bita-sen

Updated: May 21, 2025

As tokens of exchange, copper coins were imported from China, and were known in Japan as Eiraku-sen, Eiraku being the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese era, Yunglo. These were of pure metal, and side by side with them were circulated an essentially inferior iron coin struck in Japan and known as bita-sen.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era