In the early period of their state, the Jurchens practiced barter, where goods were exchanged for other goods. Soon, however, they began using Chinese money, which was captured during wars or paid by China as a contribution.

From 1154, the Empire began issuing its own currency. These small bronze coins retained the traditional Chinese coin shape with a square hole in the center. They were called “wen, ” and were known in Western European and Russian historical literature as “chok.”

The Jurchens also had large bronze coins with a value of 10 wen. The legend of the coin, consisting of the inscriptions on the obverse and reverse sides, was made up of four relief hieroglyphs, arranged around the central hole. Of the four characters the first two, with rare exceptions, indicated the reign title, that is, the period the coin was minted, while the last two denoted money.

The reign title was present on all Jurchen coins. The reading of the legend started with the character located in the top field.

There were two types of legends based on the reading method: one read clockwise, and the other crosswise, where the character in the top field was followed by the character in the bottom field, then the right field, and finally the left field.

Coins were carried in bundles, and used for payments and other monetary transactions.

A single coin had insufficient value for widespread independent use. For example, according to Chinese chronicles, a soldier received 84 bundles of coins per year, an official received 17 bundles, the emperor’s concubine received 5,000 bundles and 50 pieces of patterned silk, and the emperor’s wife received 20,000 bundles of coins and 200 pieces of patterned silk.

Along with bronze coins, which were always in short supply among the population, paper banknotes in denominations ranging from 100 to 10,000 wen were in circulation. For comparison, paper money appeared in Europe only in the second half of the 18th century, that is, 600 years later. Silver and gold ingots, as well as silk fabric were also used as the equivalent of money.