1 Cash Taiding Tongbao

The Taiding Tongbao inscription is itself an anachronism here — Taiding was a Yuan dynasty reign title from the 1320s, yet these cast bronzes circulated among tribal polities in the Yunnan-Guizhou highlands during the late 15th century. The reuse of an earlier reign title by non-Han issuing authorities was not unusual in the region; it carried legitimizing weight without requiring submission to Ming coinage authority. These pieces exist largely outside the formal Ming monetary system, produced by local chieftains operating under the tusi prefectural structure that Beijing tolerated rather than controlled.