The was the

currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general def ...

used in the

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yonaguni ...

. The Ryukyuan monetary system was based on that of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, like those of many nations in the

Sinosphere The East Asian cultural sphere, also known as the Sinosphere, the Sinic world, the Sinitic world, the Chinese cultural sphere, the Chinese character sphere encompasses multiple countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically ...

, with the ''mon'' () serving as the basic unit, just as with the Japanese '' mon'', Vietnamese '' văn'', and Korean '' mun''. Like Japan had also done for centuries, the Ryukyuans often made use of the already-existing Chinese

cash coins In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins. In bookkeeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-immed ...

when physical currency was needed. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Kingdoms of

Chūzan was one of three kingdoms which controlled Okinawa in the 14th century. Okinawa, previously controlled by a number of local chieftains or lords, loosely bound by a paramount chieftain or king of the entire island, split into these three more so ...

and

Ryukyu The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yonaguni ...

produced their own coinage, but eventually transitioned back to Japanese ''mon'' and Chinese '' wén''. Regardless of their origin, ''mon'' coins remained the de facto currency in the Ryukyu Kingdom throughout history up until 1879, when the kingdom was fully annexed by the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

and the currency was officially replaced by the

Japanese yen The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar (US$) and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the ...

. Even after the introduction of the yen, however, ''mon'' coins continued to circulate within

Okinawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city o ...

well into the 1880s, as the

Ryukyuans The Ryukyuan people ( ryu, 琉球民族 (るーちゅーみんずく), Ruuchuu minzuku or ryu, どぅーちゅーみんずく, Duuchuu minzuku, label=none, ja, 琉球民族/りゅうきゅうみんぞく, Ryūkyū minzoku, also Lewchewan or L ...

were initially unwilling to use Japanese yen coins. A second category of ''mon'' coins associated with the Ryukyu Kingdom are those bearing the name (琉球通寳 "Ryukyu Currency"), which were minted by the

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1602 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of Kagoshima, ...

, but were never actually used as regular currency in the Ryukyu Kingdom or Okinawa Prefecture. Instead, they were used as alternatives to the Japanese

Tenpō Tsūhō The Tenpō Tsūhō (Kyūjitai: /; Shinjitai: ) was an Edo period coin with a face value of 100 mon, originally cast in the 6th year of the Tenpō era (1835). The obverse of the coin reads "Tenpō" () a reference to the era this coin was designe ...

coin and intended to bolster Satsuma's economy with additional coinage.

Ryukyuan Coinage (14-15th century)

The first ''mon'' coin to be minted in the Ryukyus was the (中山通寳), said to have been cast by the

Kingdom of Chūzan Kingdom commonly refers to: * A monarchy ruled by a king or queen * Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy Kingdom may also refer to: Arts and media Television * ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...

sometime during the reign of King

Satto Satto (察度) (1321 – November 17, 1395) was King of Chūzan. He is the first ruler of Okinawa Island who was recorded by contemporary sources. His reign was marked by expansion and development of Chūzan's trade relations with other states, ...

( r. 1350–1395), before the unification of the island of Okinawa into the

Ryukyu Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom, Middle Chinese: , , Classical Chinese: (), Historical English names: ''Lew Chew'', ''Lewchew'', ''Luchu'', and ''Loochoo'', Historical French name: ''Liou-tchou'', Historical Dutch name: ''Lioe-kioe'' was a kingdom in the ...

in 1429. Only a dozen or so examples of this coin survive, and due to its scarcity, it is uncertain whether it was ever actually circulated. The first coins minted by the united

were (大世通寳) coins, produced in 1454 under King

Shō Taikyū was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the sixth ruler of the first Shō dynasty. His reign saw the construction of many Buddhist temples, the casting of the , and the battle between the lords Gosamaru and Amawari. Life and reign Shō Taikyū was t ...

. Soon following this were (世高通寳) coins, which were first minted in 1461 under the reign of King

Shō Toku was the son of Shō Taikyū and last king of the First Shō Dynasty. He came to power as a young man in a kingdom whose treasury had been depleted. He engaged in efforts to conquer islands between Ryukyu and Japan and took the Mitsudomoe, the sy ...

. Both of these coins were designed by first taking

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

(永樂通寳) coins, scraping off the characters , replacing them with either for Taise Tsūhō or for Sekō Tsūhō, and then using the result as a

mother coin Mother coins (), alternatively known as ''seed coins'' or ''matrix coins'', were coins used during the early stages of the casting process to produce Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Ryukyuan, and Vietnamese cash coins. As cash coins were produced u ...

. Because

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

shrinks when it cools, the Sekō Tsūhō was smaller than the Chinese Yongle Tongbao. The Sekō Tsūhō was originally cast to make up for a shortage of currency often attributed to reckless politics and high government expenditure, such as the expensive invasion of

Kikai Island is one of the Satsunan Islands, classed with the Amami archipelago between Kyūshū and Okinawa. The island, in area, has a population of approximately 7,657 persons. Administratively the island forms the town of Kikai, Kagoshima Prefectur ...

by King Shō Toku in the 1460s. After King Shō Toku was overthrown in a coup d'état, the

Second Shō Dynasty The was the last dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom from 1469 to 1879, ruled by the under the title of King of Chūzan. This family took the family name from the earlier rulers of the kingdom, the first Shō family, even though the new royal famil ...

rose to the throne. Under the dynasty's first king,

Shō En was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the founder of the Second Shō dynasty. Prior to becoming king, he was known as . Early life and rise to power Kanamaru was born into a family of peasant farmers on Izena Island,"Shō En." ''Okinawa rekishi jin ...

(r. 1469–1476), the last coin to be minted by the Ryukyu Kingdom, the (金圓世寳) was minted in 1470, albeit not in great amounts, as Ming dynasty coinage was more widely used. After this, the Ryukyu Kingdom stopped manufacturing their own mon coins and relied exclusively on imported Japanese '' mon'' and Chinese '' wén'' as the main currency of exchange. Below is a summary of the coins minted by the Kingdom of

and the Ryukyu Kingdom: Despite the small size of the Ryukyu Kingdom, Taise Tsūhō and Sekō Tsūhō coins are not uncommon,Cocolog 雑記＠史華�
「中山通宝」について。
(in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

) Published: 8 February 2013 Retrieved: 9 June 2017. and have been known to be regularly found on the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n islands of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

and

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

due to the international nature of these coins and the success of Ryukyuan maritime trade. Kin'en Yohō coins are considerably less common, and Chūzan Tsūhō coins are incredibly rare. Aside from the Chūzan Tsūhō coin, which is mentioned in 17th-century records, no official records exist of the production of these Ryukyuan coins, so it is sometimes taken into doubt that these coins were actually produced by the Ryukyu Kingdom.

Ryūkyū Tsūhō (from 1862)

Starting in 1862,

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

Shimazu Nariakira was a Japanese feudal lord (''daimyō'') of the Edo period, the 28th in the line of Shimazu clan lords of Satsuma Domain. He was renowned as an intelligent and wise lord, and was greatly interested in Western learning and technology. He was e ...

ordered for the production of coinage known as Ryūkyū Tsūhō (琉球通宝, "Ryukyu Currency"). As the name suggests, the coins were ostensibly meant for circulation within the

, which was a vassal of Satsuma Domain. However, the coins were never actually introduced in the Ryukyu Kingdom, which continued to use Japanese and Chinese

. Instead, the Ryūkyū Tsūhō coins were a means for Satsuma Domain to produce additional currency to combat its government deficit while circumventing the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

's restriction on minting currency like the

, which could only legally be produced at the Edo Mint. These efforts were successful, and the Ryūkyū Tsūhō entered wide circulation not only in Satsuma, but also in Japan's other provinces soon after their production. In total, around one million

ryō The was a gold currency unit in the shakkanhō system in pre- Meiji Japan. It was eventually replaced with a system based on the ''yen''. Origins The ''ryō'' was originally a unit of weight from China, the ''tael.'' It came into use in Japan ...

worth of Ryukyuan coins were minted from 1862 to 1865. The coins were released in two denominations, the first with a face value of 100 mon (

), and the second with a face value of of a shu (125 mon, ryō). As these coins were minted in Satsuma Domain, they bear the

mark Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fi ...

of the

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

character "sa" () stamped on their edge. On the 100-mon coin, this can be found on the left and right (long) edges, while on the half-shu coin, it can be found on the edge just above the character 寳 ''hō'' on the left side of the obverse.

100-Mon Coin

The 100-mon Ryūkyū Tsūhō was modeled after the official Japanese

() coin of the same denomination, being ellipse-shaped and having a square hole in its center. Its obverse has the words ''Ryūkyū Tsūhō'' (琉球通寳, "Ryukyu Currency"), and the reverse has ''tō hyaku'' (當百, "worth 100 on). The coin weighed 5 ''monme'' and 5 ''fun'' (equivalent to 20.6 grams), and it had dimensions of 49 mm by 32 mm. Like the Tenpō Tsūhō after which it was modeled, it was heavily debased when compared to 1-mon coins, being merely 6 to 7 times as heavy as a typical 1-mon coin. Despite its face value of 100 mon,

ordered that it would circulate at the value of 124 mon, which made it a profitable coin to manufacture.

Half-Shu Coin

The half- shu was circular with a square hole in the center. Its obverse has the words ''Ryūkyū Tsūhō'' (琉球通寳, "Ryukyu Currency"), and the reverse has ''han-ju'' (半朱, "half ''shu''"). The coin weighed approximately 8 ''monme'' (30 to 32 grams), and it had a diameter of 1 ''sun'' and 4 ''bu'' (equivalent to 43 mm). Like the 100-mon coin, it was heavily debased, being only 10 to 12 times as heavy as a typical 1-mon coin. Having a face value of one ''shu'', it was nominally equivalent to 125 mon, but the Satsuma Domain government ordered for it to circulate at the value of 248 mon. The ''shu'' () is a Japanese unit of measurement used with gold currency, indicating that the Satsuma government was trying to fix the exchange rate between the copper mon coins and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

currency such as the koban. Officially, the value of ''shu'' indicated a value of

(), though this conversion rate seems unlikely to have occurred in practice.

References

{{Japanese currency and coinage Ryukyu Kingdom Modern obsolete currencies Coins of Japan Cash coins

Ryukyuan Coinage (14-15th century)

Ryūkyū Tsūhō (from 1862)

100-Mon Coin

Half-Shu Coin

See also

References