Ji Tang

Just when Ji Song was waiting for news from the palace and rarely got up early in the morning to go to court, he found that things were not as simple as he thought.Looking at Li Chengqian talking eloquently above, sometimes like a storm, sometimes like a sunny wind, he suddenly understood something.

The matter of issuing additional gold and silver coins is not in the court, because the bad government of coins is no longer a one-time thing. It has changed over the years. In the end, only copper coins became the most widely accepted coins. This is not without reason.

As the saying goes, rare things are valuable, and the appearance of copper coins is inextricably linked to their rarity.

We all know that the earliest currency used was shells, which can be proved from the composition of Chinese characters.Among the Chinese characters that were basically finalized in the Shang Dynasty, all characters related to value, wealth, and transactions all have the radical "bei". The ancients had already used seashells as coins.

However, shells have great limitations as coins. They are not easy to save, carry and count, and are not easy to divide and unify.Therefore, with the development of social economy, people began to look for items more suitable as currency.And the one that was finally chosen was bronze.

It is harder, more durable, and easier to cast than pure copper.Bronze was widely used to make weapons, utensils, musical instruments and other items during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and became an important symbol of society at that time.

Bronze farm tools are one of the items with the most practical and circulation value in bronze culture.Not only can they improve agricultural production efficiency, they can also be exchanged as commodities.Therefore, during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, bronze agricultural tools gradually became a universal equivalent.

However, bronze farm tools also have inconveniences as currency. They come in different shapes and weights, making them difficult to store and carry.As a result, people began to imitate the shape and size of bronze farm tools and use bronze to cast currency specifically for exchange.This is what we call knife coins, cloth coins and round coins.

Knife coins are derived from bronze knives, which were shaped like daggers or daggers, with a thin blade and a thick handle.Knife coins first appeared in Qi and Yan during the Spring and Autumn Period, and later became popular in northern countries.Information such as place name or weight is often engraved on the knife coins.

Cloth coins were derived from shovel-shaped bronze farm tools, which were shaped like hoes or sickles, wider at the top and narrower at the bottom.Cloth coins first appeared in Chu and Wei during the Spring and Autumn Period, and later became popular in southern countries.Cloth coins are often engraved with patterns or patterns.

Wan coins are derived from spinning wheels or jade bis. They are shaped like discs or rings with a square hole in the middle.This is a copper coin with a square hole representing the square sky and the round earth. It is also called Tongbao in later generations. It is often engraved with the emperor's reign name and so on.

By this time, with the increase in population and the prosperity of commerce, the influence of the Central Plains Empire in the surrounding areas was increasing day by day.The use of copper is becoming more and more widespread, and everyone knows that there are not many copper mines in the Central Plains, and they are even barren.

During the Pre-Han Dynasty, the emergence of ironware slowly replaced copper's dominant position in production activities, and copper gradually evolved into the only attribute of coins, becoming the only metal used to complete the issuance of coins in the Central Plains.

Although copper coins have a long history and widespread circulation in ancient China, they also have some problems.

First, the value of copper coins is affected by the copper content and weight. If the court continues to reduce the weight of the currency or add impurities in order to save costs or cope with crises, it will lead to currency depreciation and inflation, damaging the country's credibility and people's livelihood.

Second, the number of copper coins is limited by bronze resources. If the country continues to increase the mining and import of copper mines in order to maintain the weight and purity of the currency, it will face the risk of resource depletion and coin loss.

Third, the circulation of copper coins is restricted by region and scale. If the country continues to expand the issuance and circulation of currency in order to promote the commodity economy and foreign trade, it will face transportation difficulties and calculation troubles.Therefore, in addition to copper coins, there were other items that were used as currency or to supplement the role of currency.For example, grain, silk, salt, tea, iron, etc.The most influential and representative one is silver.

The process of silver monetization is also the process of China being included in the international silver capital system controlled by the West.Therefore, if there is no corresponding silver reserve for the emergence of silver coins, if an accident occurs and the court does not have enough silver to meet market needs, what is the difference between silver and gold?
Don’t forget, there is a shortage of silver in the Central Plains, but there is no shortage in other places.

If other forces or countries see this loophole, within ten years, the money panic in the Datang market will become even more serious!

Three is gold.

In a sense, the emergence of gold is the product of the export of Central Plains culture and the integration of foreign cultures into the Central Plains. Its emergence represents that the Central Plains monetary system finally has a higher monetary system, that is, copper coins - gold.

Ji Song clearly understood that the Silver Age had not yet come. Although Yinzhou discovered it, silver was not known to too many people, and everyone was not used to the concept of using silver as a currency!

Gold is different. In the past, gold mainly came from remote areas such as the grasslands and the Western Regions. However, these areas had inconvenient transportation with the Central Plains, making it difficult to transport gold.Moreover, gold mining technology is not advanced enough to effectively utilize gold resources.As a result, gold production was very low, far from sufficient to meet the demand for currency.

Its beautiful color and rarity made it the royal family and nobles of the Central Plains who used it as sacrifices and tributes. It must be rare and of great value as a tribute to gods and top nobles, so gold gradually became precious. , rarity, symbol of wealth.

With the emergence of foreign trade in the Central Plains, either actively or passively, gold from the Western Regions and grasslands gradually flowed into the Central Plains.The people at the bottom will basically never use gold in their lives, but the situation is different for businessmen and nobles.

From the beginning, it came from the royal family’s rewards to the nobles, and the nobles’ offerings to the royal family.Gold is also gradually accepted by people, and merchants have formed a tradition of using copper coins for small coins and gold for large-scale commercial activities.

It’s not that I don’t want to use copper coins that everyone can accept, but that copper coins are too heavy.It's always a thousand coins, but if it's a one-time transaction of tens of thousands of coins, how much does it cost?

According to the money calculation of Zhenguan Tongbao of the Tang Dynasty, it is usually about six pounds and four taels, but what about ten thousand pounds?That’s sixty-four thousand jins.

So, what about one hundred thousand strings, one million strings, or ten million strings?
That's such a huge number. If we all use copper coins, we won't do anything else. Even road transportation will consume a lot of time and loss.

Just like you want to carry 6 kilograms to Lingnan, think about it, how many people are needed to transport more than [-] kilograms of things from Chang'an to Lingnan?How much consumption is required?
I'm afraid I won't be able to catch up with the profits I made every time I went back and forth. How can this be done?
Therefore, gold becomes their only choice!
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(End of this chapter)