Forging Coins: One Death Sentence and Tens of Thousands Convicted

One offence, one phrase for the uncountable. The Shiji's treatise on the balance standard, writing of Emperor Wu's coinage: 'forging any of the gold coins is a capital offence, and of officials and people who forged the white metal there were countless numbers' (盜鑄諸金錢罪皆死，而吏民之盜鑄白金者不可勝數). Later in the same chapter a plainer sentence: 'offenders were so many that the officials could not execute them all' (犯者眾，吏不能盡誅取). This piece is about what lies between those two sentences: a capital penalty, and the people it failed to stop.

One: first permitted, then forbidden

It begins with permission. In Emperor Wen's time, the Shiji says, 'the coin became more and more plentiful and light, so four-zhu coins were cast with the inscription Ban Liang, and the people were allowed to cast coins freely' (令民縱得自鑄錢). The Han treatise words the same measure differently: 'because the coins were plentiful and light, four-zhu coins were cast with the inscription Ban Liang; the prohibition on private coining was removed, and the people were allowed to cast freely' (除盜鑄錢令，使民放鑄). One page says the people were let cast; the other says the ban was lifted. Both are quoted here. What followed is on the same page: 'the Lord of Wu, a feudal lord, coined at the mountains and his wealth matched the Son of Heaven… Deng Tong, a grandee, coined and his wealth surpassed a king's. So the Wu and Deng coins spread through the realm, and the prohibition on coining arose' (故吳、鄧氏錢布天下，而鑄錢之禁生焉).

Forty-odd years later, under Emperor Wu: 'from Emperor Wen's recasting of the four-zhu coin to this year is more than forty years; since the Jianyuan era the coin has been little used, the offices have often coined at the copper mountains, and the people have also coined privately beyond count; the coins grew more numerous and lighter, goods scarcer and dearer' (民亦閒盜鑄錢，不可勝數。錢益多而輕，物益少而貴). Then the reform — the half-liang coins melted, three-zhu coins cast, the three grades of white metal issued — and immediately after it, the penalty.

Two: one death sentence

The penalty sentence is almost word for word in both books. The Shiji: 'forging any of the gold coins is a capital offence, and of officials and people who forged the white metal there were countless numbers' (盜鑄諸金錢罪皆死，而吏民之盜鑄白金者不可勝數). The Han treatise: 'forging any of the gold coins is a capital offence, and of officials and people who committed it there were countless numbers' (盜鑄諸金錢罪皆死，而吏民之犯者不可勝數). The first half is identical; the second says 'forged the white metal' in one and 'committed it' in the other, and the two are left side by side. What the pages give is only that level — 'the offence is death' — and no list of penalties. The words 'exposure in the market' (棄市) occur in Jia Yi's remonstrance, and are quoted as his.

Jia Yi's remonstrance keeps a ledger of penalties. The law, he says, let anyone cast copper and tin into coin under licence, and made adulteration with lead or iron a branding offence — 'yet in the nature of coining, unless the metal is adulterated one cannot profit, and the adulteration is very slight while the profit is very great' (非殽雜為巧，則不可得贏；而殽之甚微，為利甚厚); therefore 'though branding be reported daily, the practice does not stop' (雖黥罪日報，其勢不止). He compares the two: 'formerly, when coining was forbidden, death sentences accumulated below; now that it is public, branding sentences accumulate' (曩禁鑄錢，死罪積下；今公鑄錢，黥罪積下). That is his argument, and it is marked as his.

Three: tens of thousands convicted

The scale is in one run of sentences, and the measures are quoted as they stand: 'after the white metal and five-zhu coins were made, five years later, those among officials and people condemned to death for coining gold were pardoned — several hundred thousand of them. Those who killed each other before discovery cannot be counted. Those who gave themselves up and were pardoned were over a million. Yet not half came forward, and in the realm generally everyone was coining. Offenders were so many that the officials could not execute them all' (赦吏民之坐盜鑄金錢死者數十萬人……犯者眾，吏不能盡誅取). Several hundred thousand, over a million, 'cannot be counted' — each is a measure in the text; this piece adds none of them, computes no total, and converts none into a modern figure.

Why it could not be stopped, the page explains in that one clause: the offenders were too many to execute. This piece adds no theory of currency sovereignty or state capacity on top; nor does it read 'in the realm generally everyone was coining' as a statistic — it is a summary, and is copied as a summary.

Four: lighter coins, heavier law

What follows is the tightening, sentence by sentence. 'The commanderies and kingdoms coined much false money, and the coins were mostly light, so the ministers asked that the capital cast the bell-office red-edged coin, one to pass for five, and that in taxes and official payments nothing but the red-edged should pass.' Then: 'the white metal grew somewhat cheap, the people did not treasure it, and the offices forbade it by order, to no effect.' Then: 'two years later the red-edged coin was cheap, the people used it by clever evasions, it was inconvenient, and it was abolished.' Then the close: 'thereupon all commanderies and kingdoms were forbidden to coin, and casting was given solely to the three offices of the Shanglin park. The coins being many, it was ordered that nothing but the three offices' coin might circulate, and all the coins previously cast in the commanderies were abolished and melted, their copper sent to the three offices. Private coining grew less, since the cost could not be matched; only true artisans and great villains still coined illegally' (唯真工大姦乃盜為之).

Set Jia Yi's sentence beside that passage and it is worth noticing: 'if coining is forbidden, coins will be heavy; heavy means the profit is deep, and forgers rise like clouds, and the penalty of exposure in the market is again not enough to stop them' (棄市之罪又不足以禁矣). What the later page records is that 'private coining grew less, since the cost could not be matched'. One is a prediction about prohibition, the other a record after the event, from a different reign. They are set side by side; this piece does not use the later record to refute the earlier speech, nor decide between them.

Five: beyond these two pages

The boundary should be stated: the inscription and weight of the half-liang coin, the three seizures of the right to coin five-zhu, and the new currencies of deer hide and white metal are other subjects. This piece writes only about forging, its penalty, and the number convicted, and does not retell the coinage's development. Nor do the pages give the physical testing of a single false coin, the size of a private mint, one actual judgment, a full list of penalties, or the procedure of pardon. None of these is supplied.

The last boundary is about numbers: 'several hundred thousand', 'over a million', 'cannot be counted' and 'countless' are the text's own measures. They are copied, not summed, not turned into a total, not converted into modern values; and no general theory of currency sovereignty is built on them. What the pages leave is one sentence making the offence capital, one sentence saying the officials could not execute them all, and an ending in which the law tightened and some men still coined in the dark.

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