Did You Hear That?

rachel.KG

By Peter Anthony


2025 Dragon 10 Yuan 1-oz Silver coin.

Long, long ago, at a time when lakes and rivers didn’t exist yet, a crowd clustered together in an open field. A white-haired woman cried aloud, “Heavenly Lord, rid us of this calamity, please save us!” Around her, fruits and cakes were placed on a makeshift altar. Smoke from incense sticks floated upward to smudge an impeccably blue sky. Not a cloud was in sight. After weeks of no rain, the soil was cracked and the crops withered. A gaunt ox watched the hubbub and abruptly bellowed, its voice added to the chorus.

In this era, only the constant rains sent by the Jade Emperor in Heaven sustained life. Lately, however, he was distracted by amusements and forgot about the people and their rain. Not even a drizzle fell onto the fields.


Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) gold coin. Courtesy of Peter Anthony.

A child wailed, and far away in the Eastern Sea, the Pearl Dragon heard it. “Come here!” it called to the three other dragons that lived in the ocean. The Long Dragon, Black Dragon, and Yellow Dragon swam over. “Did you hear that? Follow me!” and it leapt into the sky.

After a while, the Pearl Dragon pointed down. “See,” it exclaimed.

Yellow Dragon said, “Those people will die if there is no rain soon.”

“We must ask the Jade Emperor to send rain,” added Long Dragon.

Although the four wingless dragons knew they were not welcome, they nevertheless went to the Heavenly Palace of the Jade Emperor. He stopped his activity and stared at them crossly. “Did I invite you here?” he thundered.

Long Dragon bowed and murmured, “Your majesty, the land is dry and the people whither just like their crops. Please send rain.”

“Alright, go now, and I will send rain tomorrow,” the emperor responded. Then he turned back to his pleasures.

With much praise, the four dragons flew back to the Eastern Sea. But the next day came and went with no rain, and likewise the following days. The dragons knew that the emperor had deceived them. Then the Long Dragon spoke, “We are surrounded by water here. Let’s bring some to the people.”

“Yes, yes,” the others replied.

“But there will be trouble if the Jade Emperor learns of this,” observed Long Dragon.

“We cannot let the People perish!” the others responded. With that the dragons scooped up water in their mouths. They flew aloft and sprayed the water out so that soon clouds began to form. Eventually the whole world was covered by clouds and rain started to fall.


Clay pottery model of a Han Dynasty courtyard. Courtesy of Peter Anthony.

Water, rain, wind and storms are powers of nature that Chinese tradition accords to dragons. Beloved as powerful protectors and benefactors of humankind, the dragon was adopted as the imperial emblem of China during the reign of Liu Bang, the Han Dynasty founder who lived from 256 BC to 196 BC.

Liu had been born to a common family. An outspoken and charismatic man, after he rose to power and declared himself emperor, he needed a symbol that could validate his new status. According to legend, he asserted that his mother encountered a dragon while she slept beside a marsh. After this, she became pregnant with him. This conferred on Liu, who became known as Emperor Gaozu, a divine origin. In modern coinage, he is honored as a rider, arm raised on horseback, on a 1986 100 yuan, one-third ounce, .999-fine gold coin.


The Nine Dragon screen in Beihai Park, Beijing.

From the Han dynasty onward, the dragon appears on buildings, robes, and all manner of imperial decorated objects. Among the most famous depictions are a trio of walls, or screens, that portray nine dragons. Why nine? Because it is the largest single digit. The oldest of these walls is in the city of Datong. It was built for the mansion of a son of the first Ming Dynasty emperor who reigned from 1368-1398 AD. The mansion later burned down, but the Nine-Dragon wall somehow survived.

Another of these walls is in the Forbidden City, the imperial palace, in Beijing. The third is also in Beijing, this one in Beihai Park. It may be the most impressive of the three because it is a freestanding monument with nine dragons on each side. It was built in 1756 for the Qing Dynasty emperor, Qianlong.

Walls and robes were one thing and coins another. No dragon appeared on a Chinese coin until the late 19th century. Traditionally, coins in China were manufactured through a casting process. By the mid-1800s, as trade with foreign countries blossomed, silver coins from Mexico, England, the United States, and France poured into China. As these were not legal tender, merchants had to test and stamp them with a chop mark to certify the quality.


A model in the Shenyang Mint Museum of the 1896 Dragon Dollar minted in the city of Shenyang, then called Mukden.

Businesses demanded a home-grown silver coin. China’s answer was to import machinery from the West to strike a new silver Dragon Dollar. The first ones were minted in 1889 at the Kwangtung, or Canton, Mint in what is today Guangzhou. Their design features an imperial dragon similar to the one on the emperor’s robes. These Dragon Dollars contain 27.2 grams of 90% silver and are 38.1 millimeters in diameter, which are the same specifications as the most widely used foreign coins of the period.

When the Qing Dynasty was overthrown in 1911 and a republic was established, the Dragon motif was immediately abandoned. Seventy-seven years would pass before a dragon would again grace a Chinese coin – on the 1988 Year of the Dragon gold, platinum, and silver issues. Two years after that a set of Dragon- and Phoenix-themed coins was minted. Inspired by a painting, the auspicious pair represents female and male qualities in traditional Chinese culture. There are eight different Dragon and Phoenix coins that range from 20-ounce gold and 20-ounce silver coins down to coins containing just two grams of silver and a tiny one gram of gold.


The Great Wall of China.

Two years later, in 1992, a pair of Dragon and Horse coins were released. One is a 25-yuan gold coin that contains a quarter ounce of .999-fine gold. The other is a 20 yuan silver coin with two ounces of metal. After that, one more Dragon and Phoenix coin was released in 1994. It is a 10 yuan bimetallic coin that contains one-tenth ounce of gold surrounded by a 1/28-ounce silver ring.

After that, a curtain descended on dragon coin designs. For the next 31 years, the only instances in which a dragon appears on a Chinese coin are for Lunar New Year celebrations. So, collectors were electrified this year when word of a new annual series of silver dragon bullion coins spread. The new Dragon coins each contain one ounce of .999-fine silver. On the opposite side is a view of the Great Wall with dragon-like curves. All will be struck at the Shenzhen Guobao Mint.

The dragon design for 2025 is inspired by the Nine Dragon screen in Beihai Park. It is not an exact copy of any of the figures, but it captures the character and spirit of the mythic Chinese creature that has served the People with water, hope, and strength since ancient times.

This is China’s second series of bullion coins after the Panda. While the Panda series uses the metric weight system, the Dragon coins are measured in ounces, something that should please many international lovers of silver. Unlike the Panda, the only design change each year will be the date. Of the total 2 million mintage for 2025, 90% are said to be slated for export from China.

At the Dragon coins’ debut at the Singapore International Coin Fair, hundreds of would-be buyers waited for hours in a line that zigged and zagged dragon-like between dealers’ tables. People cheered and phones clicked as a young woman bought the first one. The show limit was one coin per person.

Besides the raw Dragon coins, there are also limited editions of coins sealed in a special card with a different design for each coin show location: Singapore (2,000), Hong Kong (3,000), Tokyo (3,000), and Oklahoma City (in August). As no raw coins were graded at the show, the 2,000 Singapore card coins may turn out to be the only ones specifically linked to the first release. The Tokyo coin card distribution was entirely online to promote the widest possible distribution. Successful entrants receive their cards at their addresses in Japan.


Two examples of the dragon motif on a 1906.

A local god had watched the dragons take the sea water and spread rain across the land. He reported what happened to the Jade Emperor. The enraged Emperor then sent his Heavenly army to arrest the four dragons. The hapless quartet were hauled up to the Palace. There, the Jade Emperor commanded, “Bury these four scoundrels for all time. Let everyone know what it means to defy me.”

So, the dragons were entombed beneath four peaks. In spite of all this, they did not recant their deeds. Instead, determined to continue to help the People, the dragons changed themselves into water, flowed out from beneath their prisons, and became four rivers that finally reached the sea. This is how China’s four great rivers formed: in the far north flows the Heilongjian (Black Dragon River), the central area has Huanghe (Yellow River), the Changjiang, or Yangtze (Long River) lies south of that, and in the far south runs the Zhujiang, or Pearl River, that reaches the sea around Shenzhen and Hong Kong.


Sichuan Province struck copper coin and on a Qing Dynasty imperial robe.

I stand on the bank of the Yellow River, Huanghe (Wong-he, as in her) in Gansu Province, and watch water swirl and hurtle by only a couple of yards away. It is swift as a mountain stream, but easily a half mile wide. More than a thousand miles downstream, it will reach the sea, but by then it will be tamer. Here, though, in a land that doesn’t get too much more rain than Los Angeles does, this huge river really feels like a living gift from a benevolent dragon. As so often happens in China, present and past are woven together: new silver coins and ancient tales.

Incidentally, the China Mint revived almost the exact physical specifications of the original Dragon Dollar in 1983: the 10 yuan proof silver Panda coins from 1983-1985 contain 27 grams of 90% silver and are 38.6 millimeters in diameter. Another coin that shares the same measurements is the 1986 5 Yuan. International Year of Peace silver coin. Happy collecting!

Original link: https://www.pcgs.com/news/did-you-hear-that

进击的巨人

故事不错，龙一直和行云布雨挂钩