The history of knife and cloth coins began in the Spring and Autumn Period. The Spring and Autumn Period is a period of great change from slavery to feudalism in the history of China. The further development of commodity economy leads to a large demand for circulating currency, and the metal casting technology is becoming more and more mature, which provides the necessity and possibility for casting a large number of metal currencies. The biggest feature of currency in this period is the variety of coinage and the chaotic monetary system. At that time, due to the gradual weakening of the influence of the Zhou Dynasty, countries were fragmented and their economies were self-contained, so all countries forged their own currencies and circulated with each other, forming a special situation in which various monetary systems and types coexisted and used for a long time. Judging from the form and distribution, the money in this period can be divided into four types: cloth money, knife money, love money and ant nose money (face money). Cloth coins are shovel-shaped copper coins of agricultural tools, also called shovel coins. From the unearthed situation, it is mainly distributed in the capitals of Zhou Dynasty such as Jin, Zheng, Song and Zhao and the western foot of Taihang Mountain. Cloth coins can be divided into empty cloth coins and flat cloth coins according to their shapes. The hollow cloth is completely made according to the shape of the agricultural tool shovel, with flat shoulders and a round hole for mounting the handle. At first, the size of hollow cloth was the same as that of farm tools, and then it gradually narrowed. Flat cloth is a further monetization transformation of flat cloth form. The head is flat and there are many kinds. Shoulders and feet have three shapes: flat, pointed and round. Some have round holes in their heads, or three holes in their heads and feet. Knife coins evolved from the bronze cutting of tools in Shang and Zhou Dynasties, so the handle of knife coins has rings and cracks. The shapes of knife coins are needle-shaped, pointed, round-headed, arc-backed, etc. , mainly distributed in Qi and Yan countries in the east, and later developed to coexist with cloth coins in countries such as Zhao and Zhongshan. Yiqian is a kind of copper coin with a round hole in the middle and an outer circle inside, which is made according to the shape of the king's wall circle. Mainly cast in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. In the late Warring States period, countries such as Qin, Qi and Yan made round coins with square holes and used the weight of metal as the monetary unit for the first time. Ant nose coin is a kind of copper coin, which evolved from the shape of shell coin. Its back is flat and convex, and it is cast with a ghost face, so it is called face money, which is mainly cast in Chu State. In addition to copper coins, there were a small number of gold and silver coins such as silver cloth and gold plate during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but the circulation scope was very small. Another feature of currency in this period was that the currency characters were extremely chaotic. Although most of the currencies have characters cast on them, because the characters of different countries are not uniform, and because this period lasted for more than 500 years, there have been many wars between countries, and the monetary policy is extremely unstable. Therefore, even on the similar currency minted in the same country, the writing position, content and number of words of the currency are not uniform, which has caused great trouble for future generations to identify the currency age.