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Two cash coins from the Northern Song Dynasty when the jaozi was introduced: a copper example and an iron one from the time of emperor Zhe Zong (1085-1100 A.D.). The background shows a reenactment of a Song Dynasty festival in Kaifeng. Courtesy of Peter Anthony.
By Peter Anthony - October 7, 2024
Original link: https://www.pcgs.com/news/a-thousand-years-of-folding-money
It’s an early July morning 1,000 years ago, or 1024 A.D., as we now call it. This is the season of Xiao Shu, or Minor Heat, but the sun already bakes the streets of China’s capital city Bianjing, day after day after day. Sweat runs down farmer Liu’s back. He and two farm hands are on foot. A pair of donkeys pulls their cart loaded with sacks of wheat up to an arched gate. The massive city walls before them cast a welcome shadow.
“Halt!” orders a voice. A soldier with arm outstretched, the palm of his gloved hand toward the farmer, strides directly at him. Others, spears at the ready, follow to search the cart and question Liu and his two helpers. Recently, the Jurchens, a northeastern people, attacked an imperial Song government mail carrier not far from here. Whispers of the Jurchen strike crawled through every crack and into every cranny of the capital like wind-blown smoke.
“Your business?” the soldier demands.
From a pouch the farmer pulls out and slowly unfolds a paper. It is a purchase document written in neat, flowing script by Prince Z’s pantry manager. Satisfied, the soldiers step aside to allow the trio to enter Bianjing through the blissfully cool passage.
Bianjing (on the site of the present-day city of Kaifeng) is a wondrous place. Although Liu doesn’t know it, this is the largest city in the world, with a million residents. The streets of the city are filled with people hurrying to and fro. He stares at a caravan of camels that hauls exotic treasures from who knows where? Moments later, an important person hidden from view inside a sedan is carried past the farmer by grunting servants.
Under its load of wheat sacks the farmer’s cart creaks like a living beast as it crawls forward. Kulis, or bitter-strength men with goods lashed to the ends of poles balanced across their shoulders, plod by the slow-moving group. Step by step past tea shops and within earshot of taverns they trudge. City women, shielded by umbrellas from the sun, sweep past the sweating country folk without a sideways glance.
The mules halt, Liu curses, the sky darkens and the air grows still. The road is too crowded to stop and cover the cart. It’s not the rainy season, yet, but wet grain may not be accepted if a thunderstorm catches them out in the open. Finally, the little party pushes its way forward and spots the famous Rainbow Bridge, a wonder of Song Dynasty engineering. The workers, each armed with a stout staff, flank the cargo. Fortune has smiled on them and there were no incidents on the road. The prince’s mansion is nearby.
Food production doubled in China during the Song Dynasty, and farmer Liu’s crop is excellent this year, even outstanding. Hearing of this, the household master of Prince Z promised a handsome price for the wheat. This would be a windfall for the budding rural land baron. His family owns the land they farm so the profit from the sale will add to their prosperity. With it, perhaps they can buy out the farmer next door?
The 60 millimeter-diameter copper medal was issued in 1988 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the modern Chinese currency, the Renminbi, or RMB. The medal illustrates examples of paper currency and coins issued by the People’s Republic of China. The coins displayed are a 1982 aluminum two fen that is 21 millimeters in diameter and weighs 1.05 grams, a 1981 copper-nickel one yuan that is 30 millimeters in diameter and weighs 9.30 grams, a 1982 brass two jiao that is 23 millimeters in diameter and weighs six grams, and a 1981 one brass jaio that is 20 millimeters in diameter and weighs 2.60 grams. Also seen is an arrangement of banknotes, seen clockwise as a 50 yuan fourth series banknote obverse that shows Hukou Falls on the Yellow River; a 2022 Winter Olympics 20 yuan banknote; the 50 yuan fourth series banknote reverse that shows an intellectual, a farmer, and a factory worker; a 2015 100 yuan aerospace commemorative banknote with an image of the Shenzhou Space Station; and a 1960 five yuan that shows a factory worker. Courtesy of Peter Anthony.
At Prince Z’s mansion the bill is paid with the new national paper money, Jiaozi (pronounced jiao like wow and zi like zeh). Issued by the national government of Emperor Song Renzong, these replace all privately issued paper notes that circulated before. The idea for notes that could be exchanged for coins originated centuries earlier in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.). Those were issued by merchants and called hequan. Envious of the accumulated wealth, the Tang government coerced the merchants to move their coins to the state treasury. The new official replacement paper notes were called feipiao, or “flying cash.” These were not strictly money, but deposit receipts.
A Proud History Lives on with Coins
A century or so later, during the early years of the Song Dynasty, businessmen in Sichuan Province began to issue similar deposit receipts, called jiaozi. Lighter, less bulky and easier to conceal than strings of coins, the jiaozi’s popularity spread throughout the province and then the country.
Initially, there was no standard design among issuers. Counterfeiters profited from the confusion. In response, 16 of the wealthiest Sichuanese businesses formed their own bank, Jiaozi hu, and began to print notes with six colors of ink. Secret marks were added to enhance security. As an aside, much modern currency uses a six-color printing process, plus added security features, too. The range of colors and shades that can be created with six inks is, for all practical purposes infinite, an indication of how sophisticated the thousand-year-old printing operation in Sichuan was.
That sophistication was built on centuries of experience. Printing was invented in China, also during the Tang Dynasty. The 1992-1996 Inventions and Discoveries of China coin series has two coins that recognize this: a 1995 50 Yuan half-ounce gold coin, of which 1,200 were minted and a 22-gram silver issue with a mintage of 15,000. Paper is another key to printing. The paper must be both durable and hard to last, as well as soft to absorb the ink. This is one more Chinese innovation that appears in the Inventions and Discoveries of China series of coins, this time on a 1992-dated 15-gram silver coin, of which 20,000 were struck.
The 2024 10 Yuan Millennium Anniversary of China’s Paper Money coin, containing 30 grams of silver. Its mintage is 20,000 and dimensions are 42 millimeters by 27.5 millimeters. It is seen alongside a modern print of a Song Dynasty jaozi banknote. Courtesy of Peter Anthony.
During the Song Dynasty moveable ceramic type was added to the printer’s toolbox by an artisan named Bi Sheng. While not practical for single pages because Chinese contained too many characters, it did catch on for book printing all over Asia. With the old method of carving a printing plate for each book page a single error would require starting over. With moveable type this was a quick fix. Centuries later, this innovation worked its way west to reach Europe. There, with a simpler alphabet, moveable type was a key to the development of the modern world. Bi Sheng’s brilliance is remembered on a 1988 silver coin weighing 22 grams that’s part of a four-coin set that honors outstanding historical figures of China.
So, what exactly did Song Dynasty paper notes look like? It’s a good question. The only ancient jiaozi that survives today is in tatters. Nor, can we reproduce it. All that exists are some single color printing plates. Samples have been pulled from these, but they can only give us a scant suggestion of the original’s appearance.
Jiaozi Hu bills were backed by real coinage and proved quite popular. They were lighter and safer to carry than hundreds, or even thousands, of copper and iron coins. Copper was scarce in ancient China, so the Song Dynasty cast many of its coins with the heavier metal, iron. It was long believed that these iron coins were mostly used in the South of China. However, the discovery in recent years of an immense buried cache of 100 tons of Song Dynasty iron coins in Northeast China suggests that they may have circulated more widely.
Jiaozi soon spread to other provinces. Eventually, the merchants who issued them realized that it wasn’t necessary to keep 100% of the coins deposited. They invented fractional banking and printed more “receipts” than there were coins on deposit. This led to what may have been the world’s first-ever bank run.
In 1024, the Song government stepped in and demonetized all the private bills. Their place was taken by a new national jaozi, the world’s first paper legal tender. Initially, these could be redeemed for coins, but this quickly changed into a purely paper system. Nothing but the credit and faith of the national government would back jaozi. Importantly, however, taxes could be paid with them. The first printing factory for the jaozi was set up in Chengdu, the capital city in Sichuan.
At first, there weren’t fixed denominations of jiaozi, so the prince secured a bundle of notes that added up to the total price of farmer Liu’s grain order. If there were any defects with the quality, or quantity, of the delivery his manager could impose deductions. As it happened, everything went smoothly. Mr. Liu happily took the notes and departed with his men, perhaps to first dawdle a bit in town and celebrate at one of the taverns.
Shown are two coins and a medal that commemorate the 70th anniversary of the modern Chinese currency, the Renminbi, or RMB. A 2018 80 yuan five gram gold coin with a mintage of 30,000 and diameter of 20 millimeters is seen alongside a five yuan, 15-gram silver coin measuring 33 millimeters in diameter and boasting a mintage of 60,000. A brass medal designed by Zhu Xihua, with just 2,018 minted, accompanies a three yuan second series Chinese banknote from 1955. Courtesy of Peter Anthony.
Just such a street scene appears on the obverse of a rectangularly shaped 2024 Chinese Millenium of Banknotes coin. It contains 150 grams of .999-fine gold. The design is based on a woodblock print that shows Chengdu in the Song Dynasty. It is the largest in a series of three coins that celebrate the millennial anniversary of the invention of paper money. Five hundred were minted. There is also a rectangular coin with eight grams of .999-fine gold coin with a mintage of 10,000 and a 30-gram, .999-fine silver coin, of which 20,000 were struck. Both feature designs that are based on the number 1024.
Leaving a Legacy
It’s morning in late June nearly 900 years ago, or 1126 A.D. as we now call it. This is the season of Xia Zhi, or the Summer Solstice, and the wheat crop has been harvested. Sweat runs down farmer Zhao’s back as his two mules pull a cart loaded with sacks of grain into Bianjing. Past tea shops and within earshot of taverns they advance. Although rumors fly that the Jurchen, or Jin, army may soon cross the Yellow River, the city remains calm. The army has kept them at bay for 150 years. It will do it once more. You might describe the situation as the lights are on, but nobody’s home.
The emperor, Song Huizong, is oblivious. He neglects military matters just as he imposes little oversight over imperial finances. A talented artist in his own right, the head of state occupies himself with the finest arts, antiques and the delights of the palace. Meanwhile, the jiaozi plummets in value.
Untethered to a reserve of physical coins, its value depends entirely on the number of banknotes in circulation. Importantly, overspending isn’t so much a bug as a feature of the Song government’s economic system. The royal family spends opulently on itself. There are also immense outlays to support religious institutions and vast numbers of economically unproductive monks. Beyond that there is the bureaucracy.
The Song family was the last dynasty in China to achieve power through a military coup d’etat. Its rulers don’t trust their own military to not repeat this type of regime change, so they deliberately undermine it in favor of a civil bureaucracy that mushrooms in size. Although the Song army benefits from advances like the discovery of gunpowder, over time they suffer important battlefield losses. Agreements are made to pay gold, silver and silk to outside enemies like the Jurchens. This places even more strain on the economy.
To fund the deficits the Song treasury prints money. In 1105 A.D., the jiaozi is replaced by a new currency called the qianyin. This change is supposed to stabilize the government’s finances, but the new money loses value as rapidly as the old did.
When farmer Zhao is finally paid for his grain, he receives so many qianyin they have to be stuffed into sacks that fill his cart. He will try to spend as much of this paper as he can immediately. On his shopping list are tools, farm supplies and maybe a few drinks for the road. The slow collapse of the Song currency foreshadows the capture and ravishing of the capital by the Jurchens in 1127. The conquerors establish a new dynasty, the Jin, but keep one notable feature: paper money. In fact, every dynasty that follows the Song uses paper money at some point.
As I wait in the lobby of a Shanghai bank, customers in front of me withdraw and deposit bundles of maroon-colored 100 yuan bills. These banknotes function pretty much as jiaozi did a millennium ago. In a digital age, will the system of paper bills still be used a thousand years from now? No one knows the answer to that, but it’s a very good bet that the beautiful 2024 Millenium of Banknotes gold and silver commemorative coins of China will still be prized. |
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发表于 2024-10-8 13:59:52
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