Casting and Circulation: About the Opening of Bao Tong in the New Tang Dynasty. In July of the fourth year of Wude published in Shihuozhi, five baht money was abolished, and Kaiyuan Baotong money began to be used. It is eight cents in diameter and weighs two baht and four ounces. Ten articles weigh one or two ounces, and a thousand articles weigh six pounds and four ounces. He also put money in prisons in Luo, He, You, Yi and other states. The king of Qin and the king of Qi each gave three furnaces for casting money, and the right servant shot Pei Ji and gave one furnace. "This marks the official withdrawal of China's currency named after two baht from the historical stage, and its replacement is a brand-new" Bao Wen Coin "currency system. (Note 2: The so-called "Bao Wen Qian" means that the decimal system of a sum of money is the legal unit of weight, usually "XXX Bao").
According to records, Qian Wen, the "Kaiyuan Bao Tong", was one of the four great calligraphers in the Tang Dynasty, and Ou Yangxun personally presented books. His calligraphy is rough and bold, and is called "European style" in the world. During the Zhenguan period, Ou Yangxun promoted his rank to Prince. Therefore, this calligraphy style of "Kaiyuan Bao Tong" is also called "rate farming style", which is recorded in the history books as "three-body and eight-point, seal and official seal". That is to say, the collected works of Bao Tong in Kaiyuan are as long as official script and seal script (eight points are actually official script), and this kind of Qian Wen has been widely praised since it came out-"Call it a work" ("Old Tang Book". Eating goods ")! "Kaiyuan Bao Tong" is the pioneer of the perfect combination of calligraphy art and coins in China.
The direct reading of "Kaiyuan Bao Tong" money is "Kaiyuan Bao Tong", and if the rotation is "opening the ingot", both are very common. (Note 2: Four-character Qian Wen is read in the order of up, down, left and right, which is called "direct reading" and also called opposite reading. If you press up, right, down, left and clockwise to read back, it is called "rotating reading", which is also called forward reading and reverse reading. ) In fact, "Kaiyuan Bao Tong" should be read directly in Qian Wen, but at the beginning of coin issuance, people didn't know this brand-new coin, so they often read it in rotation, and later it became a practice. The "Kaiyuan" in Kaiyuan Bao Tong has nothing to do with the title of "Kaiyuan" in Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty. The martial arts season is the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, so the "Kaiyuan" of "Kaiyuan Bao Tong" means that the Tang Dynasty replaced the previous Sui Dynasty and started a new era. "Bao Tong" means "goods from Bao Tong".
In the Tang Dynasty, "Kaiyuan Bao Tong" coins were usually cast by casting and turning over sand, and converted into today's units. A Kaiyuan coin, with a diameter of about 2.4~2.5 cm, a hole edge length of 0.7 cm, a width of 0.2 cm, a thickness of about 0. 1 cm and a weight of 4.5 g, belongs to men's coins when viewed from the side (Note 4: The side refers to the protruding boundary between the outer edge and the inner edge of the coin, because the outer edge is called the outline, also called the outer wheel and the outer edge, etc. And the one with a wide outer contour is a wide edge. The inner edge is called the inner profile, which is also called the good profile. A currency without an inner edge is called a "female currency" and a currency with an inner contour is called a "male currency". ) There is meat on both sides. The layout of "Kaiyuan Bao Tong" in the Tang Dynasty is very regular and easy to be recognized by people (Figure 4). Especially in the early Tang Dynasty, Kaiyuan money has a deep outline, pure copper, exquisite casting technology, dignified and symmetrical Qian Wen, and moderate weight, which has been popular since it was put into circulation. In fact, in the Tang Dynasty for more than 200 years, the enthusiasm for using Kaiyuan Bao Tong in the circulation field has been very high. In addition to the excellent casting of the currency, there are of course positive factors such as the relative stability of the currency, which is unprecedented.
Epoch-making significance: The size of a mere "Kaiyuan Bao Tong" is only equivalent to today's five-cent coin, but "Kaiyuan" not only started the economic prosperity in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, but also had a far-reaching impact on the monetary history of China for more than 1,300 years, and its positive role can be said to be beyond the times. In short, Bao Wenqian, represented by Kaiyuan Bao Tong, first appeared as the concept of credit currency. Since then, China's coins have bid farewell to the era of changing their names by half a quarter and five baht, and started to be abstract and symbolic. From then on 1300 years, all dynasties in China followed this "Kaiyuan" model, both in terms of formal standards and decimal values. This is an unprecedented major change after Qin Shihuang unified China's currency, so "Kaiyuan Bao Tong", Qin Banliang and Emperor Wudi Zhu are also called the three major monetary systems with the greatest effect and the widest influence in China history.