Managing a Multicurrency System in Tang China: The View from the Centre

摘要

In many ways the story of the Tang currency system is one of little change: the dynasty began with a dual currency system using both coins and textiles, and the same system continued for 300 years. Taxes could be paid in both currencies, and both circulated in the marketplace. In the first century of Tang rule textiles were more frequently used to pay taxes than were coins. The minting of coins peaked in the period between 713 and 755. Although estimates of the annual output at various times during the dynasty range from 327,000 strings (Ouyang Xiu) to 1,000,000 strings (Yang Wuling), there were never enough coins to replace textiles completely, as some officials and scholars wished.