The Han dynasty coinage () system refers to the currency system of the Han dynasty, which ruled China from 202 BC until 9 AD, when it was overthrown by the Xin dynasty (see "Xin dynasty coinage"), and again from 25 AD until 220 AD. The most common coin used during the Han dynasty period was the bronze cash coin, while smaller quantities of gold coinages also circulated. During the reign of Emperor Wu in 119 BC a series silver-tin alloy coins was introduced, but due to both unforeseen inflationary effects and rampant counterfeiting it was withdrawn after circulating for only 4 years. The Han dynasty period saw an average annual production of 220,000,000 bronze cash coins minted (or 220,000 strings of 1,000 cash coins). The Han dynasty saw the introduction of the Wu Zhu (五銖) inscription on cash coins, which would be used for a total 736 years centuries after the end of the Han dynasty, until it was replaced by the Kaiyuan Tongbao (開元通寳) inscription in 621 AD during the Tang dynasty period.
During different periods, private coin production was permitted, while during other periods the government maintained a strict monopoly on the production of money. The quality of the coinage produced during the Han dynasty varies greatly partially due to these policies.
Overview
During the Warring States period (403–221 BC), the development of private commerce, new trade routes, handicraft industries, and a money economy led to the growth of new urban centers. These centers were markedly different from the older cities, which had merely served as power bases for the nobility.. The use of a standardised, nationwide currency during the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) facilitated long-distance trade between cities.. The Han dynasty would continue producing the cash coins of the Qin dynasty period and would sometimes enforce a state monopoly on the production of money and sometimes allow private persons to manufacture their own money according to government regulations. By this Western Han dynasty period, a full monetary economy had developed. Taxes, salaries, and fines were all paid in coins. An average of 220 million cash coins were produced a year.
In 119 BCE, the Ban Liang was replaced by the San Zhu (三銖, of weight approximately 2 g), and from 118 BCE, the Wu Zhu (五銖, around 3.25 g). Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). First issued in 118 BC, this inscription was used on cash coins of many regimes both inside and outside of China over the next 700 years. Sometimes Wu Zhu cash coins can be specifically dated from dated moulds that have been discovered, or from their find spots, but the majority of cash coins with this inscription cannot. The Wu Zhu cash coins of the Western Han Dynasty have a square top to the 朱 component of "Zhu" (銖) character; on later Wu Zhu coins, this character is rounded.
The usurper Wang Mang, who founded the Xin dynasty (9–23 CE), reformed the currency, re-introducing spade and knife coins. Towards the end of his reign, he introduced the Huo Quan (貨泉), a cash coin of similar form to the Ban Liang but usually weighing around 3 g, to replace the Western Han period Wu Zhu coinage. The Huo Quan continued in circulation into the restored Eastern Han Dynasty (c. 23–220 CE), but Wu Zhu cash coins continued as the main copper-alloy coinage until the end of the 6th century CE long after the fall of the Han dynasty.
During the Western Han period the granaries in both the cities and the countryside were full and the government treasuries were running over with wealth. The History of Han claims that Chang'an (present-day Xi'an, Shaanxi) had stacked up hundreds of millions of strings of cash coins until the cords that had bound them together had rotted away and these numerous cash coins could no longer be counted.
Merchants and peasant farmers paid property and poll taxes in cash coins and land taxes with a portion of their crop yield.. Peasants obtained coinage by working as hired labourers for rich landowners, in businesses like breweries or by selling agricultural goods and homemade wares at urban markets.. The Han government may have found collecting taxes in coin the easiest method because the transportation of taxed goods would have been unnecessary..
Cash coins became the common measure of wealth during Eastern Han dynasty period, as many wages were paid solely in cash coins.. Diwu Lun (第五倫) (fl. 40–85 AD), Governor of Shu Province (modern Sichuan), described his subordinate officials' wealth not in terms of landholdings, but in the form of aggregate properties worth approximately 10,000,000 cash coins.. Commercial transactions involving hundreds of thousands of cash coins were commonplace.
During the Western Han dynasty period, on average, millet costs about 75 cash coins and polished rice 140 cash coins per hectolitre, a horse 4,400-4,500 cash coins. A labourer could be hired for a monthly salary of 150 cash coins; a merchant could earn 2,000 cash coins a month.
Angus Maddison estimates that the country's gross domestic product was equivalent to $450 per head in 1990 United States dollars—a sum that was above subsistence level, and which did not significantly change until the beginning of the Song dynasty in the late 10th century.. Sinologist Joseph Needham has disputed this and claimed that China's GDP per capita exceeded Europe by substantial margins from the 5th century BCE onwards, holding that Han China was much wealthier than the contemporary Roman Empire. The widespread circulation of cash coins enriched many merchants, who invested their money in land and became wealthy landowners. The government's efforts to circulate cash had empowered the very social class which it actively tried to suppress through heavy taxes, fines, confiscations, and price regulation schemes.
Copper coinages
Ban Liang
"Elm seed" Ban Liang
During the early Western Han period, founding Emperor Gaozu (r. 202–195 BC) closed government mints in favour of coin currency produced by the private sector.Nishijima Sadao, "The Economic and Social History of Former Han," p. 586; in The Cambridge History of China: Volume 1, The Ch'in [Qin] and Han Empires, 221 B.C.–A.D. 220, edited by Denis Twichett and Michael Loewe, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.. During these early days of the Western Han dynasty period the Qin dynasty period Ban Liang (半兩) cash coins were considered to be too heavy and inconvenient to use, this is because of their large sizes and weights (about 8 grams), so the imperial government permitted the private production of Ban Liang cash coins. These small privately cast cash coins are popularly known as "elm seed Ban Liang coins" (榆莢半兩錢, Yú jiá bàn liǎng qián). While officially these cash coins still had the inscription "Ban Liang" (meaning half of a tael), the reduction in size from the Qin to the "elm seed" variant went from an average of around 8 gram to only slightly more than a single gram.《史記・平準書》引《古今注》雲:"榆莢錢重三銖". (in Classical Chinese). The heaviest "elm seed" Ban Liang cash coins had a weight of less than 2 grams, while the lightest of these coins weighed only about a quarter of a gram.漢書·卷二十四下·食貨志第四下 (in Classical Chinese). Despite their greatly reduced weights these "elm seed" Ban Liang cash coins the conventional inscription of the previous dynasty, making their nominal (stated) value much greater than their intrinsic value. The "elm seed" cash coins were described as being "so light that the wind could carry them away".
8 zhu Ban Liang
The tiny "elm seed" cash coins proved to be very disruptive to the economy, causing Gaozu's widow Empress Lü Zhi, as grand empress dowager, to issue an edict stipulating regulations that would create a new heavier bronze coin weighing 8 zhu (八銖半兩錢), approximately 4.8-5.3 grams.《漢書・高后紀》記載:"二年(公元前186年)秋七月,行八銖錢。" (in Classical Chinese). These new regulation Ban Liang cash coins had a diameter of around 26 to 30 millimeters and unlike the earlier Ban Liang cash coins had their inscriptions written in clerical script rather than in seal script. Empress Lü Zhi abolished private minting in 186 BC. She first issued a government-minted bronze coin weighing .
The 8 zhu Ban Liang cash coins were cast in the same bronze moulds that were used in the final years of the Warring States period and cannot really be distinguished from the original coins.Roger Wai-San DOO (杜維善), Banliang kao (半兩考), 2 volumes, Shanghaï (2000).François THIERRY, Monnaies chinoises, I L'Antiquité préimpériale, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (1997), pp. 165-167. For this reason, the 8 zhu Ban Liang cash coins of Empress Lü Zhi are often misattributed to the Warring States period.
Wu Fen Ban Liang
During the 6th year of the reign of Empress Lü (182 BC) she ordered a new standard government Ban Liang cash coin with an official weight of 2.4 zhu, or about .Luo Zhufeng (羅竹風), ed. (1986-1993). Hanyu da cidian 漢語大辭典 (Shanghai: Cishu chubanshe), Vol. 7, 1334; Vol. Fulu-Suoyin (附錄‧索引), 3-21. (in Mandarin Chinese). The reason for this change was that the 8 zhu coins were too expensive to continue producing. These 2.4 zhu Ban Liang cash coins are commonly referred to as "5 parts Ban Liang cash coins" (五分半兩錢, wǔ fēn bàn liǎng qián) because they were only one-fifth the size of an actual Qin period Ban Liang and typically only had a weight of around 1.5 grams.《漢書・高后紀》記載:"六年春,行五分錢。(in Classical Chinese). The change to the lighter coin caused widespread inflation.
Some variants of the wǔ fēn Ban Liang cash coins tend to have very broad outer rims, which includes their inscriptions protruding well above the surface of the square central hole.
To the ancient Chinese, these characteristics make the cash coin similar to the eyes of a snake,《中國錢幣大辭典秦漢編》說：「鑄於文帝前元五年至武帝元狩五年（前175—前118年）。面有邊，較寬，錢肉分高低二層，外邊肉高，近穿孔處低。文字外側壓於邊上。因其形似蛇眼，故稱『蛇目』」。 hence they are popularly referred to in China as "snake eye Ban Liang cash coins" (蛇目半兩錢, Shémù bàn liǎng qián).丁福保《古钱大辞典》上卷释文云："钱文面文拓视而阴阳半圆者曰蛇目"。(in Mandarin Chinese using Simplified Chinese characters). These "snake eye" coins typically have a diameter of around 23.4 millimeters and a weigh around 2.7 grams with the heaviest weighing 3.1 grams and the lightest 2.3 grams.《中国历代货币大系2 秦汉三国南北朝货币》收录12枚蛇目半两，各枚标有数据，钱径最大者23.57mm，最小者22.20mm，最重者3.1g，最轻者2.3g。但是对此种版式未加文字注释说明。(in Mandarin Chinese using Simplified Chinese characters).
The reign of Empress Lü Zhi also saw the issuance an edict prohibiting private citizens from producing money, meaning that that counterfeiting had run rampant. During the reign of Emperor Wen this prohibition on the private production of currency was abolished. Private mints were required to mint cash coins weighing exactly .
The legalisation wasn't universally accepted by everyone, as the former government official Jia Yi would argue against the reintroduction of competitive coinage, claiming that it would lead to debasement, and that a plethora of different types of privately minted cash coins would confuse the public resulting in the widespread manipulation of money exchanges.Jia Yi's commentary was preserved in the Hanshu (History of the Former Han) compiled by Ban Biao, Ban Gu, and Ban Zhao. It appeared in 111 A.D. See Scheidel, p. 8. Therefore, Jia Yi argued that the restoration of the state monopoly of money production and government control over the copper supply were preferable. His propositions were rejected by the Han government.
4 zhu Ban Liang
During the 5th year of the reign of Emperor Wen, the emperor ordered the creation of a new series of Ban Liang cash coins weighing 4 zhu. These 4 zhu Ban Liang cash coins (四銖半兩錢, Sì zhū bàn liǎng qián) typically are around 23 and 25 millimeters in diameters and weigh at most 3 grams. Private minting was legalised again, but private minters would now have adhere to strict government regulations on the weights and alloys of the coins.