Standard cash (; Manchu: ; Möllendorff: Durun i jiha), 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.
Terminology
The term "Zhiqian" was used to discern full-valued cash coins produced by the imperial government from older ones from the Song dynasty period, which were known as jiuqian (舊錢), and privately produced forgeries of non-standard weights and alloys that were referred to as siqian (私錢) or sizhuqian (私鑄錢).
Other terms used during the Ming dynasty for various types of cash coins include (样錢, "Model coin"), also known as Beiqian (北錢, "Northern coin"), which referred to full weight (1 qián) and fine quality cash coins had were delivered to Beijing as seigniorage revenue. Fengqian (俸錢, "Stipend coin") which referred to second rate cash coins that had a weight of 0.9 qián and were distributed through the salaries of government officials and emoluments. and Shangqian (賞錢, "Tip money") which is a term used to refer to cash coins that were small, thin, and very fragile (comparable to Sizhuqian) that were used to pay the wages of employees of the imperial government (including the mint workers themselves) and was one of the most commonly circulating types of cash coins during the Ming dynasty among the general population.
Design
The design of the standard Chinese cash coin was round, while it had a square centre hole that allowed them to be strung together. The inner rim as well as the outer rim of the cash coin was slightly elevated, and on the obverse side of the coin was the era name (or reign motto) of the reigning emperor, during the Ming dynasty the reverse side of their cash coins tended to be blank, while Qing dynasty period cash coins often contained mint marks.
Ming dynasty
In the year 1361 the Ming dynasty established its first imperial mint Baoyuanju (寶源局) in the capital city of Yingtian, by Zhu Yuanzhang who at the time ruled under the title of "Prince of Wu" and created the mint before the Mongol Yuan dynasty was driven out of China. The first cash coins produced by the Baoyuanju had the inscription Dazhong Tongbao (大中通寶), these new cash coins continued circulating and co-existing next to older cash coins. Following the Ming conquest of all of China the Ming government started establishing provincial mints, known as Baoquanju (寶泉局). These new cash coins had the inscription Hongwu Tongbao (洪武通寶). The government of the Ming dynasty then made the private production of cash coins illegal. These early Hongwu Tongbao cash coins were issued in multiple denominations. However, after only four years, the denominations larger than 1 wén and the Dazhong Tongbao were abolished.
The government of the Ming dynasty attempted to collect all older cash coins and to recast them into 1 wén coins with a weight of 1 qián (which is about 3.7 grams in the metric system).
While standard 1 wén cash coins with the inscriptions Yongle Tongbao (永樂通寶), Xuande Tongbao (宣德通寶), and Hongzhi Tongbao (弘治通寶) were produced, the government of the Ming dynasty had a preference for making and receiving payments in Great Ming Treasure Note paper notes and privately issued banknotes.
The composition of the Yongle Tongbao was generally 63–90% copper (Cu), 10–25% lead (Pb), 6–9% tin (Sn), and 0.04–0.18% zinc (Zn)."An Investigation of the Using of Brass in Casting Coins in Ancient China" (我国古代黄铜铸钱考略) included in "A Collection of Chinese Numismatic Theses" (中国钱币论文集) published in 1992. The Yongle Tongbao cash coins were notably not manufactured for the internal Chinese market where silver coinage and paper money would continue to dominate, but were in fact produced to help stimulate international trade as Chinese cash coins were used as a common form of currency throughout South, Southeast, and East Asia.
In the year 1433, due to the devaluation of the Great Ming Treasure Note banknotes, the government of the Ming dynasty resumed the casting of cash coins again. The casting of these new Xuande Tongbao cash coins was divided between the two Ministry of Public Works mints in both capital cities. Furthermore, Xuande Tongbao cash coins were also produced at the branch mints in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong. The official production of cash coins ceased once again for seven decades in 1435 and the private production of copper-alloy cash coins would once again become commonplace.
Despite the government preferring paper money over copper-alloy cash coins, the Chinese market had a high demand for them. This demand would stimulate an overproduction of forgeries that inundated the markets of Ming China. Often these forged cash coins were cast in such miserable quality that a single real Zhiqian could buy 300 fake ones. Consequently, this caused inflation in many different places.
In the year 1503 under the Hongzhi Emperor the production of cash coins was resumed and the Zhiqian were given a standard weight of 1.2 qián, the government stipulated that for each catty of pure copper two taels of haoyin (好鍚, "superior tin") was to be added to the alloy of these coins. As the government of the Ming dynasty had closed its coin mints for such a long period of time, the government was forced to pardon illegal producers and hire them as mint workers.
Under the reign of the Jiajing Emperor the government of the Ming dynasty would alleviate the situation by producing a large amount of Zhiqian with the inscription Jiajing Tongbao (嘉靖通寶) in the year Jiajing 5 (1527). In the year Jiajing 11 (1553) the government of the Ming dynasty cast 10,000,000 additional Jiajing Tongbao cash coins and allegedly as well as Zhiqian with 9 earlier reign era names, a total amount of 1,000,000 dìng (錠). Because of the possibility that under the Jiajing Emperor cash coins were produced with earlier reign titles the attribution of some earlier cash coins is still disputed among modern scholars. However, Schjöth noted that the proposal to also cast 95,000,000 strings of these 9 earlier reign titles might not have actually been adopted and that these cash coins were local and Japanese forgeries. The standard weight of Jiajing Tongbao was 1.2 qián.
In the year 1570 during the reign of the Longqing Emperor cash coins with a weight of 1.3 qián were once again cast until the death of the emperor in 1572.
In the spring of 1572, the Ming dynasty government once again resumed the production of standard cash coins at the Beijing and Nanjing mints. It did not take long for the mints to be opened in Yunnan, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Huguang, these Zhiqian all weighed 1.3 qián. The alloy of the Wanli Tongbao (萬曆通寶) cash coins was set at 93.8% brass and 6.2% tin. The rising price of copper, lack of skilled mint workers, and poor distribution from the government mints all contributed to the failure of the Wanli Tongbao cash coins by the year 1579. The first provincial mint to close was that of Yunnan in the year 1580 which was quickly followed by most provincial mints in 1582. The only successful provincial mints were of Huguang, where three different local mints cast their own cash coins that did not conform to the Zhiqian standards.
In the year 1599 the Wanli administration made another attempt at the restoration of cash coinage, during this attempt the Ministry of Public Works opened up a second mint in the city of Nanjing, this increased the number of furnaces from 60 to 250. Proposals for the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue and River Transport Intendancy to establish new mints in the city were also accepted. The Ever Normal Granary mint was established during this period with 250 furnaces. The city of Nanjing was quickly awash with a glut of coinage, which caused the production of cash coins in the year 1606 to be scaled back to an annual production of 15,000 strings with some government mints being closed.
In the early 17th century, an increase in the price of copper caused the government to reduce the amount of copper in the composition of the Zhiqian in favour of lead. Cash coins with the inscriptions Tianqi Tongbao (天啟通寶) and Chongzhen Tongbao (崇禎通寶) were of poorer quality than those producing during preceding periods, these cash coins tended to be both thin and bristle, due to the reduced amount of copper in their composition. Chinese people at this point started to refrain from using copper-alloy cash coins and the markets preferred the usage of silver ingots instead.
In the year 1622 the Ministry of Revenue established its own mint in Beijing. This was done to help finance the continued rising cost of fighting the Manchu invasions. The Ministry of Revenue also established a number of branch mints in Nanjing, but the rivalry between the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Public Works prevented the Ming dynasty from adopting an effective monetary policy. By the year 1623 there were five different concurrent government mints operating in the city of Nanjing, two of which were run by the Ministry of Public Works, two by the Ministry of Revenue, and one by the Nanjing municipal government.
The melting down of copper artifacts which were of great historical and religious significance upset a number Conservative government officials, which further added to the already poor reputation of the Tianqi Tongbao cash coins.
Some Chongzhen Tongbao cash coins were produced with the denomination 2 wén and Chongzhen Tongbao cash coins produced by the Ministry of Public Work mint had the mint mark "工" (Gong) inscribed to its reverse.
The standard Chongzhen Tongbao cash coins initially weighed 1.3 qián, but by 1630 cash coins produced in the north had a weight of 1 qián and those in the south at most 8 fēn.
Qing dynasty
Prior to the Manchu conquest of China, the Later Jin dynasty already produced its own cash coins with the inscriptions Abkai fulingga han jiha (), Tianming Tongbao (天命通寶), and Sure han ni jiha ().
During the Qing dynasty period, the Chinese monetary system was a bimetallic system where both copper-alloy cash coins and silver circulated simultaneously. The copper-alloy currency during most of the Qing dynasty period consisted solely of cash coins with a denomination of 1 wén, which could be strung together into strings of 1,000 cash coins for larger payments. While strings officially consisted of 1,000 cash coins, normally it would contain only around 980 copper-alloy cash coins.Kuroda, "The Collapse of the Chinese Imperial Monetary System". Page = 103. Because all copper-alloy cash coins of the Qing dynasty had both uniform shapes and weights, the denomination of the cash coins were not written down anywhere on the coins themselves. This was because for most of their history, a cash coin was always valued at 1 wén and payments were processed by counting the number of cash coins. The government of the Qing dynasty monopolised the production of copper-alloy cash coins, which constituted less than 20% of the total money circulating in China at the time, as well as the mining of copper, while the government allowed for the market to determine the price of silver.