Five Dynasties And Monetary System Test

The Chinese Currency System changed a lot from the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty. Firstly, in the field of coining, the only bronze coin policy of Tang was broken in the Song Dynasty, and iron coin became another legal coin besides bronze coin. Though the iron coin was not inheritted as the policy of coining after the Song Dynasty, the bronze coin lost its main position in the market forever from then on. Secondly, the silk which was used as currency as bronze coin in the Tang Dynasty began to come out of the circulation. However, the function of silver became outstanding day by day, which was going to have a much bigger share than bronze coin and finally became the main currency after the Yuan Dynasty.The Five Dynasties lived between the Tang and the Song Dynasty. All their systems came from the Tang Dynasty and paved the way for the systems in the Song Dynasty. In this article, I wanted to illustrate how the currency system developed from the Tang to the Song Dynasty by analyzing the three principle currency --coin, silk and silver in the period of the Five Dynasties. The situations and problems of the currency systems in the Five Dynasties testified the Chinese Currency Systems had already been in trouble from the late Tang Dynasty ,and it must be changed in the Song Dynasty. Furthermore, I also wish to illustrate that to what extent the development of the social economy shows the characteristic of "transition" from Tang to Song Dynasty.