When some people complain that they are poor, they will say that they want to break a dollar in half. This sentence must be a joke today, because if you split money in two, you can't spend it all, but there is indeed a dynasty in history that did this, splitting copper coins into two to spend. This era is the Eastern Han Dynasty. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the currency circulation was still very chaotic, and there was no unified copper coin. Moreover, at this time, wars often occur, and various regimes constantly compete. So at this time, prices are getting more and more expensive, and the value of money is not so high. In ancient times, copper coins were generally minted by the government, but at that time, the coins kept by the government became smaller and smaller, and the manufacturing process was very rough.

So many private workshops began to make copper coins privately. Some workshops cut a five-baht copper coin into two pieces, which are circulated in the market together with the officially made coins. This also caused the chaotic currency circulation in the market at that time. Many people still use the cut funds for personal gain, but the cost is borne by the people. These currencies can circulate in the market, which shows that the economic situation at that time was still very chaotic. The value of money is not high and the price is high. Because the political situation was unstable, the economic development was not good, and the people were living in poverty.

Therefore, the inaction of the government and the underdevelopment of coinage technology are the reasons for this phenomenon. Many rulers in the later dynasties paid great attention to the public welfare development of casting money, fearing that the chaos that was not conducive to the market order would reappear, and also cracked down on the chaos of privately casting money, which was against hell to pay.