1 Cash - Hongwu Tongbao, Zhe

The Hongwu Tongbao series was Ming Taizu's attempt to reassert copper cash as the backbone of everyday commerce after decades of Yuan dynasty paper currency dominance. It largely failed in that ambition — the Hongwu court repeatedly suspended and reinstated copper coinage between 1375 and 1393 as the government kept defaulting to its own paper notes, the Daming Baochao, which it could print without mining or minting costs. The "Zhe" reverse mark denotes production supervised by the Zhejiang regional mint, one of several provincial facilities established under the early Ming monetary reorganization.