User:Donald Trung/Korean mun 2019 history expansion



This page serves as "the editing history" of the English Wikipedia article Korean mun and is preserved for attribution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/919014027 ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 11:08, 1 October 2019 (UTC).

Earliest coinages
While in ancient Korea various items like clam shells, iron, and precious metals were all traded as a medium of exchange, but the primary forms of currency during this era used in bartering were grain and cloth. During the pre-monetary times anything related to food and clothing was used as a medium of exchange as well as a method to measure the value of products. The types of grains most commonly used for bartering were rice, barley, beans, and millet. Of these commodities millet white rice was valued a lot more than regular rice. The most common forms of cloth as currency in ancient Korea were hemp, ramie, and silk. Other goods were calculated as having a certain value that was in relation to fundamental commodities such as grain, rice, and cloth. As a result of the ancient barter-based economy some modern elderly South Koreans still use the phrase "Go to the market and sell some rice" which evokes the idea of trading rice for other products. It would not be until the 17th century that coinage fully replaced the barter system throughout the entire Korean peninsula.

Hemp was first the most common form of cloth currency but later cotton cloth (or pohwa) would become the dominant form of cloth money. Since the Three Kingdoms period, silk was considered to be one of the most highly valued medium of exchange.

The first definitive record of currency use in Korea appears in the Goryeo period (918–1392). Early in that period, even though some imported Chinese currency from the Tang and Song dynasties were in circulation, commodity currency such as grain and linen continued in general circulation. In the 10th and 11th centuries, iron and bronze coins were issued, but saw limited circulation among the common people. As in modern times Xin dynasty era hwacheon (貨泉, 화천) cash have been unearthed in tombs in modern Korea there is minor evidence that these coins might've been used for the international trade of the time. In 2018 Wu Zhu (五銖, 오수) cash coins, known as oshujeon in Korea, were unearthed in the North Gyeongsang province further confirming an ancient trade relation with China.

The first known metallic coinage known to have circulated in ancient Korea was Chinese knife money, this type of Chinese coin circulated in the Kingdom of Yan during the Warring States period, and was brought to the Korean peninsula by Chinese settlers and in modern times specimens of knife money have been excavated in the provinces of Pyeongan and Jeolla. During the Chinese Han dynasty Wu Zhu cash coins which were known as oshujeon (五銖錢, 오수전) in Korean were brought to the Korean peninsula following the Han conquest of Gojoseon in 108 BC. The oshujeon would continue to circulate in the later kingdoms of Goguryeo and Silla of the Korea Three Kingdoms period up to the 10th century CE. Today oshujeon are most commonly found in the tombs of the former Lelang Commandery.

The ŭnbyŏng (or hwalgu) silver vases were widely used and circulated among the aristocracy. These ŭnbyŏng produced from the year 1101 and were engraved with an official state seal to mark them as a legitimate currency which was valid throughout Goryeo. The ŭnbyŏng weighed around one Kŭn (斤, 근) which is roughly equal to 600 grams, this made them very useful for paying for large transactions. Historians suggest that the ŭnbyŏng primarily used by the aristocratic classes and that were also often involved in the bribing of government officials. In the year 1282 the government enacted a law that pegged the value of one ŭnbyŏng at between 2,700 and 3,400 litres of rice. But regardless of the fact that this currency was highly impractical for paying for low value items, the ŭnbyŏng would continue to be used during the next two centuries.

During the reign of Chungnyeol of Goryeo the government had permitted the circulation of rough or broken pieces of silver. By the year 1331 the ŭnbyŏng had completely disappeared from circulation. No specimens of the ŭnbyŏng are known to have survived to the modern era.

Around this time period, the Goryeo government issued a new monetary policy regarding the minting and distribution of cash coins. This decree was implemented to both strengthen royal authority and to regulate the national finances of Korea.

The first cash coins that were allegedly minted in Korea occurred under the reign of King Seongjong in the year Seongjong 15 (996 AD). It bore the inscription "Geonwon Jungbo" (乾元重寶, 건원중보) on its obverse and "Dongguk" (東國, 동국), which could be translated as "the country of the East", on its reverse. This series of cash coins bore the same inscription as the Tang dynasty Qianyuan Zhongbao (乾元重寶) cash coins, but the text "Dongguk" was added to its reverse to indicate that the coin was from a country east of China. The Geonwon Jungbo were manufactured in both bronze and iron.

The attribution of the Geonwon Jungbo to Seongjong is controversial. This is because no ancient Korean historical references mention this series of cash coins and the Geonwon Jungbo did not appear in any coin catalogues until the year 1938 when a Japanese coin catalogue named East Asian Money (東亞錢志) attributed it as being an early Korean issue. After its initial attribution notable Chinese numismatist Ding Fubao quoted this book in one of his works in 1940. It is speculated by some Chinese numismatists that the attribution of this series of cash coins to Goryeo may be because of cash coins with similar inscriptions being listed in the "Qian Zhi", a Chinese coin catalogue published in the year 1149 (Shaoxing 19) during the Southern Song dynasty as this catalogue listed not only Chinese cash coins but also Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Southeast Asian coins.

Because of where these cash coins are usually found in the modern era and due to the lack of historical records, it is sometimes attributed to the ancient Korean kingdom of Balhae. But no historical records exist from Balhae in regard to its coinage so the exact origins of the Geonwon Jungbo remain a mystery. Because of these findings many mainstream Chinese numismatists do not attribute the Geonwon Jungbo to Goryeo. Other arguments set forth is that "Dongguk" is an abbreviation for "Haidong Shengguo", one of the names of Balhae, the fact that Balhae was a major exporter of copper to the Tang dynasty and had a very prosperous economy and a developed culture, this meant that Balhae might have issued its own coinage as it had an extremely well developed copper melting industry, furthermore Balhae used the same calendar as the Tang dynasty so when the Tang dynasty entered the Qianyuan era Balhae entered the Geonwon era.

During its heyday Balhae was complete imitation of the Tang dynasty with its Three Departments and Six Ministries system, Balhae was strongly influenced by the Tang on political, economic, cultural, and military levels and the country was commonly referred to as "Dongguk" because of its geographical location. Meanwhile it is very unlikely that Goryeo would’ve adopted the Tang dynasty Qianyuan Zhongbao inscription as by its time this series of cash coins came to be associated with the inflation and political instability of the late Tang period.

Another hypothesis claims that the Geonwon Jungbo were either a commemorative issue or a military issue akin to the much later Qianlong Tongbao cash coins issued during the Battle of Ngọc Hồi-Đống Đa campaign which had the characters "安南" (Annan) inscribed on its reverse.

In the modern era these cash coins are mostly unearthed in the Chinese province of Liaoning and North Korea. Some of them being unearthed in the city of Kaiyuan, Liaoning. The iron cash coins are more commonly found than the bronze ones. Currently only 10 pieces of the Geonwon Jungbo are known to exist making it an extremely valued object among East Asian coin collectors.

Coinage of King Sukjong of Goryeo
King Sukjong of Goryeo created a new monetary system based on round copper-alloy coins with square holes as well as the ŭnbyŏng (, 은병) shaped like the Korean peninsula. The coins were produced bearing the inscriptions (동국/Dong guk or "Eastern Country"),  (해동/hae dong or "Eastern Sea"), and  (삼한/Samhan).

An extremely rare variant of the Samhan Tongbo (삼한통보, 三韓通寶) cash coin exists that bears the character written in "official script" instead of, of which only 2 have currently been found.

A new government department, the Directorate of the Mint was created, this government agency in charge of regulating the newly established currency system, and the Dongguk Tongbo (東國通寶) was the first of the these new Korean cash coins to be minted.

In order to strengthen the monetary policy of Goryeo, government officials were encouraged to receive their salaries in cash coins and it was hoped that if they would spend the new currency at local taverns that this would encourage their circulation to become widespread throughout Korea. However, the new cash coin's value would prove to be rather unreliable in the marketplace and it was considered to be impractical for purchasing and trading goods. Because of this perception the new cash coins of Goryeo did not find any wide usage and the government of Goryeo did not try to natively establish a money-based economy afterwards.

There is evidence to suggest that the Chinese used to extensively export Chinese cash coins to Korea for local circulation. The Sinan shipwreck, which was a ship from Ningbo that sank off the Korean coast in the year 1323, carried some 8,000 strings of cash coins, which weighed about 26,775 kg.

Joseon Tongbo and Shibjeon Tongbo cash coins
It was not until the beginning of the Joseon period (1392–1910) that copper coins were minted for wide circulation.

The Jeohwa (저화/楮貨), which was made of standardized mulberry-bark paper (known as Korean paper) early in the Joseon period, became the first legal paper money in Korea and was used as a medium of exchange in place of coins until it disappeared in the early 16th century. Korean traders at the time also accepted the Chinese Da-Ming Baochao banknotes. However, banknotes were almost exclusively used for the payment of taxes, and they struggled to catch on in the general Korean market. No paper money survives from this period.

During the early years of the Joseon period cloth and grains would remain the most common forms of currency among the Korean people, during this time cotton was considered to be the most important medium of exchange. The government of Joseon also recognised the prominent role that cotton played in the Korean economy and the highest quality specimens of cotton would be stamped with the text "Joseon Tongpyejiin", which could be seen as a government seal of approval and meant that it could be used as currency throughout Korea. Barter would remain the norm in Joseon society for many generations before the reintroduction of cash coinage.

Bronze coins were cast starting in 1423 during the reign of king Sejong the Great with the Joseon Tongbo (조선통보, ) cash coins. The coins produced under Sejong were pegged to silver at 150 coins to one Kŭn (, 근) which is equal to 600 grams, though the actual market rates regularly fluctuated. But the monetary system proved to be unpopular as people resorted back to barter after a few years.

The Sejong era Joseon Tongbo cash coins were only issued in the years 1423 (Sejong 5), 1424 (Sejong 6), and 1425 (Sejong 7) and all of these cash coins distinctively use the regular script font of Chinese characters which tended to be both clearly and distinctively inscribed while their reverse sides tend to be blank (blank reverses are known as "光背"). This first series of Joseon Tongbo are generally about 24 millimeters in diameter and tend to weigh between 3.2 and 4 grams.

The Kings of Joseon were consistently creating new legislation aimed at promoting coins and promoted their manufacture to be widely used. Through these measures, the monarchs hoped to dispel the general mistrust that the Korean people had towards coinage and they also hoped that these decrees would boost the value of Korean cash coins.

Following the Japanese invasions of Korea it had become more necessary for there to be circulating coinage in Korea, this was needed in order to both procure military supplies and secure the national finances.

In 1625 under the reign of king Injo of Joseon a new series of cash coins with the same inscription as under Sejong the Great were minted. In order to promote the circulation of the new coinage, King Injo tried to rent out vacant rooms for the opening of new restaurants which would accept these cash coins, these rooms were situated in front of Gyeongbok Palace. This was an attempt to encourage the circulation of the new coinage and the King hoped to open the eyes of the Korean people to the value of using coinage over barter.

The government soon enacted new national laws to stimulate the usage of coinage, for instance a law that allowed for people to pay their taxes using coins. Government officials were now also required to use cash coins to pay for their expenses when they would travel as a means to help promote their circulation. Another factor that led to the more widely adoption of coinage by the Korean people this time around was the fact seasonal problems such as droughts or less productive harvests made it more difficult to manufacture grains and cloth causing them to decrease in circulation.

The second series of the Joseon Tongbo came roughly two centuries after the first and the first issues were made in the year 1625 (Injo 3), these cash coins had their inscriptions written in in "official style" script or palbun (八分, "eight part (script)"). During this era the government wasn’t the only manufacturer as private minting was allowed to take place and as such these cash coins tend to be very diverse.

The second series of Joseon Tongbo cash coins tend to have a rather yellow-brown colour and the Hanja characters depicted on them were not very standardised. The character strokes can be either thin or thick and either small or large. Some varieties of this series have broad rims while others tend to have very narrow rims. Unlike with the first series of the Joseon Tongbo cash coins, Joseon Tongbo cash coins with inscriptions written using the clerical script (隸書) typeface are much more scarce.

In the year 1651, King Hyojong issued a royal decree which ordered the people of Joseon to use the Joseon Tongbo cash coins and it also prohibited the usage of cloth as a currency. During this era the private production of cash coins was also allowed.

A sudden and major increase in agricultural production during the reign of King Sukjong paved the way for the opening of about 1,000 markets across Korea, this lead to the development of commerce and industry in the country which in turn gave a more favourable market for the circulation of coinage. The brisk production of goods to be traded and the subsequent development of commerce led to there being a relatively stable currency system during this era. These new markets and the merchants that they brought with them substantially raised the importance of currency, cash coins were now highly valued due to their ease of transportation and storage.

This second series of Joseon Tongbo coins became the inspiration for the following Sangpyeong Tongbo series, though later these coins would be suspended due to the Later Jin, and the Qing invasions of Joseon. After those wars Korea would become dependent on importing copper from Japan in order to sustain the production of coinage.

A number of different 10 mun and 1 jeon versions of the Joseon Tongbo cash coins were also created around the year 1881, these cash coins were experimental and therefore quite rare and not many contemporary records were written about them. These cash coins tend to have a diameter of 45 millimetres and tend to weigh around 30 grams and according to some reports they were 48.2 millimetres in diameter and had a weight of 29 grams. Some of them have blank reverse sides, these can be found in two different types which is dependent on whether the Chinese characters on the obverse side are written in a "small script" (小字) or a "large script" (大字), while others have the Hanja character "十" (십, "ten") located right above the square centre hole on the back.

The Joseon Tongbo cash coins with the denomination of 1 jeon were also only minted as an experimental issue and tend to have the mint mark of the Joseon Treasury Department on their reverse right above the square centre hole, this character was usually depicted as "戸", but can also sometimes be found as "户". On the right side of the square centre hole were the Chinese characters "一錢" (일전, il jeon), indicating its nominal value. The 1 jeon Joseon Tongbo cash coins was possibly 47.6 millimeters in diameter and allegedly had a weight of 31 grams.

During the time when the 1 jeon Joseon Tongbo cash coins were issued 400 mun (or 400 small cash coins of 1 mun) were valued as being worth 1 tael (兩, 양 or 냥) of silver. So in the new system planned for these Joseon Tongbo cash coins one coin of 1 jeon would have been worth forty coins of 10 mun and were themselves $1/undefined$ of a tael.

Other variants of the 1 jeon Joseon Tongbo cash coins can have some slight variations in the method that the "head" (or top part) of the Chinese character Tong (通) is written. Furthermore there can be variations in how the Chinese character Seon (鮮) is written as well, there can be slight differences in the way that the 4 bottom strokes (or "dots") of the "魚" are written as well as the method that the top part (or "head") of the "羊" is inscribed.

Another cash coin attributed to this period is the Shibjeon Tongbo (십전통보, ), which has been attributed by some numismatists to private mints during the reign of King Hyojong around the year 1651, while other numismatists think that the Shibjeon Tongbo cash coins may been cast starting in 1793 under King Jeongjo. It is generally believed that the Shibjeon Tongbo is a series of privately issued cash coins which is supported by the extreme diversity between specimens.

Sangpyeong Tongbo cash coins


Coins issued by a government famine relief organisation named the "Stabilisation Office" (Sangpyeongchong 상평청, ) were introduced in 1633, the coins bear an abbreviation of the office's name with the phrase Tongbo (통보/"" or circulating treasure) together formulating the inscription Sangpyeong Tongbo (상평통보, 常平通寶) which could be interpreted as "always even currency" and these first coins issued by the Sangpyeongchong had blank reverse sides. The round shape of the cash coin represented the sky, and a square hole situated in the middle coin represented the earth. These new coins started to circulate all over Joseon in 1678 during the reign of king Sukjong of Joseon.

Unlike earlier minted coins from the Georyo period, no mun currency produced under the Joseon dynasty bore the inscription Wonbo (, 원보) on any large denomination because a Chinese naming taboo where the character "元" (Hangul: 원) may not be used as it was a part of Hongwu's original name, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, of which Joseon was a tributary state. For this reason, all 100 mun coins also bear the inscription of "常平通寶", giving every coin from this period exactly the same obverse.

As the Sangpyeong Tongbo achieved nationwide circulation, it had now become more possible for people to accumulate wealth.

Cash coins were manufactured using a special casting technique where a Mother coin (母錢, 모전) was used that allowed for all coins in the same series to resemble each other with very little disparities between them. The mother coin was initially prepared by engraving a pattern with the legend of the cash coin which had to be manufactured. In the manufacturing process mother coins were used to impress the design in moulds which were made from easily worked metals such as tin and these moulds were then placed in a rectangular frame made from pear wood filled with fine wet sand, possibly mixed with clay, and enhanced with either charcoal or coal dust to allow for the molten metal to smoothly flow through, this frame would act as a layer that separates the two parts of the coin moulds. The mother coin was recovered by the people who cast the coins and was placed on top of the second frame and the aforementioned process was repeated until fifteen layers of moulds had formed based on this single mother coin. After cooling down a "coin tree" (錢樹, 전수) or long metallic stick with the freshly minted cash coins attached in the shape of "branches" would be extracted from the mould and these coins could be broken off and if necessary had their square holes chiseled clean, after this the coins were placed on a long metal rod to simultaneously remove the rough edges for hundreds of coins and then these cash coins could be strung together and enter circulation. Because of the way that the Sangpyeong Tongbo cash coins looked likes the leaves of a tree branch during this process, they were known as yeopjeon (葉錢) which could be translated as "leaf coin".

The widespread success of the Sangpyeong Tongbo cash coins also brought about many social changes to Korean society. One of these changes was the emergence of byeoljeon, these were non-monetary decorative people that reflected on the desire of people to gain more wealth.

1 tael of Sangpyeong Tongbo cash coins could purchase 20 kilograms of rice, and 4 taels Sangpyeong Tongbo cash coins could purchase either 80 kilograms of rice or 1 tael of silver. 1 piece, or 1 pun (分, 푼), would be worth 200 ~ 300 South Korean won in 2019 (or $0.16 ~ 0.25). The generally low value of small denomination Sangpyeong Tongbo cash coins is also the origin of the common Korean phrase "Give me one pun!", which is used to figuratively refer to the price of a cheap item.

Variants and denominations of the Sangpyeong Tongbo
As records were not actively kept it is currently unknown how many different variants of the Sangpyeong Tongbo cash coins were cast, and how much of each respective denomination (with the notable exception of the 100 mun coin, of which a total of 1,784,038 were minted). There are 3,078 varieties of the 1, 2, and 5 Mun denominations, and 48 varieties of the 100 Mun denomination documented by the authoritative Korean coin catalogue (Hanja: 高麗朝鮮時代貨幣; Hangul: 고여조선시대화폐), while there are estimated more than 5,000 different variants of the Sangpyeong Tongbo coins cast in the history of its production spanning 258 years, with many variants of the series still undocumented.

100 mun coin and inflation
When the 100 mun denomination (Dangbeakjeon or Tangbeakjeon, /당백전) was introduced in 1866 by regent Heungseon Daewongun to finance the state's military expenditures to strengthen Korea's military power to be able to compete with that of the Western powers which were forming an ever growing threat, as well as to rebuild the Gyeongbok Palace.

After its introduction the mun started to suffer from inflation, this was because the intrinsic value of the 100 mun coin was only five to six times as much as 5 mun coins, leading to the consumer price of e.g. rice to expand sixfold within 2 years. This eventually lead to traders preferring silver foreign currency such as the Mexican peso, Japanese yen, Russian ruble, and Chinese sycees. As a result of Some people started to melt smaller Sangpyeong Tongbo cash coins down to make counterfeit money. People who had lower denomination Sangpyeong Tongbo avoided to exchange with the value 100 cash coins, so they didn't put their Sangpyeong Tongbo on the market. The new series would be discontinued in April of the year 1867 after being produced only for 172 days. Despite them no longer being produced the government of Joseon continued distributing them onto the Korean market until an appeal from Choe Ik-hyeon convinced the government that these coins had an adverse effect on every class of Korean society.

The introduction of the 100 mun coin happened concurrent with the Tenpō Tsūhō 100 mon coin issued by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1835 (in reaction to government deficit), the 100 wén coin by the Qing dynasty in 1853 (in reaction to the Taiping rebellion), the Ryukyuan 100 mon and half Shu cash coins,   and the large denomination Tự Đức Bảo Sao cash coins in Vietnam. All of these large denomination cash coins also caused inflation on comparable levels.

Following the abolition of the Dangbaekjeon, the Korean government introduced the Dangojeon (當五錢, 당오전, alternatively Romanised as Tangojeon) in 1883, like the earlier Dangbaekjeon this denomination also caused a sharp decline in the value of coinage which brought a lot of turmoil to the Korean economy. From this point onwards, Japanese currency began to flood the Korean market and the Korean mun began to lose its power.

After king Gojong of Joseon established the Jeonwanguk mint in 1883 in Incheon in order to adopt a currency more akin to international standards leading the copper Sangpyeong Tongbo coins to eventually be phased out in favour of the silver yang.

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More sources to use

 * https://www.ancient.eu/Korean_Coinage/ (Ancient History Encyclopedia).
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 10:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC).
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 10:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC).
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 10:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC).