756-762 AD CHINA TANG Dynasty Su Zong QIAN YUAN ZHONG BAO Old Cash Coin i99557

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Item: i99557

Authentic Coin of:


China – Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) 

Su Zong – Emperor: 756-762 AD
Bronze Qian Yuan Zong Bao Cash 24mm, Struck 756-765 
AD
Reference: H# 14.117
開元通寶, Four Chinese characters, square hole within.
Crescent to right.


You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.


 
TangSuzong.jpgEmperor Suzong of Tang (yihai day, 711 – 16 May 762; r. 756 – 762), personal name Li Heng, né Li Sisheng (李嗣升), known as Li Jun (李浚) from 725 to 736, known as Li Yu (李璵) from 736 to 738, known briefly as Li Shao (李紹) in 738, was an emperor of the Tang dynasty and the son of Emperor Xuanzong. Suzong ascended the throne after his father fled to Sichuan during the An Lushan Rebellion in 756; Li Heng himself had fled in the opposite direction, to Lingwu, where he was declared emperor by the army. Much of Emperor Suzong’s reign was spent in quelling the aforementioned rebellion, which was ultimately put down in 763 during the reign of his son Emperor Daizong.

During Emperor Suzong’s reign, the tradition of eunuchs becoming top-ranked officials began, with Li Fuguo becoming the commander of the imperial guards and possessing nearly absolute power near Emperor Suzong’s reign. In 762, with Emperor Suzong gravely ill, Li Fuguo killed Emperor Suzong’s wife Empress Zhang in a power struggle and shortly after that, Emperor Suzong died of myocardial infarction. ] He was succeeded by his son Emperor Daizong, who was eventually able to kill Li Fuguo, but the tradition of eunuchs in power had started. Suzong’s death on 16 May came only 13 days after the death of his father, the Emperor Xuanzong.


The
Tang dynasty
(Chinese: 唐朝) or the Tang 
Empire
was an imperial dynasty of China, 
preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the 
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. 
Historians generally regard the Tang as a high 
point in Chinese civilization, and a golden age 
of cosmopolitan culture. Tang territory, 
acquired through the military campaigns of its 
early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. 
The Tang capital at Chang’an (present-day Xi’an) 
was the most populous city in the world in its 
day.

The Lǐ family (李) founded the 
dynasty, seizing power during the decline and 
collapse of the Sui Empire. The dynasty was 
briefly interrupted when Empress Wu Zetian 
seized the throne, proclaiming the Second Zhou 
dynasty (690-705) and becoming the only Chinese 
empress regnant. In two censuses of the 7th and 
8th centuries, the Tang records estimated the 
population by number of registered households at 
about 50 million people. Yet, even when the 
central government was breaking down and unable 
to compile an accurate census of the population 
in the 9th century, it is estimated that the 
population had grown by then to about 80 million 
people.[9][10][b] With its large 
population base, the dynasty was able to raise 
professional and conscripted armies of hundreds 
of thousands of troops to contend with nomadic 
powers in dominating Inner Asia and the 
lucrative trade-routes along the Silk Road. 
Various kingdoms and states paid tribute to the 
Tang court, while the Tang also conquered or 
subdued several regions which it indirectly 
controlled through a protectorate system. 
Besides political hegemony, the Tang also 
exerted a powerful cultural influence over 
neighboring East Asian states such as those in 
Japan and Korea.

The Tang dynasty was 
largely a period of progress and stability in 
the first half of the dynasty’s rule, until the 
An Lushan Rebellion and the decline of central 
authority in the later half of the dynasty. Like 
the previous Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty 
maintained a civil-service system by recruiting 
scholar-officials through standardized 
examinations and recommendations to office. The 
rise of regional military governors known as
jiedushi
during the 9th century undermined 
this civil order. Chinese culture flourished and 
further matured during the Tang era; it is 
traditionally considered the greatest age for 
Chinese poetry. Two of China’s most famous 
poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, belonged to this age, 
as did many famous painters such as Han Gan, 
Zhang Xuan, and Zhou Fang. Scholars of this 
period compiled a rich variety of historical 
literature, as well as encyclopedias and 
geographical works. The adoption of the title 
Tängri Qaghan by the Tang Emperor Taizong in 
addition to his title as emperor was eastern 
Asia’s first “simultaneous kingship”.

Many notable innovations occurred under the 
Tang, including the development of woodblock 
printing. Buddhism became a major influence in 
Chinese culture, with native Chinese sects 
gaining prominence. However, in the 840s the 
Emperor Wuzong of Tang enacted policies to 
persecute Buddhism, which subsequently declined 
in influence. Although the dynasty and central 
government had gone into decline by the 9th 
century, art and culture continued to flourish. 
The weakened central government largely withdrew 
from managing the economy, but the country’s 
mercantile affairs stayed intact and commercial 
trade continued to thrive regardless. However, 
agrarian rebellions in the latter half of the 
9th century resulted in damaging atrocities such 
as the Guangzhou massacre of 878-879.


The Kaiyuan Tongbao (開元通寶;  
开元通宝; lit. ‘Circulating treasure 
from the inauguration of a new epoch’), 
sometimes romanised as Kai Yuan Tong Bao 
or using the archaic Wade-Giles spelling
K’ai Yuan T’ung Pao
, was a Tang dynasty 
cash coin that was produced from 621 under the 
reign of Emperor Gaozu and remained in 
production for most of the Tang dynasty until 
907. The Kaiyuan Tongbao was notably the first 
cash coin to use the inscription tōng bǎo 
(通寶) and an era title as opposed to have an 
inscription based on the weight of the coin as 
was the case with Ban Liang, Wu Zhu and many 
other earlier types of Chinese cash coins. The 
Kaiyuan Tongbao’s calligraphy and inscription 
inspired subsequent Central Asian, Japanese, 
Korean, Ryūkyūan, and Vietnamese cash coins and 
became the standard until the last cash coin to 
use the inscription “通寶” was cast until the 
early 1940s in French Indochina.

After the 
fall of the Tang dynasty Kaiyuan Tongbao coins 
would continue to be produced by various states 
of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

Under the Tang dynasty the earlier Wu Zhu coins 
of the Sui dynasty would remain the standard 
currency, but during the fourth year of the Wu 
De (武德) period (or 621 of the Gregorian 
calendar) Emperor Gaozu decreed that the Kaiyuan 
Tongbao coin be cast with a strictly enforced 
standard weight of 1⁄10 Liǎng (兩).

Unlike earlier Chinese cash coins which had 
their legends based on their weight, the Kaiyuan 
Tongbao was notably the first Chinese cash coin 
to use the tōng bǎo (通寶) inscription 
and simultaneously inspired the yuán bǎo 
(元寶) inscription. The reason that the Kaiyuan 
Tongbao also inspired the yuán bǎo 
legend is because the Chinese people themselves 
had trouble figuring out the correct character 
order, as the inscription is read in what was 
referred to as the “standard order” 
(top-bottom-right-left) some people accidentally 
read it in the wrong order as they had assumed 
that the inscription was read clockwise as 
Kaitong Yuanbao (開通元寶), this was also because 
rather than having the first two characters 
spell out the period title (which was Wu De when 
the Kaiyuan Tongbao was introduced), they had a 
different inscription. However this mistake in 
how the legend was read inspired the Northwest 
Chinese rebel Shi Siming to cast his own cash 
coins with the inscription Shuntian Yuanbao 
(順天元寶, shùn tiān yuán bǎo) cash coins 
first issued in Luoyang in 759, this coin 
however does have a clockwise inscription. 
Another term that was used to denote “the 
currency type” in Chinese coin inscriptions was
zhòng bǎo
(重寶) which could be translated as 
“heavy currency”. The first cash coin to have 
this inscription was the Qianyuan Zhongbao 
(乾元重寶) which was first produced in the year 759. 
The terms yuán bǎo (元寶) and zhòng 
bǎo
(重寶) which were both established during 
a 138 year period of the Tang dynasty would 
continue to be used on Chinese coins to the very 
end of the Qing dynasty in 1911. While the term
tōng bǎo
(通寶) was even used longer with the 
last Chinese cash coin, the Minguo Tongbao 
(民國通寶) being produced in Dongchuan, Yunnan 
during the early Republic of China period.

Another important difference with the 
inscription of the Kaiyuan Tongbao compared to 
earlier Chinese cash coins was that it was not 
written in seal script but rather in the more 
plain calligraphic clerical script. The Emperor 
ask one of China’s most well-known 
calligraphers, Ouyang Xun to write down the 
legend of the cash coin. This was also the first 
time in Chinese history that a famous 
calligrapher wrote the characters for a Chinese 
cash coin. Minting and copper extraction were 
centrally controlled, and private casting was 
punishable by death. For the first time we find 
regulations giving the prescribed coinage alloy: 
83% copper, 15% lead, and 2% tin. Previously the 
percentages used seem to have been on an ad hoc 
basis. Actual analyses show rather less copper 
than this.

At first, mints were set up in 
Luoyang in Henan, and also in Peking, Chengdu, 
Bingzhou (Taiyuan in Shanxi), and then Guilin in 
Guangxi. Minting rights were also granted to 
some princes and officials. By 660, 
deterioration of the coinage due to forgery had 
become a problem. The regulations were 
reaffirmed in 718, and forgeries suppressed. In 
737, the first commissioner with overall 
responsibility for casting was appointed. 1 
furnace that produced 3.3 million Kaiyuan 
Tongbao coins a year during the Tian Bao period 
between 713 and 756 would need 21220 jin of 
copper, 3709 jin of tin, and 540 jin per 
regulation of lead and had an average waste of 
23,5 %. The Kaiyuan Tongbao cash coins produced 
during the Tian Bao period had an officially set 
copper alloy however some Kaiyuan coins from 
this period were blue or white it’s likely that 
other alloys were also used. In 739, ten mints 
were recorded, with a total of 89 furnaces 
casting some 327,000 strings of cash a year. 123
liang
of metal were needed to produce a 
string of coins weighing 100 liang. In 
the late 740s, skilled artisans were employed 
for casting, rather than conscripted peasants. 
Despite these measures, the coinage continued to 
deteriorate. In 808, a ban on hoarding coins was 
proclaimed. This was repeated in 817. Regardless 
of the rank of a person, they could not hold 
more than 5,000 strings of cash. Cash balances 
exceeding this amount had to be expended within 
two months to purchase goods. This was an 
attempt to compensate for the lack of cash in 
circulation. By 834, mint output had fallen to 
100,000 strings a year, mainly due to the 
shortage of copper. Forgeries using lead and tin 
alloys were produced.

Due to the fact that 
this continued to be produced for two centuries 
by various mints all over China there are 
several hundred varieties of the Kaiyuan Tongbao 
that can be distinguished from each other due to 
slight differences.

The Kaiyuan Tongbao 
cash coins that were first cast until the height 
of the Tang period, early issues can be very 
accurately assigned to their time of casting and 
archeological evidence from Tang era tombs 
indeed prove that the first stroke of the 
character “元” are shorter than later versions, 
for this reason these coins are referred to as 
“short one yuan” (短一元, duǎn yī yuán
versions. A lesser quantity of these early 
Kaiyuan Tongbao cash coins are made from what 
the Chinese call “white copper” (白銅, bái 
tóng
) and are subsequently referred to as 
“White Copper/Baitong Kaiyuan Tongbao coins” 
(白銅開元通寶, báitóng kāiyuán tōng bǎo
today, however during the Tang dynasty itself 
they were given the nickname “pure coins” (青錢,
qīng qián
) which also became the basis for 
the nickname (外號) of “pure coin scholar” (青錢學士,
qīng qián xué shì
) which was given to 
Emperor Gaozong as his writings were said to 
resemble the coins.

There also exist 
Kaiyuan Tongbao cash coins which are 
differentiated by their second horizontal 
stroke, other than the first variant these 
others quite rare. The following versions of the 
Kaiyuan Tongbao coin can be distinguished by the 
“元” character’s second horizontal stroke (or 
“shoulder”):

Kaiyuan Tongbao cash coins 
also commonly have differentiating features on 
their reverse, these can include crescents which 
according to legend happened when either Empress 
Zhangsun or Empress Taimu or in some versions of 
the story Yang Guifei pressed her fingernail 
into a specimen Kaiyuan Tongbao coin made from 
wax. Other sources claim that the crescents were 
added due to foreign influence. Today it is 
widely believed that these crescents were marks 
of quality used by various mints.

Other 
than crescents, there were several Kaiyuan 
Tongbao coins with other reverse decorations, 
these include:

Early Kaiyuan Tongbao coins 
are easily identified due to their deeply cut 
characters that never touch the rim of the coin, 
these are called “separate from the rim” Kaiyuan 
Tongbao coins (simplified Chinese: 隔轮開元通宝; 
traditional Chinese: 隔輪開元通寶; pinyin: gélún 
kāiyuán tōng bǎo
), while the reverse of 
these coins tend to have uniform and clear rims. 
Later variants of the Kaiyuan Tongbao often have 
excess metal between the strokes of the Hanzi 
characters and even later variants have 
characters with strokes so long that they touch 
the rim, meanwhile the rims on the reverse side 
of these Kaiyuan Tongbao coins tend to be 
irregular and relatively flat.


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Mr. Ilya Zlobin, world-renowned expert numismatist, enthusiast, author and dealer in authentic ancient Greek, ancient Roman, ancient Byzantine, world coins & more.
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YEAR

756-762 AD

MODIFIED ITEM

No

COUNTRY/REGION OF MANUFACTURE

China

CERTIFICATION

Uncertified

COMPOSITION

Bronze

DENOMINATION

Cash

ERA

Ancient

MPN

No China Uncertified 7fec78d5-31

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