Mannen Tsūhō

In the fourth year of Tenpyō-hōji the government of Fujiwara no Nakamaro issued it and ordered that one mon of the new coin be counted as ten Wadō. The Wadō Kaichin in a person's hand became one tenth of itself from that day. The photograph is of a piece of 2.6 cm from the pagoda site of Ryōan-ji in Nara prefecture. Twelve years later the government allowed old and new to pass at equal value, giving way to what the market actually did. It was a staring match between the edict and the market.