Among them, it is particularly interesting to collect shells as historical traces of coins from Fengxian, Shanghai today. At that time, the Huaxia tribe in the Central Plains sent people to Fengxian Shagang to collect a seashell growing in the southern waters. This is a kind of shell which is convenient for currency transaction and is beneficial to anti-counterfeiting. In a sense, the origin of this currency promoted the formation of early countries.
The earliest currency appeared in China.
Money depends on credit. Through a longer history and a larger continuous civilization, we can see that money advocates efficiency and relies on credit.
Finding the equivalent of the universe is a disturbing thing. Sima Qian wrote in Historical Records of Pinghuai: "The road between agriculture, industry and commerce is smooth, and the money in tortoise shells is prosperous, so it has been a long time." It can be seen that it is long and difficult to find universal equivalence.
The Chinese version of Encyclopedia Britannica explains money in this way: many commodities have been used as money in history, including shells, beads, slates, livestock and so on. Among them, livestock used to be barter goods, and there were transactions before the emergence of money. When shells, beads and slates appeared, livestock gradually "gave way".
Berlin Museum of Ancient Coins, Germany. There is a currency ranking with the earliest human origin. First, the cargo shell, China; Second, jade? , West Africa; Third, the case coin, a country on the west coast of Africa; Fourth, knife coins, China; Fifth, the arrow beam, Africa; Sixth, casting cakes, northern Thailand and Myanmar. The British Museum also lists many early currencies, among which seashells in China rank first, dating back 4,000 years.
Today, it seems to be a natural currency. Why is its origin so diverse and difficult? Why did the earliest currency appear in China?
The origin of money in China more than 4,000 years ago is not an isolated event. The inherent logic of the origin of currency lies in whether the currency can be "credible", which is also the key to whether the politicians can continue to rule. Money is a universal equivalent of value given by society, and its key lies in society, that is, what kind of money exists in what kind of society. Judging from the early economic and social development, the most fundamental reason why barter cannot be "generally accepted" is that ordinary "things" can't find corresponding and universal credit "anchorage".
Where is the currency "trustworthy"? Who can lead the society to this "anchorage"? From the perspective of modern classification, the following disciplines will try to play an active role:
1. Thinkers often dream that they have a standard called human dependence when guiding mankind to the other side of happiness.
Second, politicians live in a mountain and a river, hoping to gain the sustained strength to unite and consolidate society.
Third, economists hope to find a universally accepted efficiency tool to organize production.
Fourth, entrepreneurs hope to exchange organized labor for more factors of production.
5. Skillful craftsmen hope to exchange their skills for more resources to optimize the future.
6. The general public wants to exchange their labor for greater viability.
Interpersonal relationship is so complicated, but it points in the same direction: continuous survival optimization and optimized efficiency. This is also the "anchorage" that politicians need to find when giving money value.
However, it is obviously impossible to concentrate so many human relationships and social conditions on one thing, and it is "generally accepted" without innovation. Therefore, social leaders need to give value to "the same needs of society+special control of leaders+anti-counterfeiting means+credit anchoring+comprehensive innovation", so that human survival can be continuously and effectively optimized.
Under such conditions, we can see the logic of the origin of China's currency: barter for things-barter for public standards-barter for seashells-barter for all kinds of imitation seashells-barter for diversified currencies-barter for authoritarian countries.
Following this logical development track, we have seen Dianlong, a currency innovator in the Yao, Shun and Yu period. According to the social conditions of the tribes in the Central Plains at that time and the seashells unique to their hometown, Dianlong realized currency innovation.
Liangzhu Labor is responsible for collecting seashells.
As a universal equivalent of monetary value, it is endowed by society. Obviously, this goal is generally accepted and used for a long time. How to ensure the realization of this goal?
On the one hand, the rulers of society should have authority. When politicians have authority, they will form authoritative credit. This is often the most solid credit in the case of low productivity and insufficient political innovation of ancient human beings. Thus, the authoritative credit of the governor became the credit dependence of the earliest currency.
In fact, it is of great significance for politicians to have authoritative credit in human society. More than 4,000 years ago, three generations of politicians, Yao, Shun and Yu, made the people rich by advocating "controlling water and planting rice", from which they gained rich authoritative credit.
On the other hand, the rulers made innovations in the use, special use and anti-counterfeiting of currency holders. The biggest reason why livestock and other commodities failed to become money in the end is that the application, special use and anti-counterfeiting of monetary commodities could not be realized.
Later, Dianlong, a fisherman in Fengxian called by Emperor Yao, innovatively adopted a snail shell found in Sha Gunter, realizing the application, anti-counterfeiting and special innovation of the governor's currency. Thus, the earliest universal equivalent appeared. After that, the Huaxia tribal regime in the Central Plains controlled Shagang and gathered a large number of Liangzhu laborers to collect seashells, thus realizing the money supply to the Central Plains. In this context, the Huaxia tribe in the Central Plains and the rival Jiuyi tribe at that time realized regime change, and finally disintegrated the confrontation and merged Jiuyi.
During the 35 years of Shun's reign, the tribes in the Central Plains conquered Sanmiao under the command of Dayu, and finally merged with Liangzhu civilization, realizing the earliest reunification between the north and the south in China. According to historical records, Dayu cast Jiuding, rowed Kyushu and walked in five clothes. After Dayu took charge of the society, he realized the management of five-service tribute in Kyushu. Especially in the advanced Central Plains, the management form with rice as the core is adopted, from which we can see the traces of money between rice and everything.
More than 4,000 years ago, the whole process of reunifying Kyushu during the Yao, Shun and Yu period was generally realized under the guidance of peace and rationality. Historical data reveal that the management scope at that time was already very large. However, when Shun Di completed the establishment of nine "ministerial" posts at one time, he still didn't see the senior officials in charge of the army. Why is this? When Dayu unified Kyushu, didn't he use troops or force? This is incredible. There must be a reason.
It is found that Dayu adopted different regional management systems in Kyushu, that is, the so-called five-service management system. He designated the area where Shanghai collects shells as a "compulsory" area. Furthermore, what kind of rationality makes different nationalities exist together? The ancient civilization of China became the only uninterrupted civilization of mankind. What is the reason for its "continuous flow"? Where is its starting point?
It is generally believed that a kind of rationality is irrefutable and dominates everything in thousands of years of history, so it must be proved to be correct and consolidated repeatedly in the long-term deductive development.
Shells as money make society "easy to develop"
It can be seen from the relevant historical data that the farthest rationality of Chinese civilization, with the starlight of Beidou, originated from the distant Fuxi gossip 6800 years ago and formed a rational system, which was recognized as a hundred schools of thought contending 2500 years ago. Among them, the first of the group classics is Zhouyi.
The Book of Changes is the core culture of China. This is a kind of rationality derived from witchcraft culture that stresses the way of heaven and earth. Today, I ching masters often take Zhouyi as the boundary and divide gossip rationality into innate gossip and acquired gossip.
Before Zhouyi, innate gossip talked about the relationship between man and nature, that is, to explore how man adapts to nature from the inner system of man; The acquired gossip after Zhouyi starts from nature and discusses the influence and relationship of nature on people. Both of them have the same effect, but they also have different perspectives and different understandings.
The early Fuxi gossip is objectively just a totem. Moreover, there is a 4000-year gap between this distant totem rationality and the contention of a hundred schools of thought in the Spring and Autumn Period, and various Yijing appeared in the middle. So, how are the two related? The study of prehistory shows that history is not completely unified with evidence. In fact, history cannot be completely unified with evidence, but history can be unified with logic. Therefore, it is necessary for us to find a logical connection from the consistency between Fuxi's gossip rationality and a hundred schools of thought contend rationality.
Among them, the research on the multiple evidence law of "the origin of money" shows that the origin of money has broken through the logic of prehistory, which just opens this rare historical window for us. Thanks to the fact that the origin of money involves social relevance rationality, we can see the tenacity and rational endowment of civilization from ancient China.
More than 4000 years ago, Chinese tribes in the Central Plains came to Shagang, Shanghai to collect seashells as coins, leaving many historical traces. Among them, the most obvious value is that the origin of money is accompanied by women? ] coinage. Woman? ] is considered to be the second daughter of Emperor Yao and the wife of Dianlong. She came to Shanghai to pick shellfish and experienced a vigorous process of picking shellfish, creating 35 characters by feeling. Among them, she created a hieroglyph "? Promise? Can you forgive me for raking in the broken picture frame? /p & gt；
"? Poor quality, afraid of umbrellas? Day+coastline+don't (everything) ". Woman? ] make "？ Disadvantages? Invasion of Fu Hanbi? Ge Yong 0 broken line? A group of people who pick up shells from the seaside exchange them for everything. Nowadays, after more than ten years' research, scholars of Fudan University found that in Fengxian Jinhui and other places, there are still a group of people who speak the most vowels in the world. These people were raped by women? ] call? Play? Hey? Between mirrors? Mu beizhen? /p & gt；
Woman? ] Will "? What are the disadvantages? What's the matter with you? Castration? Hey? Chewing gum? Did you invade the vertebral tomb once? Do overseas Chinese have any suggestions? ぃ? What are the conditions? The tax office is pushing a bath! What's the matter with you? What happened? A ring? Vent? What are the disadvantages of climbing beans and vice-scraping ash? Hey? Shrug your shoulders? Thousands of years ago.
In this sense, women? Compared with the 28 pictographic characters made by Cang Xie in the Yanhuang period, the word-making went deep into the society from the perspective of "pictographic+knowing" and produced more characters with deeper meanings. Especially, women? The emergence of the word "Yi" paved the way for the popularization of China's original materialism and provided deductive guidance for the formation of the Book of Changes, thus laying the foundation for the Book of Changes.