Financial Thought in the Tang and the Five Dynasties

Yao Sui, Wang Yong and Zhongxiu Wu

Chapter 4 in A History of China's Financial Thought:(In 2 Volumes), 2023, pp 193-240 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: The commodity–money relationship recovered and gained some development during the Tang Dynasty. In the early Tang Dynasty, “coin and silk cloth were employed concurrently”; however, the primary money was metal money, with commodity money being complementary. Silver started to perform the monetary function by the late Tang Dynasty, which dealt a fatal blow to money in kind. The early Tang Dynasty broke ground and introduced the Tongbao (universally circulated treasure) monetary system. In 621, Kaiyuan Tongbao, also called Kaitong Yuanbao, was issued, which put an end to the five-zhu coin system which named the coin by the weight, and a history of almost a millennium of the Tongbao system was established. Coin shortage occurred in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, and dual taxation measures greatly spurred commercialization of the products of labor which also led to a surge in money demand: “the less the coins are held in the hands of the people, the lower the prices of silk and cloth become, the prefectures and counties prohibited the practice of transporting coins beyond their borders, commerce and business vanished.” The phenomenon of high coin price against low commodity price continued for a whopping 60 years, and the situation was not eradicated till the dual tax law was replaced by the system of land rents and labor service; it did not finally ease until the Huichang period (841–846) of Emperor Wuzong…

Keywords: History; China; Financial Thought; Chinese History; Pre-Qin Period; 1911 Revolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B17 B27 E42 G20 N00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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