[thaumasiotes]

> "The author postulates the growth of a "military–coinage–slave complex" around this time.

I'm trying to get a sense of where to put this on a continuum between "I could imagine things happening this way" and "here are contemporary records in which the king specifically states that the new tax is needed in order to get people to accept the new coins".

Postulation isn't really what I'm usually looking for in a historical work.

[thaumasiotes]

I should point out that historically, getting people to accept metal was not an issue that usually came up. For example, Hammurabi's code details a punishment for certain merchants who will accept metal as payment but refuse to accept grain. That's the king complaining that what merchants want is to accept metal exclusively (though not coins; they are not known to have existed at the time).