The Nihon Shoki records that Emperor Tenmu prohibited silver coins and ordered the use of only copper coins in A.D.683. Although the silver coins in question have been linked with round silver objects with a center hole, known as "plain silver coins, " the nature of the copper coins has remained an enigma. In January 1999, the Nara National Institute of Cultural Properties published the results of its archaeological discovery of copper coins marked with the characters fuhon from layers of the second half of the 7^&tl;th≷ century at Asuka-ike site, Nara Prefecture. This resolved the problem of the copper coins dated 683 and provided a secure starting point for rethinking the characteristics of early coinage in Japan. Silver coins of Wado-kaiho (or Wado-kaichin) issued from the fifth month of 708 have long been believed to be the first minted in Japan. From an ordinance of 721 and other records, it can be inferred that from the beginning they were assigned the face value of 1/4 liang (a weight unit of Tang China that was also adopted in Japan) of silver. Their real individual weights were less than 1/6 liang. So, Wado silvers, which were short of weight equivalent to their value, had the character of nominal money. The earlier plain silver coins were actually 1/4 liang in weight. The correspondence of the legal value of Wado silvers with the real weight of the plain silver coins cannot be accidental;therefore, we can infer from this that Wado silvers were supposed to be exchanged with the plain silver coins at a one to one ratio. After the first issue of Wado copper coins in the eighth month of 708, the Ritsuryo government promulgated a series of laws from 709 to 710 restricting, abolishing, and prohibiting the use of silver coins. The aim of these laws has not been sufficiently explained so far. From above inferred purpose of the issue of Wado silvers, the following policy can be assumed:the government aimed to obtain marginal profits by replacing the plain silver coins with Wado silvers, and then forcing the exchange of Wado silvers for Wado coppers, the value of which was fixed at a high rate. Almost all laws and social phenomena related to the issue of early coins can be clearly explained from this point of view. As a precondition to this policy, plain silver coins must have been circulating fairly widely and, as countable money, valued by quantity as well as weight. Accordingly, the former understanding of the plain silver coins as magical charms or primitive money used for exchange only by weight value on rare occasions is erroneous. The order of the year 683 was a precursor to the policy of replacing silver coins with copper ones that was enforced after the issue of the Wado coins. The effective withdrawal of the order after only three days by way of allowing "silver" suggests resistance to it resulting from the wellestablished use of the plain silver coins by that date. The increasing number of plain silver coins excavated recently from archaeological sites supports this hypothesis. As mentioned above, an almost identical policy was put into execution 25 years later, this time with a deliberate double-step program (from plain silver coins to Wado silvers, and then from Wado silvers to Wado coppers), which reveals that the circulation of fuhon copper coins was not as successful as the government had intended. The government pushed the policy of the suppression of silver coins and promotion of copper coins not only because of the shortage of silver but also because silver coins (even Wado silvers) could not be valued independently of the value of silver in China. By contrast, the government presumably thought it possible to control the monetary value of copper coins, heavier relative to their value compared to silver and cast in a distinct form. The government made efforts to maintain the value of copper coins at least ten times higher
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