Rice, Coins, and Silver — Japan Part 1

A11　—　General History ⑦ — From 621 to 1800

Why did this island welcome from the sea and re-dig from the mountains the coins that the state had stopped minting?

Supervised by: Mitsuru Hayama　／　Reading time (main text): course text ~9 min + textbook ~112 min = ~121 min　／　Beyond the text: 6 exercises · 4 coins · 3 readings

What this course teaches you to do

• Be able to explain, using four rebellions, the pattern of a state without coinage being able to pay rewards only with rank and land, and how this system collapses when the land runs out.
• Be able to explain, using the year 772 and Nobunaga's *Erizenirei* edicts, that even if a state declares a face value, the market only considers the intrinsic content.
• Be able to explain the reversal in which the Imperial Court, after rejecting Song coins, came to accept them within half a century, in terms of the state's will versus the merchants' calculation of profit and loss.
• Be able to explain, using three recoinages as examples, that gold by tale, silver by weight, and domestically produced coins became the system, and that there was a choice between quality and quantity in recoinage.

TEXTBOOK

Lessons (8)

1. Before Coins and the Wadōkaichin — Interest Came First, and Minting Did Not Guarantee CirculationA state without coins paid rewards with ranks and land. Coins did not automatically circulate when minted; they were hoarded when incentivized by rank, and private minting was punished as treason.
2. The Twilight of the Great Buddha and the Twelve Coins — It was the state that broke first.The market rejected the state's decree for twelve years, and the state yielded. Once it ceased building capitals and launching military campaigns, the state no longer needed coinage, and the leaden coins disappeared.
3. The country that abandoned coins, and the coins that came from the seaThree hundred years when silk, rice, and tickets circulated. It was sea merchants who brought coins back, and the Imperial Court, while disliking it, could not stop them.
4. Fighting with rice, rewarding with land — from the Jishō-Juei to the Jōkyū eras.Rice decided the outcome of battles, and those who controlled the flow of taxes became the government. The Jōkyū War was the last war to supply a large amount of land for distribution.
5. The Shogunate selects the currency — Mongol invasions, moneylenders, and debt amnestiesThe shogunate chose Song coins, a defensive war produced no rewards, and the system that could only pay in land collapsed, leading to an Act of Grace.
6. Coins that crossed the sea, and temples as banksPublic coins were not minted; ships transported coins for temples. Temples acted as banks, and the shogunate's pillar was the tax it collected from moneylenders.
7. From the Age of Coin Culling to a Nation of Silver — Bitasen, Iwami, Nobunaga, HideyoshiOn an island where the state could not determine the currency, merchants selected coins. When imported coins dwindled, silver was mined. Nobunaga set their value, and Hideyoshi displayed his gold.
8. The Reign of Three Currencies and a Century of Recoinage — Counted Gold, Weighed Silver, and Kan'ei TsūhōCounted gold, weighed silver, and domestically produced zeni coins. It was difficult to reconcile good quality currency with sufficient quantity, and the recoinage that offered a premium remained stable for eighty years.

Case studies — applied in the materials (3)

• The twilight of the twelve coinages　Japan　772　The market of the Heijō Capital
  In 772 years, the state was the first to break. One of the spines of this volume.
• The Mongol invasions　Japan　1284–1297　Kyushu
  In a defensive war, there is no land to distribute. A one-way road to the collapse of a system that can only pay in land.
• The century of recoinage　Japan　1772　Edo
  From silver that is weighed to silver that is counted. A single piece to pass on to General History ⑧.

Assessment

6 exercises in this course (4 check, 0 compare, 2 written). Progress is recorded by self-assessment.