Essay on the development history of ancient Chinese currency?

China is one of the first countries in the world to use currency, with a history of using currency as long as five thousand years.

In the process of its formation and development, ancient Chinese currency has experienced six major evolutions: 1. The evolution from natural currency to artificial currency. Among Chinese characters, most of the words related to value are derived from "Bei".

It can be seen that Bei is the earliest currency in our country.

With the rapid development of commodity exchange, the demand for currency is increasing, and seashells can no longer meet people's needs, so people began to use copper to imitate seashells.

The emergence of copper shells is a major evolution from natural currency to artificial currency in the history of ancient Chinese currency.

With the extensive use of artificial coins, natural currency such as seashells has slowly withdrawn from China's currency stage.

2. The evolution from complex shapes to standardized shapes. From the appearance of copper shells in the Shang Dynasty to the Warring States period, my country's currency gradually formed four major systems characterized by the dominance of feudal lords, namely: shovel coins, knife coins, ring coins, and Chu coins. Coins (Yuanjin, antbiqian).

After Qin unified China, Qin Shihuang promulgated China's earliest currency law in 210 BC, "using Qin coins to unify the world's coins", which stipulated that Qin's half-liang coins with round square holes should be used throughout the country.

The circulation of Qin Banliang coins with round square holes throughout the country ended the chaos of ancient Chinese currency with different shapes and weights. It was a major evolution in the history of ancient Chinese currency from complex shapes to standardized shapes.

The round square hole shape established by Qin Banliang Coin was continued until the early Republic of China.

3. The evolution from local coinage to central coinage According to the "Book of Han·Shihuo Zhi", after Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty, he allowed the people to mint coins privately.

The wealthy gentry, wealthy businessmen and local forces took the opportunity to mint bad money and make profits.

During the reign of Emperor Wen, "Deng Tong, a doctor, was able to make more money than the king." In the fourth year of Yuanding (115 BC), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty took back the coinage rights of the county and the central government unified the minting of five baht coins.

From then on, it was determined that the central government would have unified management of coin casting and issuance. This was a major evolution in the history of ancient Chinese currency from local coinage to central coinage.

Since then, the mintage of all dynasties has been directly managed by the central government.

The return of minting power to the central government played an important role in stabilizing the political situation and economic development of each dynasty.

4. The evolution from document weight to Tongbao and Yuanbao. Coins minted since the Qin and Han Dynasties usually clearly indicate the weight of the money in the money writing, such as "half a tael", "five baht", "four baht", etc. (24

Baht is one tael).

In the fourth year of Wude (621), Emperor Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan was determined to reform the currency system, abolish ancient coins of different weights, and use the meaning of "opening up a new era" to uniformly cast "Kaiyuan Tongbao" coins.

Kaiyuan Tongbao is a departure from the old system of Qin and Han Dynasties. The money does not have weight written on it. It is the evolution of ancient Chinese currency from written weight to Tongbao and Yuanbao.

Kaiyuan Tongbao coin is the earliest Tongbao coin in my country.

Since then, our country's copper coins no longer use money to mark the weight, but are commensurate with Tongbao and Yuanbao. This has been used until the "Republic of China Tongbao" after the Revolution of 1911.

5. The evolution from metal currency to paper currency Jiaozi During the Northern Song Dynasty, due to the shortage of copper materials for making coins, the government minted iron coins in large quantities in some areas to make up for the shortage of copper coins.

According to the "History of the Song Dynasty", the iron coins cast in Sichuan at that time always weighed twenty-five pounds and eight taels.

To buy a piece of silk fabric in Sichuan, you have to pay 130 kilograms of iron money.

Iron money was so cumbersome and inconvenient that paper money came into being in Sichuan.

The emergence of Jiaozi was an important evolution from metal currency to paper currency in the history of ancient Chinese currency.

Jiaozi is not only the earliest banknote in my country, but also the earliest banknote in the world.

6. The evolution from manual coinage to machine-made banknotes. In the late Qing Dynasty, with the gradual introduction of foreign advanced science and technology, during the Guangxu period, coinage machines began to be purchased abroad for the production of silver and copper coins.

Later, Guangdong began to use machines to make non-holes worth ten copper yuan.

Because manufacturers reaped huge profits, provinces followed suit.

The emergence of machine-made currency in the late Qing Dynasty was a major evolution from hand-minted coins to machine-made currency in the history of ancient Chinese currency.