The Study On The Relationship Between Iron Money And Paper Money In Song Dynasty

The period of the Two Song Dynasties was the second peak of the development of China’s commodity economy,during which a number of regional markets have formed throughout the country.In terms of currencies,there were several corresponding monetary regions.Among them,the Song dynasty cast iron money in Chuanshu,Shanxi,Hedong and Lianghuai regions,and issued Chuanshu Jiaozi(Qian yin),Shanxi Jiaozi and Lianghuai Jiaozi that circulated in parallel with iron money.And a monetary system was developed that was not consistent with other regions.The academic circles pointed out the relationship between the first issue of Jiaozi in Chuanshu and the cumbersome and inconvenient transaction of iron.However,there is still a lack of further elaboration in the academic circles on the problems such as why the iron money continued to be cast after the invention of paper money,and whether the relationship between paper money and iron money has changed or not.Meanwhile,the relationship between iron money and Jiaozi of Shanxi and Lianghua as well as that situation of Chuanshu is worth for further study.This paper holds that the paper money of Chuanshu,Shanxi and Lianghuai in the Two Song Dynasties were closely related to the iron money.On the whole,paper money was still the value symbol of iron money,which cannot be completely separated from iron money and used independently.At the beginning of the issue of paper money,the Song government,in order to guarantee the credit of paper money,used iron money as a reserve,which was a convertible paper money.However,due to the military expenditure and other reasons,the government printed a large number of paper money,which not only changed the reserve ratio of paper money,but also led to the constant depreciation of paper money,causing that their circulation share in the market kept increasing.At this point,the paper money was converted from convertible paper money to nonconvertible paper money.Paper money operation mainly depended on the national credit to maintain.Iron money was no longer the only value of the banknote benchmark,and the paper money issuance amount lost the constraint,leading to a serious devaluation.Throughout the period of the Two Song Dynasties,no matter what kind of paper money was abandoned,it was because of the large number of paper money issued,leading to the sharp depreciation,and its credit reduced.As a result of the devaluation of paper money,the iron money in the market was driven out in turn,and the reverse effect of value symbol replacing value benchmark appeared.The money circulation of Chuanshu,Shanxi and Lianghuai was trapped in a vicious circle of paper money devaluation driving out iron money and iron money withdrawing from circulation losing its value basis.Therefore,in the ancient society of our country,as the credit currency---paper money,its circulation must be based on the demand of the market and the quantity of metal money.In addition,iron money and paper money were inextricably linked,whether the change of iron money value,or the depreciation of paper money,would have an important impact on the change of denomination of both sides.In the Sichuan monetary system and the Shanxi monetary system,paper money was “claimed” by iron money at the beginning of its issuance.Nevertheless,the Lianghuai monetary system was different,which showed that the artificial Lianghuai monetary system was in disarray.