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Round metal coins with a round, and then later square hole in the center were first introduced around 350 BCE. The beginning of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE), the first dynasty to unify China , saw the introduction of a standardised coinage for the whole Empire.
During the Warring states period, the first precursors of the Chinese cash coins started to appear. These early round coins (圜錢, huánqián) circulated alongside the knife and spade money. As most of these early round coins had round holes, the first "true" cash coins were the Yi Hua (一化) produced by the State of Yan.
The cash or qian was a type of coin of China and the Sinosphere, used from the 4th century BCE until the 20th century, characterised by their round outer shape and a square center hole (Chinese: 方穿; pinyin: fāng chuān; Jyutping: fong1 cyun1; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: hong-chhoan).
The coins were round with a square hole in the middle which was the common design for most Chinese copper coins until the 20th century. Due to the low value of an individual coin, the Chinese have traditionally strung a nominal thousand copper coins onto a piece of string. Government taxes were levied on both coins and products such as rolls of ...
An example of these Chongzhen Tongbao cash coins with mint marks the Chinese character "Zhong" (忠) which translates as either "loyal" or "honest" located above the reverse side of the square centre hole. [15] During the Chongzhen Emperor's reign, there were a total of 156 different mint furnaces producing cash coins in operation. [15]
A notable characteristic is that the outer rim on Kangxi Tongbao cash coins on both sides of the coin tend to be quite wide, in contrast to that of the square center hole (方穿, fāng chuān). Apart from the two mints in the capital city of Beijing operated by the central government, many provincial mints operated intermittently.
The hole enabled the coins to be strung together to create higher denominations, as was frequently done due to the coin's low value. The number of coins in a string of cash (simplified Chinese: 一贯钱; traditional Chinese: 一貫錢; pinyin: yīguàn qián) varied over time and place but was nominally 1000. [4]
Chinese numismatic charms with the inscription "Hongwu Tongbao" (洪武通寶) are common however those with graphic depictions of the life of Zhu Yuanzhang only began to appear after the Xinhai revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China in 1912, this was because casting or having in one's possession a "coin ...