Different from copper coins, gold and silver in ancient China are generally weighing currencies, which need to be weighed and valued rather than counted, so coins with uniform shapes, weights and colors in different periods are often not made. Gold and silver coins are weighed with scales, weights, etc. The unit of measurement is Jin, that is, 16 Liang. In some areas, "Yi" is used, which is 20 Liang. After Qin unified the whole country, it was legally dedicated to "Yi". Chinese is changed to "gold". After Wei and Jin Dynasties, the "two" units were used.
Judging from the use of ancient gold and silver coins, when Qin was unified, the law clearly stipulated that gold was the upper coin and copper coins were the lower coins, while "pearls, jade, turtles, shells, silver and tin belonged to decorative treasures, not coins". Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, silver began to see documents used for rewards and bribes, while the use of gold was once weakened before and after the Wei and Jin Dynasties. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the use of gold and silver coins developed greatly, and people began to use them, especially silver coins gradually became money. In the Song Dynasty, silver coins were used to express prices and became popular in society. It was not until the middle of the Ming Dynasty that silver coins officially became legal tender and the silver-silver system was established. The government's farmland and taxes are all converted into cash income, and officials' salaries and state treasury expenses are paid in silver.
In contrast to the development of silver in the circulation field, the use of gold in the circulation field has gradually decreased since the middle of the Ming Dynasty. The Qing dynasty continued the parallel monetary system of silver and money, and the forms of silver coins in the Qing dynasty also became diversified, which led to many problems in the manufacture, circulation, exchange and color identification of silver coins. Later, with the introduction of western monetary and financial systems into China, the use of silver coins was strongly impacted by silver coins-silver dollars, and the old silver coins were gradually replaced by modern silver dollars. By 1933, the government at that time implemented the monetary policy of "changing two coins into yuan", and finally ended the silver coin system, and the old silver coins withdrew from the currency circulation field.