This is a bronze Tangguo Tongbao coin first cast in the first year of the Baoda reign (AD 943) by Li Jing, the second ruler of the Southern Tang, during China’s Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
The coin conforms to the traditional Sinosphere form of a round coin with a square central perforation. The obverse inscription reads Tangguo Tongbao in seal script, arranged vertically and read from top to bottom, right to left. The strokes of the characters are thicker. The reverse is plain and uninscribed. In style, the obverse inscription closely resembles that of the large-module plain-reverse variety; this type is not recorded in earlier numismatic catalogues.
The Tangguo Tongbao belongs to the earliest group of so-called “paired coins” in the history of Chinese coinage, namely issues produced in more than one calligraphic style. Three script variants are known for the Tangguo Tongbao: seal script, regular script, and clerical script.
The Southern Tang was founded in AD 937 by Li Bian, who claimed descent from the Tang imperial house. Its territory encompassed the most prosperous Jiang–Huai region, with its capital established at Jinling (present-day Nanjing). The Southern Tang ranked among the most prolific coin-producing regimes of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and possessed a highly developed economy and culture. However, following the death of Li Bian in AD 943, the state faced sustained aggression from the rising Later Zhou in the north, leading to a gradual decline in its power. Li Jing, who ascended the throne in AD 943, sought to finance prolonged military campaigns by successively casting the Tangguo Tongbao, Datang Tongbao, and Baoda Yuanbao. In AD 958, after suffering military defeat, Li Jing relinquished the imperial title, adopted the designation of “ruler of the state,” and acknowledged the Later Zhou as the legitimate dynasty. In AD 975, Li Yu, the grandson of Li Bian—later renowned to posterity as the “Poet Emperor of a Thousand Ages”—surrendered to Zhao Kuangyin, the founder of the Song dynasty, who had usurped the Later Zhou throne, thereby bringing the history of the Southern Tang to an end.
