The ''Hongwu Tongbao'' (

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 ...

: Kōbu Tsūhō) was the first cash coin to bear the reign name of a reigning

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

Emperor bearing the reign title of the

Hongwu Emperor The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328– 24 June 1398), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Ming, personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, courtesy name Guorui, was the List of emperors of the Ming dynasty, founding emperor of the Ming dyna ...

. Hongwu Tongbao cash coins officially replaced the earlier Dazhong Tongbao () coins, however the production of the latter did not cease after the Hongwu Tongbao was introduced. The government of the Ming dynasty placed a greater reliance on copper cash coins than the Yuan dynasty ever did, but despite this reliance a nationwide copper shortage caused the production of Hongwu Tongbao cash coins to cease several times eventually leading to their discontinuation in 1393 when they were completely phased out in favour of

paper money Paper money, often referred to as a note or a bill (North American English), is a type of negotiable promissory note that is payable to the bearer on demand, making it a form of currency. The main types of paper money are government notes, which ...

. In the year 1393 there were a total of 325 furnaces in operation in all provincial mints of China which had an annual output of 189,000 strings of cash coins (or 1,890,000 cash coins annually) which was merely 3% of the average annual production during the

Northern Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, endin ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese ''Kōbu Tsūhō'' cash coins continued to be manufactured well into the seventeenth century as a result of trade with China which caused Ming dynasty era cash coins to circulate in Japan.

History

In 1361 the Minting Department of the Board of Works (寶源局) was set up in Ying Tian Fu (

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

) by

Zhu Yuanzhang The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328– 24 June 1398), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Ming, personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, courtesy name Guorui, was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1368 to 1398. In ...

who at the time ruled under the title of "Prince of Wu" and created the mint before the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

was driven out of China. The first cash coins issued by Zhu Yuanzhang actually bore the inscription " Dazhong Tongbao" (大中通寶) because he wanted to name his country the "Great Zhong dynasty" (大中朝) but eventually the name was settled on the "Great

" (大明朝) and the Hongwu period was proclaimed and the introduction of the Hongwu Tongbao (洪武通寶). Despite the new coinage being issued the Dazhong Tongbao would continue to be cast as reconquering China from the

Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...

would take several years, one of the reasons why it is confirmed that the production of the Dazhong Tongbao was continued well into the Hongwu period is because Dazhong Tongbao cash coins with mintmarks from

Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

have been produced despite the Fuzhou mint only opening its doors in 1394, other Dazhong Tongbao cash coins without any reverse mint marks are presumed to have been cast in either the

Jiangxi ; Gan: ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = , translit_lang1_type3 = , translit_lang1_info3 = , image_map = Jiangxi in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_caption = Location ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

, or

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

mints when these mints were in operation. Mints were established in various cities and provinces including Nanjing,

Beiping "Beijing" is from pinyin ''Běijīng,'' which is romanized from , the Chinese name for this city. The pinyin system of transliteration was approved by the Chinese government in 1958, but little used until 1979. It was gradually adopted by various ...

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

Jinan Jinan is the capital of the province of Shandong in East China. With a population of 9.2 million, it is one of the largest cities in Shandong in terms of population. The area of present-day Jinan has played an important role in the history of ...

Zhejiang ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = ( Hangzhounese) ( Ningbonese) (Wenzhounese) , image_skyline = 玉甑峰全貌 - panoramio.jpg , image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains , image_map = Zhejiang i ...

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

, and

Guilin Guilin (Standard Zhuang: ''Gveilinz''), postal map romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as Kweilin, is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of China's Guangxi, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is situated on the we ...

. From 1375 each Chinese provincial mint (寶泉局) was required by the government to mark the reverse side of each cash coin with both its value and place of casting. In Jiangxi there were 115 furnaces in operation for the production of cash coins while in provinces where copper was less abundant the government ordered the people to hand in their copper for the production of cash coins. The production of the Hongwu Tongbao cash coins itself was started in the year 1368, bronze cash coins were cast in five denominations which included 1 wén (小平), 2 wén (折二), 3 wén (折三), 5 wén (折五), and 10 wén (當十), however in 1371 the production of larger sized Hongwu Tongbao and Dazhong Tongbao cash coins were discontinued due to the fact that people didn't accept them for their

nominal value In economics, nominal value refers to value measured in terms of absolute money amounts, whereas real value is considered and measured against the actual goods or services for which it can be exchanged at a given time. Real value takes into acc ...

on the market. Between the years 1375 and 1376 the production of cash coins was completely stopped but was later resumed, however a national shortage of copper forced the government of the Ming dynasty to completely suspend the manufacture of cash coins in 1387 for a period of two years, after the mintage of Chinese cash coins was resumed in 1389 the standard weights were set where copper Hongwu Tongbao coins of 1 '' wén'' would weigh 1 ''qián'', 2 ''wén'' weighed 2 ''qián'', 3 ''wén'' weighed 3 ''qián'', 5 ''wén'' weighed 5 ''qián'', and 10 ''wén'' weighed 1 '' liǎng'', while in 1390 the weight of the 1 ''wén'' Hongwu Tongbao cash coins was increased to 1.2 ''qián''. It was also officially stipulated by law that the Hongwu Tongbao cash coins would be made from 100% copper and that 160 of the 1 ''qián'' cash coins would be made from one jin (斤) of copper. The complete production of Chinese copper cash coins was suspended in the year 1393 when the usage of copper coinage was also made illegal in favour of the Da Ming Baochao banknotes. From this point the government of the Ming dynasty did not produce any copper coinage at a large scale until the

Yongle Tongbao The Yongle Tongbao (, Japanese: (''Eiraku Tsūhō''); Vietnamese: ''Vĩnh Lạc Thông Bảo'') was a Ming dynasty era Chinese cash coin produced under the reign of the Yongle Emperor. As the Ming dynasty didn't produce copper coinage at the ...

(永樂通寳) was cast for foreign trade between 1408 and 1410, while the production of copper cash coins for domestic circulation didn't resume until the introduction of the

Hongzhi Tongbao Hongzhi may refer to: *Hongzhi Emperor, the tenth emperor of the Chinese Ming dynasty *Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091-1157), Chinese Chan Buddhist monk *Li Hongzhi Li Hongzhi ( zh, c=李洪志; born 1951 or 1952) is a Chinese religious leader. He is t ...

(弘治通寶) in 1503 by the

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

mint.

In Japan

a large number of imported Ming dynasty cash coins (明銭) started circulating as '' Shichūsen'' (私鋳銭) from the sixteenth century. On the island of

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

a village named Kajiki in the

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a Han system, domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of ...

produced a large quantity of cash coins between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as Satsuma had a very active trade with the

Ryukyu Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom was a kingdom in the Ryukyu Islands from 1429 to 1879. It was ruled as a Tributary system of China, tributary state of Ming dynasty, imperial Ming China by the King of Ryukyu, Ryukyuan monarchy, who unified Okinawa Island t ...

, these imitations of Ming dynasty cash coins bore the inscription "Kōbu Tsūhō" but had the

Kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

character "治" (Ji) on its reverse to indicate that it was struck in Kajiki.

Mint marks

List of mint marks on Hongwu Tongbao cash coins:

Japanese mint marks

Hongwu Tongbao charms

Chinese numismatic charms Yansheng Coins ( zh , first=t , t=厭勝錢, s=厌胜钱, hp=yàn shèng qián), commonly known as Chinese numismatic charms, refer to a collection of special decorative coins that are mainly used for rituals such as fortune telling, Chinese ...

with the inscription "Hongwu Tongbao" (洪武通寶) are common however those with graphic depictions of the life of

only began to appear after the

Xinhai revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC). The revolution was the culmination of a decade ...

overthrew the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

and established the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

in 1912, this was because casting or having in one's possession a "coin" which showed the life of a Chinese emperor during the imperial period would lead to them facing almost certain death. However, as the threat of punishment for circulating these charms disappeared in 1912 they became more commonplace. The reason why Hongwu Tongbao charms and amulets became very popular with the Chinese masses is because these amulets represented the hope that those who come from less than fortunate beginnings may grow up to become

the Emperor ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The' ...

, this was because Zhu Yuanzhang was born to an impoverished peasant family, his parents died while he was very young, became a

beggar Begging (also known in North America as panhandling) is the practice of imploring others to grant a favor, often a gift of money, with little or no expectation of reciprocation. A person doing such is called a beggar or panhandler. Beggars m ...

, later found employment as a

shepherd A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of Pastoralism, pastoralist animal husbandry. ...

boy, and eventually moved to live in a

Buddhist monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may ...

. As he saw the injustices the

Chinese people The Chinese people, or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with Greater China, China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation. Chinese people are known as Zhongguoren () or as Huaren () by ...

were suffering under the rule of the

he joined the

red turban rebellion The Red Turban Rebellions () were uprisings against the Yuan dynasty between 1351 and 1368, eventually leading to its collapse. Remnants of the Yuan imperial court retreated northwards and is thereafter known as the Northern Yuan in historiogr ...

and through his own ability managed to lead the rebellion and restore Chinese independence from foreign rule establishing the

with himself as its Emperor Taizu. This story inspired many commoners to believe that they and their offspring could amount to become successful despite their own humble beginnings, for this reason Chinese charms and amulets that carried the inscription "Hongwu Tongbao" became very popular and many of these usually depict either a part of or the entire aforementioned story. Hongwu Tongbao charms with a young Zhu Yuanzhang playing the flute - Scott Semans 01

Hongwu Tongbao charms with a young Zhu Yuanzhang playing the flute - Scott Semans 01

Usually these Hongwu Tongbao charms and amulets are a lot bigger than actual Hongwu Tongbao cash coins for example being 69 millimeters in diameter. However many of these charms and amulets need to be big because they depict very complex scenes of symbolism on their reverse sides. For example, a large Hongwu Tongbao charm may feature a lamb and an ox on its left side symbolising how Zhu Yuanzhang was born into a very poor family of peasants, a Buddhist monk seated on a

lotus throne The lotus throne, sometimes called lotus platform, is a stylized lotus flower used as the seat or base for a figure in art associated with Indian religions. It is the normal pedestal for divine figures in Buddhist art and Hindu art, and often see ...

above the square center hole symbolising how he lived in a Buddhist monastery in his youth, next to this Buddhist monk are other Buddhist symbols such as "auspicious clouds" (祥雲) and a bodhi tree, which was the tree under which

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...

claimed to have found spiritual enlightenment. Another symbol included on this coin charm is a

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

located right of the square center hole which symbolises the

whose

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

is strongly associated with the horse, the Mongol Yuan dynasty was overthrown by a rebellion of which Zhu Yuanzhang was a part. Another example of a Hongwu Tongbao charm with a size of 43 millimeters in diameter and weighs 29.2 grams depicts a less detailed scene where the reverse features a little boy playing a

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

riding either an ox or a

water buffalo The water buffalo (''Bubalus bubalis''), also called domestic water buffalo, Asian water buffalo and Asiatic water buffalo, is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Today, it is also kept in Italy, the Balkans ...

, in this case the young boy represents Zhu Yuanzhang (or Emperor Taizu) in his youth while the flute he is playing is a symbol associated with a care free life while it is also both a Buddhist and a Taoist symbol. In

Taoism Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ' ...

the flute is associated with the immortal

Lan Caihe Lan Caihe ( zh, c=藍采和, p=Lán Cǎihé, w=Lan Ts'ai-ho)"Lan Caihe." ''Encyclopedia Britannica.'' https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lan-CaiheDorothy Perkins. ''Encyclopedia of China: History and Culture.'' Page 140. is a Chinese mythologica ...

while in

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

it is used in meditation which alludes to Zhu Yuanzhang's life in a Buddhist monastery. Meanwhile, not all larger Hongwu Tongbao charms feature more complex scenery as there is an example which only features an ox or water buffalo on the reverse alluding to the humble beginnings of the first Ming dynasty emperor.Edgar J.Mandel. Metal Charms and Amulets of China.

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

External links

* {{Japanese cash coin Coins of China Economy of China Chinese numismatics Ming dynasty Cash coins by inscription