Changes

<youtube>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjBgegH40rc</youtube>

Today, most people take paper money for granted, and few know how its use originated and developed throughout history. In Western countries such as the United States, paper money has a relatively short existence going back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Still, in China, paper currency first began circulating over 1,000 years ago.

== What was the Impact of Song Paper Currency in Asia? ==

The impact of the invention/discovery of paper currency during the Song Dynasty was profound, to say the least. Although the concept never made its way to the West, it indeed spread throughout east Asia during the Middle Ages. The Jurchen Jin Dynasty, which ruled northern China from 1127 to 1234, issued paper notes in the mid-1150s based on the notes the Song rulers originally issued in Sichuan and later issued other notes that were tied to silver, as the Southern Song had done. <ref> Glahn 2010, p. 469, 472</ref>

In fact, the use of paper currency in China hurt the metals industry in general as mining withered during the Southern Song. <ref> Smith, Paul J. “Do We Know as Much as We Need to Know About the Song Economy? Observations on the Economic Crisis of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries” <i>Journal of Song-Yuan Studies</i> 24 (1994) p. 329</ref> The Song discovery of paper currency truly had a great impact on East Asia, but it would be centuries before Europeans discovered the benefits and drawbacks of using paper notes.

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