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1 Mon 'Ryuhei Eihō' - Kammu
| Issuer | Japan |
|---|---|
| Year | 796-818 |
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| Engraver(s) | Kukai, Emperor Kammu |
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| Obverse description | Cast copper cash-type coin featuring a central square perforation surrounded by a raised square rim. Four Chinese characters are disposed one at each cardinal point around the central hole, reading clockwise: 隆 (top), 平 (right), 永 (bottom), 寳 (left), forming the four-character legend 隆平永寳. The characters are rendered in a bold, archaic clerical script style typical of early Japanese imperial coinage. The field between the legend and the outer raised rim is flat and undecorated. |
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| Obverse script | Chinese |
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| Additional information |
Eiraku Tsūhō this is not. The Ryūhei Eihō was the third emission in Japan's Kōchōjūnisen series — twelve successive copper coinages issued between 708 and 958 as the imperial court attempted, largely without success, to establish a monetized economy among a population that preferred rice and cloth as exchange media. Kammu's reign saw aggressive fiscal and military expenditure, including the costly campaigns against the Emishi in northern Honshū, and the coinage was partly a mechanism for funding that ambition.
Circulation remained thin outside the capital region. By the time the series ended in the mid-tenth century, the experiment had effectively failed.