"Yang Guozhongjin" silver collar, Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), 32 cm long, 5.4 cm wide, 1.2 cm thick. Excavated in 1970 at the site of the Sui and Tang palace cities, Luoyang, Henan. Collection of the Henan Museum.

The silver collar is watt-shaped, the upper end slightly curved, the lower end flat and straight. On the obverse is an inscription reading: "For Yang Guozhong, the right minister and minister of the Ministry of Culture, who is the official in charge of collecting silver for the market." The second line reads, 'Given to Guo Zion in purple and gold', and the third line reads, 'On the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of Tianbao'. According to the inscription, the silver collar was a local contribution of silver from the border counties and the city.

The Heshang system was a more common system in the Tang Dynasty. "The Heshang was a "trading affair" that "measured the value of the goods and the price of the goods, and evened out the world for the benefit of the people". During the Tang Dynasty, the Ministry of Household Affairs set up an agency and officials to manage the Heshang affairs, and according to the abundance and low prices of the country's products, goods were purchased in areas with good harvests and special production, and transported to places with poor harvests and shortages for sale, so as to complement each other and benefit the people. The silver collars of the Heshi were the revenue from the Heshi.

Two Yang Guozhong silver collars were excavated from the ruins of the Daming Palace in Chang'an during the Tang dynasty, with the inscriptions on the obverse reading 'Yang Guozhong, Minister of the Ministry of War and Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, was responsible for the casting of money in all provinces' and 'Yang Guozhong, Minister of the Ministry of War and Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, was responsible for the casting of money in all provinces', and on the reverse, 'Yang Guozhong, Minister of the Ministry of War and Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, was responsible for the casting of money in all provinces'. Both inscribed on the reverse in the tenth year of the reign of Tianbao. Yang Guozhong was the Chancellor during the Tianbao period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, and "led more than forty ministries", of which "the ministry of silver" and "the ministry of money casting" were only two. These three pieces of silver collars were handed over to the state treasury at the local level, and were then sent by Yang Guozhong to the palace treasury as an envious surplus.

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