The development history of coins in China

In the process of its formation and development, China ancient currency experienced five extremely significant changes: from natural currency to artificial currency, from disordered form to unified form, from local currency to central currency, from document weight to Bao Tong and ingots, and from metal currency to paper money.

From the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States Period, China established four currency systems: cloth currency, knife currency, ant nose currency and ring currency. Later, after Qin, Tang, Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, until 1948 12 1, the People's Bank of China was established and issued the first set of RMB.

Extended data:

Monetary system:

From the Spring and Autumn Period to the metal coinage stage to the Warring States Period, four major currency systems, namely cloth coins, knife coins, ant nose coins and ring coins, were established successively.

Cloth coin:

1 year, the royal families of Zhao, Han, Wei and Zhou, and cloth coins were mainly popular. The cloth coins in the Spring and Autumn Period were mainly hollow cloth, that is, hollow coins with handles. In the Warring States period, the cloth coins were mainly flat cloth, that is, compared with the "short cloth", there was no hollow needle with handle, which looked like shovel-shaped copper pieces.

Cloth coins are roughly divided into flat shoulders, shrugs, round shoulders and square feet, pointed feet, round feet and other categories. Generally, it evolved from plain cloth or square ruler with flat shoulders to pointed ruler cloth and round shoulders in round feet, and later extended to Chu and Yan States.

Knife coin:

2. Qi and Yan in the north mainly use knife coins. Knife coins are divided into "Yan Ming Dao" and "Qi Dao Hua". The shape of knife coins is similar to that used by northern nomadic people such as Shanrong and Beidi. Because the face of the knife has the word "Hua", it is called "Dao".

Ring currency:

3. Qin used ring coins alone, and its shape evolved from spinning wheel or jade wall. There are two kinds of ring coins: round hole and square hole. During the Warring States Period, round holes were cast earlier, and Wang Huiwen and Qin Shihuang in the late Qin Dynasty cast "half-liang" coins with round holes. Circular money is the original state of square hole money.

Ant nose money:

4. The copper shell of Chu coins is called ant nose money, which evolved from shell coins. Qian Wen, a copper shell, looks like a grimace, which is a combination of two characters. An ant's small nose means small money. Chu has bronze shell coins commonly known as "face money" and "ant nose money". In addition to ant nose money, Chu also has gold as the weighing currency, which is the only country in the Warring States period that used gold as the currency.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Currency History