Jiaozi | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chinese | 交子 | ||||||||||
|
Jiaozi (Chinese :交子) was a form of promissory note which appeared around the 11th century in the Sichuan capital of Chengdu,China. Numismatists regard it as the first paper money in history,a development of the Chinese Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE). Early Jiaozi notes did not have standard denominations but were denominated according to the needs of the purchaser and ranged from 500 wén to 5 guàn . The government office that issued these notes or the Jiaozi wu (Chinese :交子務) demanded a payment or exchange fee (Chinese :紙墨費) of 30 wén per guàn exchanged from coins to banknote. The Jiaozi were usually issued biannually. [1] In the region of Liang-Huai (Chinese :兩淮) these banknotes were referred to as Huaijiao (淮交) and were introduced in 1136 but their circulation stopped quickly after their introduction. Generally the lower the denominations of the Jiaozi the more popular they became,and as the government was initially unable to properly regulate their production,their existence eventually led to undesirably high rates of inflation.
To combat counterfeiting,jiaozi were stamped with multiple banknote seals. [2]
The Jiaozi was first used in present-day Sichuan by a private merchant enterprise. They were issued to replace the heavy coins (鐵錢) that circulated at the time. These early Jiaozi were issued in high denominations such as 1000 qiàn,which was equal to one thousand coins that of security. As denominations were not standard their nominal value was annually added by the issuing company. During the first 5 years of circulation there were no standard designs or limitations for the Jiaozi but after 5 years the sixteen largest Sichuanese merchant companies founded the Paper Note Bank (Jiaozi hu 交子戶,or Jiaozi bu 交子鋪) which standardised banknotes for them to eventually become a recognised form of currency by the local government with a standard exchange fee of 30 wén per string of cash in paper currency.
As bankruptcy plagued several merchant companies the government nationalised and managed the production of paper money and founded the Jiaozi wu (交子務) in 1023. The first series of standard government notes was issued in 1024 with denominations such as 1 guàn (貫,or 700 wén),1 mín (緡,or 1000 wén),up to 10 guàn. In 1039 only banknotes of 5 and 10 guàn were issued,and in 1068 a denomination of 1 guàn was introduced which became 40% of all circulating Jiaozi banknotes.
As these notes caused inflation Emperor Huizong decided in 1105 to replace the Jiaozi with a new form of banknote called the Qianyin (錢引). Despite this inflation kept growing and a nominal mín was only exchanged for a handful of cash coins. The root cause of this inflation was attributed to the fact that the Song government didn't back their paper money up with a sufficient number of coins. The Song decided to raise the amount of stocked coins,yet in vain as it did not curb the inflation. Despite there only being around seven hundred thousand iron cash coins in circulation around 3.780.000 mín of banknotes were in circulation which rose to 4.140.000 mín,while an additional 5,300,000 mín in banknotes were issued in 1204 at which point between 400 and as low as 100 cash coins were accepted per 1 mín (of paper currency with a face value of 1000 coins cash). Local governments such as the Sichuanese government had to sell off tax exemption certificates,silver,gold and titles of its offices because of the inflationary policies around paper money. One of the causes of inflation was the outflow of currency to the neighbouring Jin dynasty to the north,which is why iron cash coins were introduced in border regions. [3] [4] In 1192 the exchange rate between iron cash coins and Jiaozi banknotes was fixed at 770 wén per guàn by Emperor Guangzong,but inflation would still remain an issue despite these measures.
Despite the fact that all Jiaozi could be freely exchanged into cash coins their high denomination limited their use to large transactions. Rather than only being exchanged in coins,Jiaozi were often redeemed in Dudie certificates (度牒,a tax exemption certificate for Buddhist monks and nuns),silver,and gold. Eventually the Song government set an expiration date of 2 years for each Jiaozi,which in 1199 was raised to 3 years,after which they had to be either redeemed or replaced by newer series. The government officially restricted the amount of Jiaozi that could be in circulation to 1,255,340 mín,and were covered by only a fifth of that in copper cash coins. As these Jiaozi banknotes proved their usability private merchants began issuing their own notes in the north of the country and members of the military would receive their pay in paper money.
Long after being abolished the Jiaozi continued to circulate until in 1256 a currency reform replaced the leftover Jiaozi banknotes and remaining iron cash coins with the Huizi. [5]
King Yih of Zhou, personal name Ji Jian, was the seventh king of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty. Estimated dates of his reign are 899–892 BC or 899–873 BC.
The Huizi, issued in the year 1160, was the official banknote of the Chinese Southern Song dynasty. It has the highest amount of issuance among various banknote types during the Song dynasty. Huizi notes came on three-colour printed paper and their usage was heavily promoted by the government of the Southern Song dynasty, the Huizi were backed by 280,000 guàn of copper cash coins.
Flying cash, or Feipiao, was a type of paper negotiable instrument used during China's Tang dynasty invented by merchants but adopted by the state. Its name came from their ability to transfer cash across vast distances without physically transporting it. It is a precursor to true banknotes which appeared during the Song dynasty.
The cash or qian was a type of coin of China and East Asia, used from the 4th century BC until the 20th century AD, characterised by their round outer shape and a square center hole. Originally cast during the Warring States period, these coins continued to be used for the entirety of Imperial China. The last Chinese cash coins were cast in the first year of the Republic of China. Generally most cash coins were made from copper or bronze alloys, with iron, lead, and zinc coins occasionally used less often throughout Chinese history. Rare silver and gold cash coins were also produced. During most of their production, cash coins were cast, but during the late Qing dynasty, machine-struck cash coins began to be made. As the cash coins produced over Chinese history were similar, thousand year old cash coins produced during the Northern Song dynasty continued to circulate as valid currency well into the early twentieth century.
The Huang-Ming Zuxun were admonitions left by the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Chinese Ming dynasty, to his descendants. The text was composed in 1373 under the title Record of the Ancestor's Instructions; this was changed to Huang Ming Zu Xun during the publication of the 1395 edition.
The guanzi, was a Song dynasty era form of paper money that served as promissory notes that could be traded for goods and services where the seller that received these notes could go to an issuing agency and redeem the note for strings of coins at a small exchange fee. They were originally introduced as a form of payment to the military at which time the notes were known as jianqian guanzi (見錢關子), and circulated alongside the contemporary jiaozi and huizi notes. After 1190 the records stop mentioning guanzi notes until 1264, an indication that jiaozi and huizi notes had superseded the guanzi in importance. From 1264 new guanzi notes were introduced such as the copper backed tongqian guanzi (銅錢關子), the silver backed yinguan (銀關), and the gold backed jinyin jianqian guanzi (金銀見錢關子), which were all introduced to combat the inflationary policy that had plagued the Huizi. The exchange rate between guanzi banknotes and copper cash coins was 1 guàn for 770 wén while huizi notes of the eighteenth production period were valued at 3 guàn for 1 wén. Despite these exchange rates the new guanzi banknotes did not stop the inflation that had plagued the Southern Song dynasty during its waning years. In the modern era not a single guanzi note survived regardless of the fact that many of them produced during the Southern Song era, in the modern era only the printing plates that were used to produce guanzi notes still exist and of the ten printing plates created by the Song government a total six are owned by the Administration Institute of Cultural Relics of Dongzhi County, two guanzi printing plates are in a private collection, and two of the printing plates have yet to be found.
The Hongwu Tongbao was the first cash coin to bear the reign name of a reigning Ming dynasty Emperor bearing the reign title of the Hongwu Emperor. Hongwu Tongbao cash coins officially replaced the earlier Dazhong Tongbao coins, however the production of the latter did not cease after the Hongwu Tongbao was introduced. The government of the Ming dynasty placed a greater reliance on copper cash coins than the Yuan dynasty ever did, but despite this reliance a nationwide copper shortage caused the production of Hongwu Tongbao cash coins to cease several times eventually leading to their discontinuation in 1393 when they were completely phased out in favour of paper money. In the year 1393 there were a total of 325 furnaces in operation in all provincial mints of China which had an annual output of 189,000 strings of cash coins which was merely 3% of the average annual production during the Northern Song dynasty.
The Da Ming Baochao was a series of banknotes issued during the Ming dynasty in China. They were first issued in 1375 under the Hongwu Emperor. Although initially the Da Ming Baochao paper money was successful, the fact that it was a fiat currency and that the government largely stopped accepting these notes caused the people to lose faith in them as a valid currency causing the price of silver relative to paper money to increase. The negative experiences with inflation that the Ming dynasty had witnessed signaled the Manchus to not repeat this mistake until the first Chinese banknotes after almost 400 years were issued again in response to the Taiping Rebellion under the Qing dynasty's Xianfeng Emperor during the mid-19th century.
The coinage of the Southern Tang dynasty consisted mostly of bronze cash coins while the coinages of previous dynasties still circulated in the Southern Tang most of the cash coins issued during this period were cast in relation to these being valued as a multiple of them.
The paper money of the Qing dynasty was periodically used alongside a bimetallic coinage system of copper-alloy cash coins and silver sycees; paper money was used during different periods of Chinese history under the Qing dynasty, having acquired experiences from the prior Song, Jin, Yuan, and Ming dynasties which adopted paper money but where uncontrolled printing led to hyperinflation. During the youngest days of the Qing dynasty paper money was used but this was quickly abolished as the government sought not to repeat history for a fourth time; however, under the reign of the Xianfeng Emperor, due to several large wars and rebellions, the Qing government was forced to issue paper money again.
The Da-Qing Baochao refers to a series of Qing dynasty banknotes issued under the reign of the Xianfeng Emperor issued between the years 1853 and 1859. These banknotes were all denominated in wén and were usually introduced to the general market through the salaries of soldiers and government officials.
The Hubu Guanpiao is the name of two series of banknotes produced by the Qing dynasty, the first series was known as the Chaoguan (鈔官) and was introduced under the Shunzhi Emperor during the Qing conquest of the Ming dynasty but was quickly abandoned after this war ended, it was introduced amid residual ethnic Han resistance to the Manchu invaders. It was produced on a small scale, amounting to 120,000 strings of cash coins annually, and only lasted between 1651 and 1661. After the death of the Shunzhi Emperor in the year 1661, calls for resumption of banknote issuance weakened, although they never completely disappeared.
A string of cash coins refers to a historical Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Ryukyuan, and Vietnamese currency unit that was used as a superunit of the Chinese cash, Japanese mon, Korean mun, Ryukyuan mon, and Vietnamese văn currencies. The square hole in the middle of cash coins served to allow for them to be strung together in strings. The term would later also be used on banknotes and served there as a superunit of wén (文).
Qianzhuang were local independent Chinese banks in the early modern period, as distinguished from the nation-wide bank networks headquartered in Shanxi province called the "Shanxi banks". Also known by a variety of regional names, such as qiansi (錢肆), qianpu (錢鋪), yinhao (銀號), duihuan qianzhuang (兌換錢莊), qiandian (錢店), qianzhuo (錢桌), duidian (兌店), qianju (錢局), yinju (銀局), or yinpu (銀鋪) in Mandarin Chinese, and translated as money shops, native banks, private Chinese banks, or old-style banks in English, qianzhuang banks first sprung up during the Ming dynasty but greatly expanded during the Qing dynasty. Unlike the Shanxi banks, the qianzhuang tended to have much more risky business practices.
The Zhuangpiao, alternatively known as Yinqianpiao, Huipiao, Pingtie (憑帖), Duitie (兌帖), Shangtie (上帖), Hupingtie (壺瓶帖), or Qitie (期帖) in different contexts, refer to privately produced paper money made in China during the Qing dynasty and early Republic of China periods issued by small private banks known as qianzhuang. Other than banknotes qianzhuang also issued Tiexian.
Piaohao, also known as piaozhuang (票莊), huihao (匯號), or huiduizhuang (匯兌莊), in Mandarin Chinese, or Shanxi banks (山西票號) or Shansi banks in English, were a type of bank that existed in China during the Qing dynasty until approximately 1952.
The Da-Qing Tongbi, or the Tai-Ching-Ti-Kuo copper coin, refers to a series of copper machine-struck coins from the Qing dynasty produced from 1906 until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. These coins were intended to replace the earlier cast cash coins and provincial coinages, but were welcomed to mixed receptions.
Daqian are large-denomination cash coins produced in the Qing dynasty starting from 1853 until 1890. Large denomination cash coins were previously used in earlier Chinese dynasties and had faced similar issues as 19th-century Daqian. The term referred to cash coins with a denomination of 4 wén or higher.
Standard cash, or regulation cash coins, is a term used during the Ming and Qing dynasties of China to refer to standard issue copper-alloy cash coins produced in imperial Chinese mints according to weight and composition standards that were fixed by the imperial government. The term was first used for Hongwu Tongbao cash coins following the abolition of large denomination versions of this cash coin series.