Yongsheng said money series: Huichang Kaiyuan? Why cast a Chinese character on the back?

In the Kaiyuan Bao Tong coin family, there was a coin with Chinese characters cast on the back instead of the moon pattern. The coin circle is customarily called "Huichang Kaiyuan" coin, which means that this coin was cast in Huichang period of Tang Dynasty (84 1-846). The difference between Huichang Kaiyuan and other Kaiyuan precious coins is not only because there is an extra Chinese character cast on the back, but because it witnessed a great disaster in the history of Buddhism, which happened in the fifth year of Huichang (845) when Tang Wuzong destroyed Buddhism. The "Huichang Kaiyuan" money with Chinese characters cast on the back was cast from the destroyed Buddha statue. After the Huichang disaster, most of these coins were destroyed again and cast into Buddha statues. Below, I will tell you why a Chinese character was cast on the back of Huichang Kaiyuan Money, which remained silent for nearly 1200 years. Today's topic is about the extinction of Tang Wuzong Giant Buddha, so let's first introduce several extinction events in history. As we all know, Buddhism is a foreign religion, which was introduced to the Central Plains from India through the Western Regions in the early Eastern Han Dynasty. After the introduction of Buddhism, there will naturally be many contradictions in the process of integration with the Central Plains culture: first, because of the absorption of believers, the state tax revenue is lost, causing economic dissatisfaction among those in power; Secondly, in order to compete for the right to speak of religious belief, it conflicts with traditional Taoism; Finally, there will be many conflicts with Confucianism in ideology and culture. With the intensification of these contradictions and conflicts, four Buddhist extinction events finally occurred in history, which is also called "three unique cases" in the history of Buddhism. Who is the "Three Armies Case"? The "Three Heroes" here refer to: Tuoba Tao, Northern Wei Emperor Taizong, Yu Wenyong, Northern Zhou Emperor Wu, and Tang Wuzong Li Yan; "One example" refers to Chai Rong, the last generation of Zhou Shizong in the Five Dynasties. Because of the political reality, the above four emperors all took Buddhism as the starting point and implemented the policy of destroying Buddhism in order to transfer social contradictions or solve economic problems. Among them, Tang Wuzong and Zhou Shizong also used the destroyed Buddha statues to cast Kaiyuan Bao Tong and Zhu Yuanzhang Bao Tong coins respectively. What we are introducing here is Kaiyuan Baotong Money, also called Huichang Kaiyuan Money, which was cast by Tang Wuzong with the destroyed Buddha statue. The money of Huichang Kaiyuan was cast from April to August in the fifth year of Huichang (845). As we said just now, the difference between Huichang Kaiyuan Money and Kaiyuan Baotong Money cast before this is that a Chinese character is cast on the back to indicate the casting place. As shown in the figure, "Luo" and "Yi" on the back represent the casting sites of Luoyang and Chengdu respectively. The "Huichang Kaiyuan" cast in Luoyang and Chengdu is recorded in the Book of Tang Dynasty. It was Li Shen's idea to carve characters on the back of Huichang Kaiyuan coin at the earliest. Then who's Li Shen? Why did he put forward this suggestion? Li Shen was a native of Runzhou in the Tang Dynasty, which is today's Wuxi, Jiangsu. Although he is a scholar and talented, his career development is not smooth due to the exclusion of cronies. It was not until Tang Wuzong ascended the throne that he was appointed Prime Minister. However, I was unlucky and had a stroke in less than four years. Although he was not paralyzed, he was inconvenient to walk, so he asked to retire. Tang Wuzong felt sorry for him, so he arranged for him to go to Huainan, where the conditions were better, as our time, and to be stationed in Yangzhou. Yangzhou was a very rich place in the Tang Dynasty, second only to Chang 'an and Luoyang in importance. The Grand Canal built in Yang Di started from Yangzhou in the south. Yangzhou is a distribution center for grain, salt and other goods, with many people and temples. Therefore, more Buddha statues and utensils have been collected than in other places. After Wuzong destroyed the Buddha, because of the destruction of Buddha statues and utensils, a lot of copper materials were suddenly added to cast money. The original mint was actually a mint. Because of the limited ability to make money, I can't digest the sudden increase of so many copper materials. In order to cast these copper materials into money as soon as possible and alleviate the pressure of "money shortage", the court accepted the suggestion of Yongping supervisor in Raozhou (now Poyang County, Jiangxi Province), that is, Yongping Mint, an official named Li Yuyan, to the court, that is, to allow the States. Although Li Shen was in Yangzhou at that time, he always cared about the imperial court. So he took advantage of Yangzhou's original two money supervisors and ten casting furnaces to take the lead in casting Kaiyuan Bao Tong money in Yangzhou. In order to show that this coin was cast in the period of Wuzong, Shen Li added a word "Chang" on the back of the coin, indicating that the year number of Wuzong was "Huichang". This coin, first minted by Shen Li in Yangzhou "Huichang Kaiyuan" Li Shen, was presented to the court. It was thought that it could be used to evaluate the quality of coins cast in various places, so it was popularized by the imperial court and required that the name of the country or the name of the money supervisor should be cast on the back of coins cast in various places for verification. This is an understanding of everyone in the past. In fact, Li Shen's approach is not so simple, and there are deeper intentions hidden in it. How to understand this? Former Prime Minister Li Shen, who was concerned about state affairs, used to put local names on the back of coins. In addition to ostensibly asking to check the quality of local coins, he secretly used this to test the loyalty of Hebei Fangzhen, represented by "Heshuo Three Towns", to the court after the Anshi Rebellion. Why is this? This is because An Lushan and Shi Siming, who surrendered to the imperial court after the Anshi Rebellion, still occupy Hebei. Although they nominally respected the emperor of the Tang Dynasty as the monarch, they were actually a separatist party, obeying the orders of the court and not obeying it. Therefore, Li Shen suggested casting characters on the back of coins, just to verify their loyalty to the court. What about the results of the verification? According to statistics, there are 23 words on the back of Huichang Kaiyuan Money, namely: Beijing, Luo, Yi, Lan, Xiang, Jing, Yue, Hong, Xuan, Tan, Yan, Run, Hubei, Ping, Xing, Liang, Guang, Zi, Fu, Dan, Gui, Chang and Yue. These coin-minting states are basically subordinate to the central government. And those represented by the "three towns of Heshuo", who have always been on an equal footing with the court, are almost indifferent to this regulation of the court and have no money at all. About this period of history, historians in the past can only get a general understanding in historical documents. But today's numerologists can see the specific situation of the separatist regime in Hebei Province through Huichang Kaiyuan Money, which is where coins can prove history. In addition, we also noticed that the same place name was cast in different positions on the back of coins, which indicated that they were not cast at one time. Perhaps later, in the middle and old age of Xuanzong, some relatively remote areas continued to cast. Moreover, because each state mints its own coins, the specifications and sizes of coins are also inconsistent. Therefore, the standard of Huichang Kaiyuan Money is not uniform, and the production process is relatively rough. What happened to Huichang Kaiyuan Money? Buddhism pays attention to reincarnation, which has been fulfilled in destroying Huichang Kaiyuan money cast by Buddha statues. When Wuzong was seriously ill, a heavily armed eunuch privately issued a letter to hold Wuzong's uncle Wang Guang Yi Li as his great-uncle. This is a rare phenomenon in the ancient history of China, because the throne is basically passed on to the next generation, and occasionally passed on by the same generation, but it rarely happens that the throne is passed on to the next generation. But since it was passed on to his uncle. In March of the sixth year of Huichang (846), when Wu Zonggang died, King Guang succeeded to the throne in front of the coffin, which was called Xuanzong in history. According to the Records of the Book of the New Tang Dynasty, after Xuanzong ascended the throne, he "tried his best to promote politics, and the new money was distinguished by words and recast as an image". This means that after Xuanzong ascended the throne, he immediately abolished the Wuzong policy, stopped casting money, and destroyed the coins cast by the Buddha statue according to whether there were words on the back of the coins, and then destroyed them again and cast them back to the Buddha statue. Therefore, from the end of the fourth year of Huichang (844) to the first year of Dazhong (847), Huichang Kaiyuan money was abandoned for only three years, and the actual casting circulation time was only a little over a year. Later, most of them were destroyed, and there were few left, accounting for about one-thirtieth of the total amount of money in Kaiyuan Baotong, which was a relatively small variety in Kaiyuan Bao Tong coin family. In addition, it not only witnessed the extinction of Huichang Giant Buddha, but also has important historical value. At the same time, because it is made of destroyed Buddha statues, people think it has Buddha nature and can keep peace. Therefore, it has become the collection target of coin lovers. As mentioned above, the "Huichang Kaiyuan" money was cast when Wuzong destroyed the Buddha. Is it just casting money when Wu Zong destroyed the Buddha? Save this question for next time. "Who Coined Coins in Three Thousand Years" Wang Yongsheng Wang Yongsheng of CITIC Publishing Group Resume: 65438+/KLOC-0 Born in September 1966, Associate Research Fellow, Director of Research and Information Department of China Coin Museum, Deputy Secretary-General of China Coin Society and Secretary-General of Coin Bank Museum Committee of China Museum Association. He has a wide range of academic interests, including: the history of Chinese currency, the cultural exchange between China and foreign countries, the monetization of silver, the history of cultural exchange between the East and the West on the Silk Road, the history of Central Asia, and the history of ethnic groups. He has published more than 65,438+000 papers in public journals at home and abroad. (1) Published 7 academic monographs: Historical Currency of Xinjiang-Historical Investigation of the Blending of Eastern and Western Currency Cultures (published by Zhonghua Book Company in August 2007); Coin and Historical Research of Western Regions (published by Zhonghua Book Company on February 20 1 1); The History of China's Currency (4 series, published by Social Science Literature Publishing House in July 20 16, selected as "Good Books in China" published by China Book Review Society in August 20 16, and selected as the second batch of books recommended by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television in September 20 17); Who minted coins in 3,000 years: A Brief History of 50 Coins Series in China (published by CITIC Publishing House in 2065438+ 1 in 2009, and selected as "China's Good Book" published by China Book Criticism Society in February of 20 19). (2) Invited as a consultant to cooperate with the Overseas Program Center of Beijing TV Station, and planned and directed ten large-scale documentaries "The Road to Financing" in September 20 15, which were broadcast on Beijing Satellite TV in June 20 16+2065438+February 2009. (3) Invited to plan and organize the comprehensive scientific research activity of Wusun Ancient Road. From July 26th to 20th, 2065438, Kloc-0/7th, we started from Heiying Mountain in Baicheng County, Xinjiang, crossed Tianshan Mountain to Tekes County, and conducted a comprehensive scientific research on the ancient road along the route. The column "Exploration and Discovery" of CCTV Channel 10 was reported in two episodes on June 23rd and October 24th, 165438. This article has been authorized by the author for publication.