Qianqian
Lead cash coins are a type of Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese cash coin that were produced at various times during the monetary history of imperial China, Japan, and Vietnam. Typically cash coins produced in China between 300 BC and 1505 AD were made of bronze and those produced after 1505 AD were made of brass. But, like with iron cash coins, at times when copper was scarce government authorities would produce lead cash coins to supplement the money supply and maintain market liquidity.
The production of lead cash coins predominantly happened in regions where large quantities of lead were mined, namely southern China and the Tōhoku region in northern Honshu.
China is the first country in the world to issue lead coins, though when the first lead coins were produced remains controversial as it is commonly believed that the first lead coins in the world were the small Kaiyuan Tongbao cash coins produced during the reign of King Wang Shenzhi of the Min Kingdom in 916. However, some claim that the production of lead coins was actually started a millennium earlier during the Zhou dynasty period. It is therefore taken that 916 is the earliest use of lead for the regular production of cash coins, while the lead Yi Hua coins from the State of Yan, ant-nose money from the State of Chu, and Ban Liang cash coins dating from the Qin to the Western Han dynasties are in fact irregular uses.
Lead cash coins were also produced in what is today Indonesia by groups of Overseas Chinese living in the archipelago. The production of lead cash coins in Indonesia happened alongside tin and copper-alloy cash coins.
Overview
and lead cash coins were often used in cases when there was an insufficient supply of copper. Because of how soft lead is, most lead cash coins that are found today tend to be very worn.Lead cash coins have only been produced at a few times in the monetary history of china, mainly during the Five dynasties and Ten kingdoms period. In some cases the usage of certain types of materials to produce cash coins are only more recently discovered due to the lack of historical records mentioning them. In some cases modern economic historians mention that they existed but don't go into much detail about them, for example Peng Xinwei mentions that lead and iron cash coins but doesn't mention much about them, only writing that the King of Chu was advised to use iron and lead because it was available in large amounts. It has only been since more recent times that the fact that the Song dynasty had attempted to produce lead cash coins been discovered. Because of this almost no Chinese coin catalogues list their existence while they have mentioned in works such as the Meng Guohua: Guilin Faxian Qian Xi Hejin Qian. Zhongguo Qianbi No. 3. 1994 which deal with the topic.
Besides official coins, counterfeit cash coins would often employ official inscriptions, like Yongzheng Tongbao, but be made entirely out of lead.
Lead cash coins from southern China were successful outside of China, as the Southern Han Kingdom often exported its lead money to other countries, especially those in what is now Indonesia.
Han dynasty
In a 2005 article in the numismatic journal Xinjiang Numismatics, it was reported that a number of lead cash coins dating to the Western Han dynasty period were uncovered in a small village in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.Tang dynasty
After the An Lushan Rebellion, to reduce costs and increase the hardness of coins, the imperial court added more and more lead to alloys of cash coins. During the late Tang dynasty period, some Kaiyuan Tongbao cash coins contained more than 50% lead.Between 1982 and 2002 the numismatic researcher Qian Boquan collected over 5 lead Dali Yuanbao cash coins on the Ürümqi coin market. In a 2002 article in the numismatic journal Xinjiang Numismatics, Qian Boquan reported that these lead Dali Yuanbao vary in size and weight. They range from having a diameter of 26 to 29 millimeters, a thickness of 4 to 5 millimeters, and a weight of 5.7 to 7.8 grams. The obverse and reverse of each cash coin is filled with a yellow-white alkaline patina.
Small amounts of lead Kaiyuan Tongbao cash coins were discovered in coin hoards dating to the reign of Emperor Wuzong.
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
According to Yang Lien-sheng, from the year 916 lead cash coins were being cast in what is today Fujian, this was followed by the production of iron cash coins shortly afterwards. After this was pioneered in the Fujian region it was adopted by the neighbouring dynasties and kingdoms. During this period bronze cash coins would continue to remain the dominant currency of the countryside, while iron and lead cash coins were widely being circulated in urban areas.This was a good method to balance imports and exports because foreign tradesmen and merchants could not use the iron and lead cash coins they received as payment in other states, forcing them to spend them locally before they left.
At times, lead cash coins dated to this period are found bearing Inscriptions of which seem to have been omitted from the historical records, for example a lead Guangzheng Tongbao cash coin attributed to the Later Shu.
While the southern kingdoms often issued iron and lead cash coins, many regimes in the central plains explicitly forbade their circulation. For example, the Later Tang ordered all iron and lead cash coins within its territory to be collected and destroyed as it saw their circulation as an invitation for counterfeiters to deliberately produce cheap and bad quality money that would negatively affect the economy.
Min Kingdom
In the year 916, Wang Shenzhi, King of the Min Kingdom began to make lead cash coins, and thereafter, lead coins were circulated along with the traditional copper-alloy coins. This series of small lead coins bore the inscription Kaiyuan Tongbao on their obverse sides and either had the character Min, Fu, or Yin, above the square central hole, on their reverse sides. Some of these lead coins have a crescent below and/or a dot on the left of the square central hole. These cash coins were minted in what is today Ninghua County, Sanming, Fujian after deposits of lead were discovered in the area. These cash coins are collectively referred to as "Min Kaiyuan lead cash coins" by modern Chinese numismatists, and thanks to archeological findings a larger number of variants have been uncovered than was first believed to exist.In the Kingdom of Min a single bronze Yonglong Tongbao was valued at 10 small cash coins and as much as 100 lead cash coins.
Ma Chu
The minister Gao Yu advised King Wumu of Chu to cast lead and iron cash coins at Changsha in 925, this was because of the abundance of lead and iron in the Hunan region. 1 lead or iron cash coin was nominally worth 10 copper-alloy cash coins, though their region of circulation was largely confined to Changsha. In Changsha the merchants would trade these coins which only benefited the government of the Kingdom of Chu.The small lead cash coins said to have been cast by this kingdom bore the Inscriptions Qianfeng Quanbao and Qianyuan Zhongbao, inscriptions previously used by the Tang dynasty for bronze cash coins. Bronze cash coins with this same inscription dated to this period are sometimes attributed to have been produced during the reign of King Wumu, but their usage may have been as funerary items rather than as circulation currency.
In the year 929, the government of the Chu Kingdom officially fixed the value of a lead cash coin as of a bronze cash coin. Later, in 962, the royal government issued a decree stipulating that lead cash coins should circulate in urban areas, while bronze cash coins should circulate in the countryside. Those who did not obey this decree risked facing the death penalty.
Southern Tang Kingdom
The Southern Tang Kingdom issued a lead version of the Tangguo Tongbao, an inscription which was also used for bronze and iron cash coins.Southern Han Kingdom
The Southern Han issued a number of lead cash coins during its existence. The first series of lead cash coins attributed to this kingdom had the inscription Kaiping Yuanbao and is attributed to the kingdom's founder, Liu Yin. These cash coins were possible cast to commemorate a Liang dynasty period title.Another series of lead cash coins, that also had bronze equivalents, was the Qianheng Zhongbao. Some of these contained the traditional Chinese character "Yong" on their reverse side.
The "Yong" on the reverse side of these Qianheng Zhongbao cash coins is believed to mean that they were minted in Yongzhou, today's Nanning and its vicinity in Guangxi. Liu Yu once named his eldest son Liu Yaoshu as "King of Yong". Other Qianheng Zhongbao cash coins have the character "Yi" on their reverse sides, which is said to refer to the capital city, what is today Guangzhou. Wang Guizhen, a Guangdong numismatist, believes that Qianheng Zhongbao lead cash coins with the "Yi" character on their back may have been for the exclusive for Cantonese people prohibiting them from circulating outside of the city.
One of the reasons why lead was used by the Southern Han for coinage is because iron and copper were used for the construction of statues and bells in Buddhist temples, as well as Buddhist pagodas. It is also speculated by modern numismatists that the Southern Han government attempted to circulate lead and bronze cash coins at the same value, but that the market rejected this as copper is significantly more valuable than lead, with 1 bronze cash coin being worth 10 lead cash coins. Government regulations of the Southern Han Kingdom also stipulated that mandarins should be paid in lead cash coins, and only ministers who were particularly favoured by the monarch were paid in bronze cash coins.
The "Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" mentions that the use of copper-alloy cash coins and lead cash coins inside and outside Guangzhou began in the year Dabao 5 during the reign of Liu Yu. Wang Yinjia, a numismatist during the early Republic of China period, believed that "the economic policy of the Southern Han dynasty is bizarre and inexplicable", stating that "the lead cash coins in the city cannot go out of the city gate, disallowing the people from purchasing things outside, how can the public and private trade work? and how can the people make a living in the city, if the copper-alloy cash coins from outside cannot enter the city, how can the people in the city accumulate wealth?" Wang Yinjia asked these questions to fellow numismatist Luo Bozhao, who wrote "The History of Money in the Southern Han Dynasty" in response. The book explained that the use of two kinds of cash coins inside and outside Guangzhou was to drive out bad coins in market transactions. Later numismatists believe that the reason lead cash coins were used in Guangzhou was for the same reason as in Ma Chu, to preserve the wealth of the territory by forcing outside merchants to use less valuable money to maximise the wealth being kept inside through trade with outsiders.
In stark contrast to Qianheng Zhongbao lead cash coins, which are very frequently found in and around Guangzhou in the modern era to the point that between 1953 and 1985 over 250,000 lead cash coins with this inscription weighing 2000 catties were found, Kaiping Yuanbao lead cash coins are very rare in the world today with only sporadic discoveries occurring. This may be the result of their deliberate destruction at the hands of Liu Yan who regarded the Later Liang as a "puppet court" and sought to erase it from history beginning with the eradication of the lead Kaiping Yuanbao cash coins.