String of cash coins (currency unit)

A string of cash coins (Traditional Chinese: 貫, 索, 緡, 繦, 鏹,[a] 吊, 串, 弔, 錢貫, 貫錢,[b] 貫文, 吊文, or 串文; French: Ligature de sapèques) refers to a historical Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Ryukyuan, and Vietnamese currency unit that was used as a superunit of the Chinese cash, Japanese mon, Korean mun, Ryukyuan mon, and Vietnamese văn currencies.

The number of cash coins which had to be strung together to form a string differed due to region, time period, or by the materials used in the manufacture thereof.

In Vietnam a string of cash coins had the nominal value of 1 Mexican peso or 1 French Indochinese piastre.

The Jingqian system allowed a nominal debt of 2 wén (文) which could be paid out using only one physical cash coin instead of two.

Between the years of 1161 and 1166 the government of the Song dynasty had produced 28,000,000 dào (道, equal to a guàn or 1000 wén) in Huizi notes.

As the Mongols continued marching south, the Chinese military required more money causing the government to print an excessive amount of Huizi banknotes.

Most of these saifu banknotes had a value of 10 kanmon (10,000 mon, or 10 strings of 1000 copper coins), these notes also circulated among the general public.

At the bottom of the Great Ming Treasure Note banknote was text which explained that it was issued by the Zhongshusheng (中書省, 'Palace Secretariat'), that it was a valid type of currency used concurrently with copper-alloy cash coins, and that counterfeiters would face a penalty and those who notified the authorities of counterfeiting would be highly rewarded.

[33] Privately produced banknotes of the Qing dynasty, as is usual for China, had a great variety of names designating them across the country with names being used such as Zhuangpiao (莊票), Pingtie (憑帖), Duitie (兌帖), Shangtie (上帖), Hupingtie (壺瓶帖), or Qitie (期帖).

[36] Another way to indicate what type of cash coins would be paid out is if the bamboo tally did or did not contain the inscription 10 wén (十文) below its top hole.

[36] As the Qing dynasty's government started manufacturing Daqian since the Xianfeng period that contained high nominal values but had intrinsic values that were only slightly more valuable than the low denomination coinages, the issuer of the bamboo tally would be able to make a profit off of this situation.

[38] American bicyclist William Sachtleben visited the city of Ghulja in 1892 and was preparing to cycle to Beijing; while preparing for his trip together with the Russian consul, he noted the difficulty in transporting strings of cash coins, stating: "We thought we had sufficient money to carry us, or, rather, as much as we could carry…for the weight of the Chinese money necessary for a journey of over three thousand miles was, as the Russian consul thought, one of the greatest of our almost insurmountable obstacles.

This necessity for vigilance, together with the frequency of bad silver and loaded yambas, and the propensity of the Chinese to “knock down” on even the smallest purchase, tends to convert a traveler in China into a veritable Shylock.

[39][40] British explorer Isabella Bird wrote of the annoyance that strings of cash coins caused to the Chinese she witnessed in her travels stating: "Exchanging eighteen shillings English for brass cash, the weight of them amounted to seventy-two pounds, which had to be carried by the coolies".

[41]During the colonial era in French Cochinchina, Chinese sapèques (known as lý) were exclusively used as casino tokens by gambling houses and were not used for other purchases unless trade was being conducted with Qing China.

Charles Lemire described the heavy nature and difficult mobility of strings of sapèques as "a currency worthy of Lycurgus of Sparta" and non numerantur, sed ponderantur ("they are not counted but weighed").

"Another serious disadvantage consisted in the total absence of token coinages other than the inconvenient sapèque one of zinc: one needed an artillery van to go exchange 1,000 francs in ligatures for the one sapèques, since it had the weight of a barrel and half.... and at the market, the chicken weighed some times less than its price in currency.

[43] In early 20th century Sơn Tây Province slang, the term for a string of cash coins was Lòi.

[44] Meanwhile, in the late 19th century Điêm slang spoken by the lower-class people of Saigon, the terms were Què and Quẻ as an abbreviation of Quán (貫).