秦始皇の貨幣統一について

Abstract

The fact that Ch'in's Shih Huang-ti 始皇帝 standardized currency has been regarded as common knowledge in the field of Oriental history. However, since many post-liberation excavation reports have made it clear that Ch'in's pan-liang-chien 半兩錢 is limited to Shensi 陝西 and Szechwan 四川, the reliability of such works as the Shih chih ｢史記｣， p'ing-chun-shu 平準書 and Han shu 「漢書｣, shih-huo-chih 食貨志 has been called into question. However, when we examine closely the most basic p'ing-chun-shu, we see that originally the account of the Shih chih itself does not touch upon the standardization of currency in Ch'in, but rather simply describes the currency situation in the Ch'in kuo 秦國 or the Ch'in region. Consequently, against this background, discussion of Shih Huang-ti's standardization of currency itself becomes problematic. In this article, basing my research on the Shih chih and the lu-kuo-nien-piao 六國年表，I place the Ch'in standardization of currency in Shih Huang-ti's thirty-seventh year. The reason why the standardized currency did not spread was that in the year this institution was established Shih Huang-ti died, and thereafter the empire followed a course toward disorder and collapse, and in the end, sufficient measures to insure its spread could not be taken.