There were three types of currency in the Ming Dynasty: silver, copper coins, and treasure notes.
The economic system of the Ming Dynasty was not based on silver. It was originally intended to be based on treasure banknotes, supplemented by silver and copper coins. However, because treasure banknotes were only issued but not received, and had poor credibility, they continued to depreciate during the Ming Dynasty.
Originally, in terms of face value, 1 Guan Baobao was equivalent to 1 tael of silver. However, in the late Ming Dynasty, it often took 200 Guan banknotes to exchange for 1 tael of silver.
Let’s talk about copper coins. The management of copper coins in the Ming Dynasty is often more confusing than the treasure banknotes. Different from the descriptions in TV and novels, the value cannot be calculated in terms of “wen”, because the names, sizes, and weights of copper coins forged in different eras are different.
For example, according to Ming history records, the "Dazhong Tongbao" issued in the early Ming Dynasty could be exchanged for 4 coins for one silver coin, while the copper coins issued in the later period could be exchanged for 70 to 90 coins for 1 coin of silver.
Bad money, it even takes more than 400 coins to exchange for 1 coin of silver.
Therefore, although the Ming Dynasty intended to use treasure banknotes as the main currency and copper coins as a supplement, the actual situation was due to the chaos of its own currency management. In the end, silver, which had the most stable value, became the main currency of the Ming Dynasty.
However, due to the policies of the Ming Dynasty, small-amount private transactions were still dominated by treasure banknotes.
The above is just for your understanding and will not be mentioned specifically in this book.
In addition, in the new chapter [Volume 2. Chapter 19. The Beginning of Power (Part 1). Two-in-one Chapter], Chongzi mentioned the concept that the exchange value of one tael of silver is equivalent to 200 banknotes, which also originated from
However, for the convenience of everyone’s understanding, all currencies in the original text have now been changed to silver.