng, Mingdao, Jingyou and other ingot coins ; again 3.6 grams, there are two coins of Zhiping and Xining.The following decreases, until Heqian weighs only 3.4 grams, Shengsong Yuanbao weighs 3.3 grams, and Chongning Tongbao weighs the lowest 3.25 grams.Among the folded coins, Xining Chongbao is 7.5 grams, and Jianyan Tongbao is 5.5-7 grams.Among the top ten coins, Chongning Chongbao is 11-12 grams, and Qingli Chongbao is 6.6-7 grams, which are similar to Zheer coins.In terms of the weight of the money, there is a big difference from the face value it represents.The two Song dynasties used this method of exchanging money for money many times to cover up the essence of the depreciation of their money and exploit the people from it.