"On Wrong Coin of Salt and Iron" and "Xia Hou takes Xuanbei", in Erlitou Site, Yanshi, Henan Province, not only cargo shells, but also stone shells and bone shells appeared, indicating that the value form of Xia Dynasty has changed from general value form to monetary value form.
Money has officially entered the economic life of China. Shells can be used as money, first, because they have their own use value, can be used as decorations, and are auspicious symbols; The second is the unit, which is convenient for counting; Third, it is durable and easy to carry and transfer. Shellfish is widely used as currency in the Central Plains and some coastal ethnic groups because of its hard-won and small quantity.
The Paleolithic Age, 50,000 years ago, was a period of barter, and money sprouted.
In the late Neolithic period, about 1000 to 4000 years ago, with the need of exchange, universal equivalent and physical currency gradually formed. Livestock, tortoise shells, leather, cloth, horns and farm tools all played early physical currency in different stages and regions due to different production and living conditions? The role of.
Extended data:
The development history of money:
Money is a special commodity that acts as a universal equivalent. In the Spring and Autumn Period, gold has already appeared as a currency, such as Zi Gong's "A Family's Daughter" and Yue Yi Fan Li's "Three Times in Nineteen Years", all of which show that gold has appeared as a measure of wealth and a universal equivalent. In addition, copper coins appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period.
Although gold and copper coins have appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period, it seems that they have not been widely used in real life. Mr. Li Jiannong counted the records in Zuo Zhuan: "Twenty-nine people were given, given, offered and hired, or decorated with utensils, or with chariots and horses, or jade, or silk and brocade, or made of clothes, but without money and knives";
"It is said that 14 robbers, or wheat, rice, millet, or wood, or jade, or practical weapons, or horses, or bells, are people who take money, not people who take money and knives." Therefore, the use of money in the Spring and Autumn Period cannot be overestimated.
During the Warring States period, currency was widely used due to the development of commodity economy, but it was in the period of combining metal currency, precious metal currency and physical currency. By the Warring States period, except for gold, copper coins were the common currency of all countries.
China's ancient monetary system was based on copper coins. The early forms of money have not yet been discovered. The original copper coins had various shapes, including knife coins, cloth coins and ant nose coins. After Qin Shihuang unified China, he ordered the national copper coins to be based on Qin copper coins.
Because the sand mold is used to pour copper coins, the cast copper coins have burrs, so there is a square hole in the middle, which is used to connect wooden sticks in series to polish and file. In addition to copper coins, cotton cloth, silk, rice and other daily necessities are also used as the unit of calculation of money (rather than actual money) to pay the salaries of bureaucrats and the army.
After the Tang Dynasty, silver currency gradually spread widely. Although the silver in the national treasury and the official treasury is cast into ingots according to the uniform color and weight for storage, the silver in circulation is not coins, but one by one. When it is used in the market, it has to go through complicated procedures such as calculating color and weighing.
There are many reasons why China doesn't use silver coins, but the main reason is that the government can't provide guarantee for the silver coins issued due to political instability, and at the same time, due to frequent wars, people often hoard silver, which leads to insufficient market circulation to support the silver-based monetary system.
In the highly developed Northern Song Dynasty, cross notes appeared. This is also one of the earliest paper money in the world. But it's more like a money order than paper money in the modern sense. The Yuan Dynasty established by Mongols followed paper money and regarded it as one of the wonderful ways to solve economic difficulties.
Regardless of the actual currency circulation and economic level, they issued a large number of unsecured paper money, which caused the earliest inflation. The Yuan Dynasty was replaced by the Ming Dynasty established by the Han people. Its founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang was a conservative agronomist. He thinks that paper money is foreign and should be discarded. However, the paper money issued by the Ming Dynasty itself is called "Daming Treasure Note". This kind of paper money is rarely used among the people.
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, silver began to flow into China in large quantities, becoming a metal currency as common as copper coins. In the Qing Dynasty, silver had become the main monetary unit in the country.
The current legal tender in Chinese mainland is RMB, which is issued by the State Bank, the People's Bank of China. The main currency of RMB is yuan, and the auxiliary currency is jiao and fen. A dollar is ten cents and a dime is ten cents. Paper money has yuan, jiao and fen, and coins have yuan, jiao and fen. The face value of yuan is 1, 2,5, 10 yuan, 20 yuan, 50 yuan, 100 yuan, the face value of corner is 1, 2,5, and the face value of cent is 1, 2,5.
Baidu encyclopedia-currency