嫌われた洪武錢

Abstract

In medieval East Asia, people distinguished different types of copper coins and assigned different values to each type of coin in a practice called erizeni 撰錢. At that time, in addition to privately minted coins, genuine Ming coins such as Hongwu coins and Yongle coins were also subject to this practice. It is generally believed that this practice occurred in the latter half of the 15th century. On the other hand, the following two characteristics can be discerned from the excavation of Hongwu coins from Ming Dynasty sites. First, Hongwu coins have rarely been excavated from the northern half of Ming territory and have mainly been found in the southern half. This means that use of the Hongwu coins was avoided in the north. Second, although Hongwu coins have generally been unearthed only in small quantities in China, in some cases Hongwu coins made up the majority of those unearthed in the southern regions. Such cases are all located near the tributary roads used by tributary states to reach the capitals from ports of entry. This means that Hongwu coins were collected for the purpose of trading with people who entered Ming territory. Ultimately, these two characteristics mean that Hongwu coins were low-value copper coins that were rejected within the territory of the Ming Dynasty. In three cases involving the latter phenomenon, none of the coins included Yongle or Xuande coins, so they must have been buried before the beginning of the 15th century. In other words, it is clear that the low evaluation of Hongwu coins had already begun by the first half of the 15th century. Hongwu coins flowed overseas as gifts to tributary countries, but they also flowed out through trade associated with tribute and in private trade. Furthermore, research on excavated coins has revealed that the number of Hongwu coins increased in medieval Ryukyu. In Japan, Hongwu coins had already flowed into the east coast of Kyushu from the late 14th century, and they later became the standard currency in Kyushu. The reason why Hongwu coins were avoided was the high official value set for Hongwu coins in 1368. Under the ban on the use of copper coins, the issue of distrust of Ming coins such as Hongwu coins did not surface. However, after the ban on using copper coins was lifted in the late 15th century, the issue of erizeni and excluding Ming coins became apparent.