Da Shu coinage
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The coinage of the Great Shu Kingdom (
Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
: 大蜀貨幣 / 大蜀起義軍鑄) is the earliest known coinage produced by a
peasant revolt This is a chronological list of conflicts in which peasants played a significant role. Background The history of peasant wars spans over two thousand years. A variety of factors fueled the emergence of the peasant revolt phenomenon, including: ...
in the
history of China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapte ...
, the revolt lasted from 993 until 995 and during this period a small number of
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 ...
were produced by the peasant rebellion using the
era names A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin ''regnum'' meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year o ...
of the rebel leader Li Shun.Li Shengquan (李盛铨) - ''Talking about the coin culture in Chengdu'' (谈谈成都的钱币文化) "Literature and History Magazine", Issue 1, 2000 (《文史杂志》2000年 第1期) - Chengdu Numismatic Society (成都市钱币学会). It was only with the strongest military efforts that the
Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
was able to suppress the rebellion and restore their rule over the Shu region. The coinage produced by the Da Shu Kingdom is often rather roughly produced and as the rebellion only lasted a few years not many cash coins were produced leading to them being extremely rare today. The first two inscriptions were produced for five months under King Li Shun while after his death the remaining rebels introduced a new inscription which was produced for a year until the rebellion was finally put down.


Background

Three decades after the
Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
was founded its government still had issues consolidating its power and rule over
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 ...
and didn't properly address the most important
social issues A social issue is a problem that affects many people within a society. It is a group of common problems in present-day society and ones that many people strive to solve. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's cont ...
that plagued the population. The
economy of the Song dynasty The economy of the Song dynasty (960–1279) in China was the wealthiest economy in the world during its time. The dynasty moved away from the top-down command economy of the Tang dynasty (618-907) and made extensive use of market mechanisms as n ...
was in a bad shape during this period and around the country peasants were forming their own armies to rebel against the government and started killing corrupt government officials. The largest of these peasant revolts was organised by
tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and northe ...
farmers and landless
tenant farmers A tenant farmer is a person (farmer or farmworker) who resides on land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management, ...
(旁戶, ''páng hù'') in the Shu region (蜀, the modern day province of
Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
) where these peasants were protesting exploitation by rich landowners of the
Sichuan Basin The Sichuan Basin (), formerly transliterated as the Szechwan Basin, sometimes called the Red Basin, is a lowland region in southwestern China. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides and is drained by the upper Yangtze River and its tributa ...
and the Song government's state monopoly on the purchasing of tea (均貧富, ''bó mǎi wù''), this monopoly prevented the tea farmers from obtaining a reasonable income to live off. Another contributing factor to the bad living conditions of the peasantry at the time was a severe
drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D.  Jiang, A.  Khan, W.  Pokam Mba, D.  Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...
that devastated the country while the Song dynasty was suffering heavy losses against both the Khitans and the
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. By the year 993 the number of participants of the uprising in Sichuan had reached several hundred thousand farmers. The revolt adopted the motto "equalise the income of the rich and poor" (均貧富, ''jūn pín fù'') and under the leadership of
Wang Xiaobo Wang Xiaobo () (May 13, 1952 – April 11, 1997) was a renowned contemporary Chinese novelist and essayist from Beijing. Life On May 13, 1952, Wang Xiaobo was born in a family of intellectuals in Beijing. From 1968 to 1970, he was transfe ...
(王小波) were able to beat the government's military forces stationed in Sichuan and after taking over state granaries distributed the grain that was present among themselves. After Wang Xiaobo was killed in action, his brother-in-law Li Shun (李顺) took over his position and managed to take the city of
Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...
. After this victory Li Shun crowned himself as the "King of Great Shu" (大蜀王, ''dà shǔ wáng'') in the year 994 and proclaimed the period title of "Yingyun" (應運, ''yìng yùn'').


History

From the year 994 Li Shun began the production of both
bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
and
iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...
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 ...
with the legends Yingyun Tongbao (應運通寶) and Yingyun Yuanbao (應運元寶), these inscriptions are read in a
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manner (旋讀, ''xuán dú'') and the type of Chinese calligraphy used on them is Bafen script (八分書, ''bā fēn shū'') which is a conservative type of clerical script (隸書, ''lì shū''). These cash coins notably resemble the older cash coins produced by the kingdoms of Former Shu and Later Shu during the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (), from 907 to 979, was an era of political upheaval and division in 10th-century Imperial China. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen conc ...
, both of these states were situated in the same region as the Da Shu Kingdom and shared the same capital city. However, as Li Shun was killed and as he only ruled over the newly proclaimed Kingdom of Da Shu for five months his former subordinates began casting both bronze and iron cash coins with the legend Yinggan Tongbao (應感通寶) after his death. These cash coins continued to be produced for around a year until the uprising was finally suppressed by the forces of the Song dynasty in the year 995. The workmanship of the casting techniques used to produce Da Shu coinage is relatively rough, the reverse sides of these cash coins is usually flat and blank, and the colour of copper-alloy coins tend to be whitish. All Da Shu cash coins are cast in the size of the 1 '' wén'' denomination (小平錢). As the logistics of transporting the coinage across the Shu region proved troublesome and as Li Shun barely held much territory outside of Chengdu these cash coins only circulated in a very small area.


List of cash coins issued by the Da Shu Kingdom

List of cash coins issued by the Great Shu Kingdom:


Surviving specimens

As the cash coins of the Da Shu Kingdom weren't produced in great numbers and not many of them have survived, they are extremely rare today and are listed among "China’s 50 Rarest Ancient Coins" (歷代古錢五十珍, ''lì dài gǔ qián wǔ shí zhēn''). A number of them are on display in various
museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
s in China or are in the hands of private collectors. In the year 2015 a Yinggan Tongbao cash coin with a diameter of 23.7 millimeters sold for $ 54,000 ( ¥ 368,000) at an auction in China. The private coin collector Sun Ding (孫鼎) donated a Yingyun Yuanbao to the
Shanghai Museum The Shanghai Museum is a museum of ancient Chinese art, situated on the People's Square in the Huangpu District, Shanghai, Huangpu District of Shanghai, China. Rebuilt at its current location in 1996, it is considered one of China's first world-c ...
in the twentieth century, this cash coin is reportedly made from bronze and has a weight of 2.9 grams. Another bronze Yingyun Yuanbao cash coin is the possession of the National Museum of China this particular coin has a diameter of 23 millimeters, however unlike the one in the Shanghai Museum this one weighs 3.9 grams. Unique to this coin is that unlike other cash coins produced by the Da Shu regime is that this coin has a dot (星, "star") and a crescent (月, "moon") on its reverse side (月孕星版, ''yuè yùn xīng bǎn'') which are similar to the symbols found on other cash coins as well as Chinese charms and amulets. This was long thought to be the only Da Shu coin with these symbols but in January 2016 a Yingyun Tongbao cash coin was excavated in
Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...
that also featured a dot and crescent on its reverse, but as this particular cash coin is 26 millimeters in diameter it's actually believed to be a "pattern coin" or "trial coin" (試樣, ''shì yàng'') or perhaps 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 us ...
" (鐵母, ''tiě mǔ''). Additionally the National Museum of China is in possession of an iron Yingyun Tongbao that has the same diameter but weighs 3.7 grams as its composed of different metal, and a bronze Yinggan Tongbao with a diameter of 23 millimeters that weighs 3.2 grams. National Museum of China
应感通宝 - 点击图片查看大图 - 宋 - 北宋 - 直径2.3厘米,重3.2克
。Retrieved: 17 September 2018. (in
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
written in
Simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one o ...
)
The Sichuan Museum is in possession of an iron Yinggan Tongbao cash coin with a diameter of 23 millimeters.


See also

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Southern Song dynasty coinage The Southern Song dynasty refers to an era of the Song dynasty after Kaifeng was captured by the Jurchen Jin dynasty in 1127. The government of the Song was forced to establish a new capital city at Lin'an (present day Hangzhou) which wasn't n ...


References


Sources

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External links


Images of Da Shu and other Northern Song dynasty era rebel coinages
(Zeno Oriental Coins Database). {{Chinese currency and coinage Coins of China Cash coins Currencies of China Chinese numismatics