The Thesis Of The Development Of The Thinking On Paper Currency From Southern Song To Mid-Ming Dynasty

In Northern Song dynasty Sichuan province used iron money which is too heavy to be taken in the business way. So for solving this problem, the sixteen richest families in Sichuan produced a new kind of money called Jiaozi, which was first printed by private. Soon after the right of printing paper money was taken back by the government in1023(Song Renzong)for the short of reservation。 From then on paper currency is printed by the government all the time. Jiaozi, of cause, was the first paper money of China, also of the world. From Song to mid-Ming dynasty, paper money have been used for about five hundred years.During that period, there are many scholars, politicians, thinkers put forward their views on banknotes, including banknotes nature, notes and metal currency, and banknotes management thinking. In ancient China, there were wealth of ideas about paper money, we just select part of them to study in which the academia has been based on.In Southern Song Dynasty, the circulation of the soft currency was gradually universalized. In this period, people accepted the use of paper money, Yang Wanli and Xin Qiji were the most representative one, for they showed their acceptance on paper money in their books and articles.And after the Yuan Dynasty unified the whole China, it improved the banknotes system, for it has accumulated the experience of the note issue in Song and Jin government. Paper money almost was the only currency in circulation. The Yuan government attached great importance to the management of paper money. A lot of decree was issued by the government for how to mange the circulation of paper money. Wang Yun and Ye Li were prominent on the management of paper money. Especially Ye Li, he constituted the statute of the circulation of paper money, which expressed his view on paper money management.Before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, paper money was also used gradually by people in their daily life. And this kind of money was declined in mid-Ming dynasty because of its excessive issue and the increase of silver. In this economic condition, Ye Ziqi had conveyed his ideas by his literary work. Clearly from the foregoing, paper money was circulating as the major currency, from the early11th century to15th century. During the hundreds of years, the western people didn’t know what paper money was while the Chinese people use it ordinarily in their business life.As we all know there are many different views on paper money after its produce. During the period of Song and mid-Ming dynasty, many scholars put forward their views on paper money. This article aims to inspection people’s view of the banknote and the change of the thinking about it since it came out in the history.And also this paper tries to compare the different thoughts of banknotes during the five hundred years, and tries to analysis the change of people’s thoughts.