Ming-Era Remittance Systems and Standard Cash in the Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan

Abstract The pre-modern Chinese novel Xingshi yinyuan zhuan provides a wealth of information on the use of silver and copper cash in the economy of the late Ming dynasty. An analysis of the text reveals that there was no mechanism for remote remittance in the modern financial sense during this period. Therefore, it is necessary to reexamine several research works which have claimed the existence of remote remittance in financial history studies. Upon scrutinizing the various types of standard cash minted from the Jiajing to Chongzhen eras, it is evident that the popular “yellow-fringed coin” referred to in the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan was actually an umbrella term that encompassed both yellow coins and lathed-rim coins. Furthermore, the decimal conversion coins mentioned in the text that were withdrawn from the market due to unusability were most likely the decuple coins in the Tianqi era universal currency. The political incompetence of the late Ming period also caused the common people to reject the universal currency of the period, which was more valuable than the universal currency of previous periods.