Invented in China, which had the knowledge of printing, the first banknote was a great innovation for the economy, before revolutions and galloping inflation came to undermine it.
It is called wheat, money, sorrel, dough or money… Money is omnipresent in our societies. And more precisely, the banknote. Whether you have one or two in a ball in your pocket or a thick wad in your wallet, this little piece of paper of various sizes and colors has been passed from hand to hand for several hundred years. To the point that its use seems innate in the 21st century.
However, there was a time when it did not exist. And during this period, the exchanges were not necessarily more complicated, but certainly… heavier. Without this piece of paper, we had to lug around kilos and kilos of heavy parts. ” People had coin necklaces around their necks which weighed extremely heavy “, says Lyce Jankowski, numismatist and specialist in East Asia.
“Flying Money”
The first banknotes therefore arrived in China in the 800s, with the invention of the printing press and hundreds of years of working with paper. As trade flourished in the Tang Dynasty, merchants carried on business all over the country. Tired of carrying safes and thefts by highwaymen, traders began to exchange pieces of paper. We are still a long way from the banknote, but this “flying money”, as they call it, allows them, once the transaction has been completed and the amount written on it, to recover their due once they arrive at their destination. If the idea comes from private traders, it quickly caught the eye of the authorities who took over the system for the collection of taxes or the payment of wages. The machine is launched.
It will not take very long to see in everyone’s hands banknotes almost as we know them, only a few decades. The potential of the note was immediately felt. It was therefore during the reign of Emperor Chen Tsung (998-1022), in the Sichuan region (southwest), that “paper money” appeared, locally called ” Jiaozi “. The leader with the goatee and the big red robe, as he is depicted in some works, launched the world’s first large-scale note printing, controlled by the government agency Bureau de Change. And here are the little cuts.
A real revolution, because for the first time in the world, everyone can put aside coin purses and settle everything they dream of with a simple piece of paper. Almost too good to be true. In any case, if the idea seems obvious today, it surprised more than one. The fact of paying with a piece of mulberry bark, soaked then crushed in a mortar before being transformed into paste, moreover stunned the great adventurer Marco Polo during his journey in China. ” When thus minted in large quantities, this paper money circulates in all parts of the dominions of the Great Khan; no one, at the risk of his life, dares to refuse to accept it in payment. All his subjects receive it without hesitation because, wherever their business calls them, they can still dispose of it in the purchase of goods such as pearls, jewels, gold or silver. With it, in short, every item can be purchased “, he writes in the famous Book of wonders.
” Counterfeiters will have their heads cut off »
Paper which, from 1279, under the Yüan dynasty, quickly became indispensable. Why melt metal to make coins when you can do it with paper? The note thus became the official currency of exchange and issued only by the government, which certainly wanted to retain its monopoly. Aware that counterfeiters could reproduce his currency, he had the banknotes inscribed that ” the forgers will have their heads cut off and those whose information will have led to the arrest (of the forgers) will be rewarded with two hundred and fifty liang of silver, they will also receive the property of the culprit “. Just that.
It didn’t take long before the Yüan also discovered the setbacks of this new economy, as reported by numismatist John E. Sandrock. Threatened by a revolution, the authorities decided, in the middle of the 14th century, to multiply the printing of banknotes to increase military expenditure. But without a reference value behind, well the note quickly finds the value of the simple piece of paper. As a result, inflation exploded and banknotes lost all their value. Citizens had no choice but to revert to coinage and barter, leaving the thousands of bundles already printed rotting in state coffers. ” Crises of confidence have been recurrent concludes Ms. Jankowsky.
And this first monetary crisis in history got the better of the Chinese note for a time. Forbidden to traffic in the 15th century, “ China did not have paper money again until 1853, when Emperor Ch’ing Hsien-feng reauthorized the issuance of paper money to meet the rising cost of suppressing the T’ rebellion. ai-ping “, notes the numismatist. Meanwhile, the banknote had made its appearance in the rest of the world…