Huizi (currency)
banknote of the Chinese Southern Song Dynasty
The Huizi (simplified Chinese: 会子; traditional Chinese: 會子; pinyin: huì zi), issued in the year 1160, was the official paper money of the Chinese Southern Song dynasty. It has the highest amount of issuance among various government note types during the Song dynasty. Huizi notes came on three-colour printed paper and their usage was heavily promoted by the government of the Southern Song dynasty, the Huizi were backed by 280,000 guàn of copper cash coins.
History
The Huizi was originally introduced in the region of Liangzhe (兩浙) around what is present-day Zhejiang, and after 1160 Huizi notes were issued by the Ministry of Revenue (戶部) and their circulation was overseen by the Paper Notes Office (會子務). The earliest mentions of Huizi notes can be traced back to Shaanxi in 1075. In Hangzhou and the areas around it bianqian huizi (便錢會子) or "comfortable money" had become a common form of exchange during the beginning of the Southern Song dynasty. Besides the Jiaozi, Qianyin, and Guanzi the Huizi had become the most important form of paper currency during the Southern Song dynasty and was used for daily business transactions as well as for tax collecting and the usage of Huizi notes had also spread to the western and northern areas of the empire. 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. During the reign of Emperor Xiaozong the usage of paper money came into question but as there was a shortage of copper cash coins they were assessed to be needed for the economy to be maintained as the amount of coins in circulation didn't sufficiently meet the markers demands, at this time there were Huizi notes with denominations as high as 4,900,000 guàn in daily circulation. In reaction to this Emperor Xiaozong regularly renewed the Huizi in circulation but not all expired Huizi notes were destroyed as they often kept circulated at lower values which caused the number of Huizi in circulation to rise.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Huizi (currency)” is banknote of the Chinese Southern Song Dynasty. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Huizi, currency and banknote, not as a finished interpretation.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q10885448. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1160, 1075, 1161 and 1166.
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This entry incorporates text from “Huizi (currency)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.