Chinese coinage in the Ming dynasty saw the production of many types of coins. During the Ming dynasty of China, the national economy was developed and its techniques of producing coinage were advanced.
The Ming dynasty cast comparatively few coins when compared with earlier dynasties in Chinese history, and the cash coins they did produce were not regarded to be as beautifully made as in earlier times. The majority of cash coins in circulation at the time of the Ming were actually Tang and Song dynasty era cash coins. This all indicates that the emperors of the Ming dynasty did not regard coins with the same importance as those who ruled before them.
Background
Zhu Yuanzhang, better known as the Hongwu Emperor, proclaimed the Great Ming in 1368. From the founding of the Ming until 1450, the emperors attempted to use paper currency, but this experienced the same hyperinflation as its predecessors. For the most part, the country was starved for silver in the early part of the dynasty and much trade occurred via barter; in later years, silver mostly came in through trade with either Manila in the Philippines as part of the Spanish East Indies within the Spanish colonial empire and Japan. The flow of Chinese trade goods like chinaware were exported towards the rest of the Spanish colonial empire in Spanish America and Europe through the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade between Manila in the Philippines to Acapulco in Mexico and Spanish treasure fleets from Veracruz in Mexico to Seville in Spain. Meanwhile, the return route also ensured constant supply of the Spanish silver dollar coins which were minted in New Spain (Mexico), and mined from Potosí in Bolivia or Peru. The Spanish dollar coins were often stamped with Chinese characters known as "chop marks" which indicated that the particular coin had been assayed by a well-known merchant and determined to be genuine. The widespread circulation of the Spanish silver dollar not only affected the Ming but also became widespread across many countries in the Far east as a standard for trade and it remained embedded even till the Qing dynasty when banknotes started to be printed labeled as "Mexican Dollars" and later Western powers also later issued trade dollars, and colonial currencies such as the Hong Kong dollar, to the same specifications. This silver flowed into the country and was also melted down and traded as bullion now known as sycee. However, the emperors also periodically minted coins. Alongside copper coins cowrie shells continued to circulate during this period as well.
Coinage in the Ming era
After the Chinese became independent following the retreat of the Mongols back north and a bloody civil war culminating with the victory of Zhu Yuanzhang the Ming dynasty rose to power and under it a long period of stability and growth came. Until 1505 cash coins circulated alongside the Da Ming Baochao banknotes, but as more silver currency entered the Chinese market, currencies such as Spanish silver dollars started supplanting the cash coins. Privately minted cash coins of inferior quality became predominant in the south of China and 4 types of official cash coins were minted of varying quality of which one time with a weight of 1 qián was cast for payment to the imperial government, a second type of 0.9 qián for the salaries of officials, and the two types of lowest quality were mostly used by the commoners and circulated the most. Coins known as gold reverse coins were cast that were smelted four times as opposed to two and these were regarded as being more valuable, ironically because of this these gold reverse coins were being hoarded which prevented them from circulating causing even cheap and low quality counterfeit cash coins to circulate in larger numbers, after the government of the Ming dynasty started producing "milled rim" cash coins these were universally accepted so fast that at one point merchants accepted only these coins, but as the reputation of the gold reverse cash coins was so strong the "milled rim" coins were eventually viewed as worthless and deprecated.
The amount of copper-alloy cash coins produced by the Ming dynasty was higher than under the preceding Yuan dynasty (which had used paper notes, or zhibi (紙幣), extensively instead of metal coinages), but never reached the annual production outputs of the Song dynasty period.