Qing dynasty coinage was based on a

bimetallic standard Bimetallism, also known as the bimetallic standard, is a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit is defined as equivalent to certain quantities of two metals, typically gold and silver, creating a fixed Exchange rate, rate of ...

of copper and silver coinage. The

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

-led

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

was proclaimed in 1636 and ruled over

China proper China proper, also called Inner China, are terms used primarily in the West in reference to the traditional "core" regions of China centered in the southeast. The term was first used by Westerners during the Manchu people, Manchu-led Qing dyn ...

from 1644 until its overthrow in 1912 as a result of the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC). The revolution was the culmination of a decade ...

. The Qing saw the transformation of a traditional cash coin–based cast coinage monetary system into a modern currency system with machine-struck coins, while the old traditional silver ingots would slowly be replaced by silver coins based on those of the

Mexican peso The Mexican peso (Currency symbol, symbol: $; ISO 4217, currency code: MXN; also abbreviated Mex$ to distinguish it from peso, other peso-denominated currencies; referred to as the peso, Mexican peso, or colloquially varo) is the official curre ...

. After the Qing dynasty was abolished, its currency was replaced by the

Chinese yuan The renminbi ( ; currency symbol, symbol: Yen and yuan sign, ¥; ISO 4217, ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB), also known as the Chinese yuan, is the official currency of the China, People's Republic of China. The renminbi is issued by the Peop ...

of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

Later Jin dynasty coinage (1616–1636)

Prior to the establishment of the Qing dynasty, the

Aisin Gioro The House of Aisin-Gioro is a Manchu clan that ruled the Later Jin dynasty (1616–1636), the Qing dynasty (1636–1912), and Manchukuo (1932–1945) in the history of China. Under the Ming dynasty, members of the Aisin Gioro clan served as chie ...

clan established the Later Jin dynasty, named after the Jin dynasty of the Wanyan clan.

Nurhaci Nurhaci (14 May 1559 – 30 September 1626), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Qing, was the founding khan of the Jurchen people, Jurchen-led Later Jin (1616–1636), Later Jin dynasty. As the leader of the House of Aisin-Gi ...

had united the many tribes of the Jianzhou and Haixi Jurchens under the leadership of the Aisin Gioro clan, and later ordered the creation of the Manchu script based on the Mongolian vertical script. In 1636,

Hong Taiji Hong Taiji (28 November 1592 – 21 September 1643), also rendered as Huang Taiji and sometimes referred to as Abahai in Western literature, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizong of Qing, was the second khan of the Later Jin ...

renamed the realm as "Great Qing", and the Jurchen people as the

Manchu people The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

, while adopting policies which fostered ethnic inclusivity. In 1616, the Later Jin began producing their own cash coins; the coins issued under Nurhaci were written in an older version of the Manchu script without any diacritics, and generally bigger than Later Jin coins with Chinese inscriptions. Under Hong Taiji these coins bore the legend that they had a nominal weight of 10 ''qián'' (or 1 tael) modelled after contemporary Ming dynasty coinage, but in reality weighed less. The following coins were issued by the Later Jin:ChinaKnowledge.de – An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Ar
"Qing Period Money"
. Retrieved 3 July 2017.

History

In 1644, the Qing dynasty captured Beijing from the

Shun dynasty The Shun dynasty, officially the Great Shun, also known as Li Shun, was a short-lived Dynasties of China, dynasty of China that existed during the Transition from Ming to Qing, Ming–Qing transition. The dynasty was founded in Xi'an on 8 Februa ...

, and then marched south capturing the forces loyal to the Ming. One of the first monetary policies they enacted was accepting Ming dynasty cash coins at only half the value of Qing dynasty cash coins, because of this Ming era coinage was removed from circulation to be melted into Qing dynasty coinage, this is why in modern times even

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

coins are more common than those from the more recent Ming dynasty.

Early history

At first the Qing government set the exchange rate between bronze and silver at 1 wén of bronze per '' lí'' (釐, or 厘) of silver, and 1000 ''lí'' of silver would be 1

tael Tael ( ),"Tael" entry
at the

string of 1000 bronze cash coins equated to a single tael of silver. The

Shunzhi Emperor The Shunzhi Emperor (15 March 1638 – 5 February 1661), also known by his temple name Emperor Shizu of Qing, personal name Fulin, was the second Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the first Qing emperor to rule over China pro ...

created the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Public Works in Beijing to oversee the casting of bronze cash coins, these ministries produced 400,000 strings of cash coins annually. Later the Shunzhi Emperor ordered military garrisons to start minting their own coinage, and though the official weight for cash coins was first set at 1 '' qián'', in 1645 this increased to 1.2 ''qián'', and by 1651 this had become 1.25 ''qián''. In 1660 the order was given to re-open provincial mints and have them cast their mint names in Manchu script. The standard copper-alloy was 60% copper and 40% lead and/or zinc, yet diverse market conditions dictated what would be the ''de facto'' composition. This official composition was officially changed over time, initially it was at a ratio of 3:2 (3 parts copper to 2 parts lead and zinc). The coins produced under the Shunzhi Emperor were modeled after

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

Kai Yuan Tong Bao coins, as well as early Ming dynasty coins, and have a Chinese mint mark on their reverses these were produced from 1644 until 1661, though these coins had a large range of mint marks from various provinces all over China, from 1644 until 1645 there were also ''Shùn Zhì Tōng Bǎo'' (順, 治通寶) coins being cast with blank reverses.

Kangxi era

Yongzheng era

Under the

Yongzheng Emperor The Yongzheng Emperor (13 December 1678 – 8 October 1735), also known by his temple name Emperor Shizong of Qing, personal name Yinzhen, was the fourth List of emperors of the Qing dynasty, emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the third Qing em ...

various measures were undertaken to ensure a vast supply of cash coins, though the weight was increased to 1.4 ''qián'' per wén, the copper content was lowered from 60% to 50% in 1727. In 1726 the Ministry of Revenue was split into 4 agencies each named after a

wind direction Wind direction is generally reported by the direction from which the wind originates. For example, a ''north'' or ''northerly'' wind blows from the north to the south; the exceptions are onshore winds (blowing onto the shore from the water) and ...

, and in 1728 all provincial mints were ordered to open again as only the mint of

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

was operating prior to this order, and finally in 1728 the Ministry of Public Works mint was split into a "new Ministry of Public Works mint", and an "old Ministry of Public Works mint". Though by 1733 the Qing government realised that the costs of making standard cash coins at a weight of 1.4 ''qián'' was too much, so they lowered it back to 1.2 ''qián''. In 1725 the province of Yunnan had 47 operating furnaces. In 1726 the governour of Yunnan, Ortai made the province's coin minting industry more profitable by implementing new systems for regular, and supplemental casting as well as for casting

scrap metal Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap can have monetary value, especially recover ...

making sure that only regular cast coins would carry full production costs, he also closed down mints in the province with a lower production efficiency and started exporting Yunnan's coins to other provinces. This system proved so successful that other provinces started to adopt these reforms.

Qianlong era

Jiaqing era

Under the

Jiaqing Emperor The Jiaqing Emperor (13 November 1760 – 2 September 1820), also known by his temple name Emperor Renzong of Qing, personal name Yongyan, was the sixth emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fifth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. He was ...

the Chinese population had reached 300,000,000 which was twice as much as just a century prior, famines had plagued the land, the government was corrupt, and hordes of secret Anti-Manchu organisations popped up everywhere, stability would not return until 1803 but this had come at tremendously high costs. The Qing government started to increase quotas for the production of copper cash coins while constantly changing the standard content of the alloys beginning with 60% copper, and 40%

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

in 1796 to 54% copper, 43% zinc, and 3% lead not long after. Corruption plagued the provincial mints, and the exchange rate between cash and taels rose from 900 wén for 1 tael of silver to 1200 wén for a single tael, this was also due to a large outflow of silver to European and American merchants which pressured the Chinese monetary system. Under the Jiaqing Emperor an annual quota of 2,586,000 strings of cash coins for production was set, but in reality this number was rarely met.

Daoguang era

Under the Daoguang Emperor China's silver reserves were depleting due to the trade of

opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...

with other countries, and as Chinese cash coins were based on the

silver standard The silver standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of silver. Silver was far more widespread than gold as the monetary standard worldwide, from the Sumerians 3000 BC until 1873. Following t ...

this eventually lead to the debasement of Qing era cash coinage under Daoguang because the costs of producing cast copper coins was higher by about one third than the face value of the cast coins themselves, by 1845 2,000 wén was needed for a single tael of silver. Coins produced under the Daoguang Emperor tend to be diminutive compared to earlier Qing dynasty coinage because of this reason. Under the Daoguang Emperor a new mint was established at

Kucha Kucha or Kuche (also: ''Kuçar'', ''Kuchar''; , Кучар; zh, t= 龜茲, p=Qiūcí, zh, t= 庫車, p=Kùchē; ) was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of what is now the Taklam ...

in Xinjiang province with coins cast there bearing the mark "庫" as well as coins with the reverse side inscription of "新" to circulate within the aforementioned province that was far away from

Lin Zexu Lin Zexu (30 August 1785 – 22 November 1850), courtesy name Yuanfu, was a Chinese political philosopher and politician. He was a head of state (Viceroy), Governor General, scholar-official, and under the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynasty ...

suggested in the year 1833 to create a series of Daoguang Tongbao (道光通寶) cash coins with a weight of 0.5 tael, and that two of these cash coins would be exchangeable for one tael of silver. But this proposal was not adopted.

Inflation during the 19th century

Tongzhi era

For the first year of the Tongzhi Emperor he bore the reign name of "Qixiang" (祺祥), though a few coins with this inscription were cast they were never put into circulation. While the reign title "Qixiang" the 10 ''wén'' Daqian continued to be produced, for a brief period of time Daqian with the inscription Qixiang Zhongbao (祺祥重寶) were produced. Because the Qixiang era name was not used for that long, cash coins with this era date were cast for such a short time, that only a small number of the government mints produced cash coins with this inscription. These mints included the Ministry of Public Works Mint (寶源), the Ministry of Revenue Mint (寶泉), the

mint (寶雲), the

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

mint (寶鞏), and the

Suzhou Suzhou is a major prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu province, China. As part of the Yangtze Delta megalopolis, it is a major economic center and focal point of trade and commerce. Founded in 514 BC, Suzhou rapidly grew in size by the ...

mint (寶蘇). Tongzhi's mother the

Empress Dowager Cixi Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908) was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara clan who effectively but periodically controlled the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty as empress dowager and regent for almost 50 ...

changed his reign name to Tongzhi in 1862. Tongzhi's reign saw the end of the Taiping rebellion and the beginning of a large Muslim revolt in Xinjiang. The era also saw the rise of the

Self-Strengthening Movement The Self-Strengthening Movement, also known as the Westernization or Western Affairs Movement (–1895), was a period of reforms initiated during the late Qing dynasty following the military disasters of the Opium Wars and Taiping Rebellion. The ...

which wanted to adopt western ideas into practice in China including reforming the monetary system. The coins produced under the Tongzhi Emperor remained of inferior quality with the 10 ''wén'' coin being reduced from 4.4 to 3.2 ''qián'' in 1867. Copper shortages remained and illegal casting would only become a larger problem as the provincial mints remained closed or barely productive. The first machine-struck cash coins were also produced under the Tongzhi Emperor in Paris at the request of governour Zuo Zongtang in 1866, but the government of the Qing refused to introduce machine-made coinage.

Modernisation under the Guangxu Emperor

Under the

Guangxu Emperor The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), also known by his temple name Emperor Dezong of Qing, personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China ...

various attempts at reforming the Qing dynasty's currency system were implemented. Machine-made copper coins without square holes were introduced in

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

in 1899, and by 1906 15 machine operated mints operated in 12 provinces. The introduction of these machine-struck coins marked the beginning of the end of coin casting in China. In 1895 the Guangzhou Machine Mint had 90 presses becoming the largest mint in the world followed by the British

Royal Mint The Royal Mint is the United Kingdom's official maker of British coins. It is currently located in Llantrisant, Wales, where it moved in 1968. Operating under the legal name The Royal Mint Limited, it is a limited company that is wholly ow ...

with only 16 presses. Many provinces were still slow to adopt machine mints, often due to the high costs associated with them, the machine mint of

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

cost 27,000 taels of silver but the cost of making a single string of machine-struck 1 ''qián'' cash coins more than twice as high as their face value forcing the Tianjin mint to buy more furnaces until it eventually had to close down in 1900. Guangxu's reign saw the reclamation of Xinjiang and the presuming of minting red cash there, while Japanese experts revitalised the copper mining industry in Yunnan and many new veins of copper were discovered giving the government more resources to cast (and later strike) coins again. The new coins often bore the inscription '' Guāng Xù Yuán Bǎo'' (光緒元寶) with an image of a

Dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

and featured English, Chinese, and

inscriptions. Further these coins tended to have their relation with China's older coinages (most often with cash coins) on the bottom, or their value in relation to silver coinage, and the Manchu words indicated the place of mintage. Meanwhile, the 10 wén "traditional" cash coins were discontinued as the production of these more modern coins began. In 1906 the General Mint of the Ministry of the Interior and Finance in

started issuing a new copper coin called the '' Great Qing Copper Coin'' (大清銅幣), which like ''Guāng Xù Yuán Bǎo'' coins featured the image of a Chinese dragon, and had English, Chinese, and Manchu inscriptions with the English inscription reading "Tai-Ching-Ti-Kuo Copper Coin" in Wade-Giles, coins minted under the Guangxu Emperor featured the inscription of the Chinese characters ''Guāng Xù Nián Zào'' (光緒年造). These coins were minted in denominations of 2 wén, 5 wén, 10 wén, and 20 wén and would soon be issued by various mints across the Chinese provinces. These coins were first issued by the Ministry of the Interior and later by the Ministry of Revenue and Expenditure.

Coinage under the Xuantong Emperor

Under the Xuantong Emperor both traditional copper cash coins, and modern machine-struck coins continued to be minted simultaneously, though only the Ministry of Revenue in Beijing and a few provincial mints continued to cast traditional cash coins as most mints had started to exclusively produce machined coins, and Kucha was the only mint still operating in Xinjiang casting "red cash" under the Xuantong Emperor. Under the Xuantong Emperor, two of Beijing's central-government operated mints would close. In 1910 new machine-made coins were issued. New denominations introduced in 1910 include: These denominations were not produced in large numbers as the Qing dynasty would be overthrown by the

Xinhai revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC). The revolution was the culmination of a decade ...

only a year later. By the end of the Qing dynasty the government's attempts at modernising the monetary system had failed and machined coins circulated alongside traditional coinages, this situation would continue under the

Copper coinage

During the Qing dynasty period, the Chinese monetary system was a bimetallic system where both copper-alloy cash coins and silver circulated simultaneously. The copper-alloy currency during most of the Qing dynasty period consisted solely of cash coins with a denomination of 1 '' wén'', which could be strung together into strings of 1,000 cash coins for larger payments. While strings officially consisted of 1,000 cash coins, normally it would contain only around 980 copper-alloy cash coins. A standard piece of copper-alloy cash coin in the 18th century weighted 0.12 tael, containing between 50%–70% of pure copper, and other metals in its alloy such as zinc and lead. The copper coinage of the Qing dynasty was officially set at an exchange rate of 1000 ''wén'' (or cash coins) for one

tael Tael ( ),"Tael" entry
at the

The government of the Qing dynasty monopolised the production of copper-alloy cash coins, which constituted less than 20% of the total money circulating in China at the time, as well as the mining of copper, while the government allowed for the market to determine the price of silver. Because casting is a very simple process many private (illegal) mints started producing fake cash coins known as ''Sīzhùqián'' (私鑄錢) because government mints often could not meet the market's demand for money, as there barely was a difference in quality between "real" or '' Zhìqián'' (制錢) and "fake" coins, the sizhuqian were just as widely accepted by the general population as means of payment. Though barter had remained common during most of the Qing era, by the mid 19th century the Chinese market had evolved to be highly monetised. Due to the inflation caused by various military crises under the Xianfeng Emperor new larger denomination cash coins were issued, cash coins of 4 wén and higher being referred to as '' Dàqián'' (大錢). The cash coins produced by the two imperial mints located in Beijing and the provincial and regional mints usually fulfilled different functions. The local mints mostly produced cash coins for the payment of the salaries of the Bannermen and the wages of workers on government construction projects. The imperial mints (known as the Baoyuan Mint and Baoquan Mint) situated in the capital city of Beijing were the two most important ones in operation during the Qing dynasty period: their output of copper-alloy cash coins sustained the demands of the market, not only in Beijing itself, but also in the part of northern China situated near the capital city. The minting of copper-alloy cash coinage was decentralised due to the very high transaction cost of moving large amounts of metallic coins (and especially heavy copper-alloy cash coins that tended to have small values). Sometimes the production of copper coinage at provincial state mints was suspended but minting at the imperial mints in Beijing was always ensured by the Qing government. By the late Qing dynasty it had become apparent that carrying strings of cash coins was inconvenient compared to modern currencies. In 1900, 8

shillings The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence ...

converted into 32.6587 kilograms of copper cash coins and it was noted that if one of the straw strings holding the coins would break that it would cost more picking those coins up in time than the value retrieved from those coins. This was one of the many different factors leading Chinese people to more readily accept the modernisation of the currency. When comparing the contemporary Chinese monetary system of the Qing dynasty period with that of

medieval Europe In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

it shows that in both cases the chronic shortage of low-denomination coinages seems to be more an aspect of economic theory than actual history, as the gap that emerges between the legal tender (or nominal) value and the intrinsic metallic value will always be followed either by counterfeiting or by melting the currency down.

Purchasing power of coins

At the time Wu Jingzi's ''the Scholars'' was written in the 18th century 3 wén could buy a steamed bun, 4 wén could buy school food, 16 wén was enough for one bowl of

noodles Noodles are a type of food made from unleavened dough which is either rolled flat and cut, stretched, or extruded, into long strips or strings. Noodles are a staple food in many cultures and made into a variety of shapes. The most common noo ...

, and the annual tuition fee for school could be covered by 2,400 wén, but due to inflation the purchasing power of cash coins would decline in the next century.Peng, p. 737, and 745–746.

Effects of the global devaluation of silver

Traditionally, scholars of the monetary history of the Qing dynasty, and the Far East as a whole, have often debated whether or not the inflow or outflow of silver leads to an economic boom or an economic depression. Proponents of the classic bimetallic system would suggest that having two metals would dampen the shocks that result from a shortage of either one of the metals used in the economy for doing transactions with and would therefore stabilise the currency system. Besides the movement and flow of physical silver, the price of silver also had an effect on trade and the general economy. Theoretically, "cheap silver" (a term used to denote the relatively low price of silver in international market) can be taken in a bimetallic system or a silver standard system as a sudden and exogenous currency devaluation, and this would then indicate favourable terms of trade for silver standard countries as the devaluation of silver would encourage exports as the price of goods have been reduced, thus making it more favourable for foreign merchants to purchase these goods. The economy and monetary situation of the Qing dynasty from the 1870s onwards seem to contradict this hypothesis. During the 1870s many countries around the world replaced the silver standard with the

gold standard A gold standard is a backed currency, monetary system in which the standard economics, economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the ...

, causing old silver coinages to be demonetised lowering the price of silver on a global scale. The demonetisation of silver in many countries not only led to a drop in the price of silver, but also increased the volatility of its price, the unstable exchange also offset some of the benefit from silver depreciation. The new silver deposits discovered in the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...

in the United States and Canada also contributed to the price drop. Countries like Japan, Nguyễn Vietnam, and

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

all benefited from this price reduction, but Qing China did not enjoy the benefits as much as other countries. In fact the Qing dynasty, while enjoying greater exports, began to import more during this period leading to a trade deficit. In

Chongqing ChongqingPostal Romanization, Previously romanized as Chungking ();. is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the State Council of the People's Republi ...

alone the value of foreign merchandise had fallen off by over Hk.Tls 1,250,000 in just a sort period of time because of the global devaluing of silver. During this period the general price of Chinese exports would increase because of the volatile silver price compared to both gold and copper, these increased prices further offset the depreciation benefit of the cheaper silver price. During this period most Chinese exports were in fact rural products whose prices were quoted in copper-alloy cash coins; the prices of these goods were then translated into silver at the point where they would be exported to other countries. A depreciation of the silver meant that the cheaper exchange rate between silver and copper-alloy cash coins would make these exports more expensive, despite the rural prices remaining relatively stable. The sudden and permanent decrease of the global price of silver had greatly destabilised the price relationship between copper and silver in China which was the basis for its bimetallic system, and therefore this depreciation challenged the entire monetary system of the Qing dynasty and would push it to be drastically changed. During this period the rural Chinese hinterland began to develop more

cash crop A cash crop, also called profit crop, is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate a marketed crop from a staple crop ("subsi ...

s for export as more treaty ports were forced to open, and while formerly it were the coastal regions that had a more export-oriented economy, the Chinese hinterland started to focus more on export. Traditionally, Chinese farmers sold their produce to middlemen who would then sell the products in treaty ports, but the "cheap silver" had made it more expensive for the middlemen to purchase these goods and the farmers would be less likely to accept silver for their products the further away from commercial cities or from the well-developed financial facilities they were. The higher exchange rate between silver and copper-alloy cash coins favouring the latter caused

deflation In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% and becomes negative. While inflation reduces the value of currency over time, deflation increases i ...

and made the business of the middlemen less profitable. The government also minted less copper-alloy cash coins during this period because of the high cost of minting them, which further contributed to the shortage of copper-alloy cash coins in the Chinese economy. While the trade impact of the global "cheap silver" was largely confined to the coastal areas, the monetary impact of "cheap silver" was felt nationwide. A drop in the price of silver had further aggravated the shortage of copper-alloy cash coinage: the imperial mints in Beijing then consequently suspended the production of copper-alloy cash coinage due to the increased cost of production; and the existing cash as "undervalued money" ( Gresham's law) were then melted down for their intrinsic value. Additionally, the provision of cash coinage was a centralised decision which was also implemented by regional governments throughout China. Because of these factors the Chinese were not able to seize the opportunity to increase their exports due to the "cheap silver" as Japan, India, and Vietnam had. In fact, rather than being an opportunity for China, "cheap silver" presented itself as a challenge for China, especially for the Chinese bimetallic monetary system. Despite a large silver inflow to treaty ports and urban centres throughout China, the vast Chinese rural population was now suffering from a shortage of copper-alloy cash coins. Only when the Chinese copper coinage was adequately depreciated could the trade benefits presented by "cheap silver" be realised and benefit the economy of the Qing dynasty. This could only be realised by once again devaluing the copper coinage.

Scarcity of copper-alloy cash coins

Due to the prevalence of "cheap silver" (an enormous decrease of the global price of silver) the copper-alloy cash coin-based economy of China suffered

which discouraged the export of Chinese products. International trade was further discouraged because of the scarcity of copper-alloy cash coins in rural China during the late 19th century. This scarcity not only discouraged international trade, but also long-distance exchanges within China because of the deflationary pressure. Furthermore, this scarcity of small denomination copper-alloy cash coins in China was having a negative impact on daily transactions, especially in the inland rural areas where absolutely no business was done in silver and the local people had an inelastic demand for these coins. The rural Chinese workers tended to only receive their salaries in copper-alloy cash coins and would pay their taxes in silver using the official government set exchange rates between the two metal currencies. When the scarcity started causing deflation the rural workers would receive lower salaries, but the government kept maintaining a relatively high exchange rate between the two currencies. According to reports published by provincial governors in the year 1896, the official exchange rate between copper-alloy cash coins and silver was 2200 ''wén'' for only 1 tael of silver; while at the time a tael of silver traded on the private market for 1600 ''wén'' to 1700 ''wén''. This imbalance further resulted in permanent changes in the prices of goods and services relative to the other metal. The money stock was also affected as the amount of silver coinages in circulation kept increasing, while the stock of copper-alloy cash coins was surely decreasing, leading to even greater deflation in copper-based markets. As a result, the mints operated by the government of the Qing dynasty saw less motivation to produce more copper-alloy cash coins as they were now more expensive to make, as it now cost more silver to import sufficient amounts of copper for their production. The imperial government would continue to try to maintain the official exchange rate between copper-alloy cash coins and silver, but this only made copper-alloy cash coins into an "undervalued currency" and further discouraged it from circulating as people would hoard the coins driving them out of the market, further increasing their relative scarcity to silver (as is described by Gresham's law). This severely negatively affected the economy of rural areas where copper-alloy cash coins circulated as the principal (if not only) currency and was used in high frequency for the daily transactions of most (if not all) people in these regions. It has always been a challenge for the imperial Chinese government to debase the copper coinage to make its production more adorable. This was because debased coinages will be discounted on the market and always invite widespread counterfeiting. The solution to this problem was by introducing new machine-struck coinages that were produced by steam powered machines, this would make it more difficult for counterfeiters to produce fake coinages as the initial costs to purchase the machines needed for counterfeiting were very high and discouraged many would-be counterfeiters. The new technology allowed the Qing government to cast high-quality, standardised coins with machined edges. Therefore the new technology provided a for the government of the Qing dynasty a way to mint sufficient token coins at an affordable cost without inviting forgers to debase the new coinages even further. While the new technology allowed the Qing government to mint sufficient amounts of copper-alloy coins at an affordable cost, the new technology was not implemented throughout China at the same time as some provinces would adopt the technology later. Initially the new machine-struck coinages were well received where they were introduced, which helped other provincial mints adopt the new technology faster.

Machine-struck cash coins

Counterfeit machine-struck coins

Not long after these new copper coins were introduced, black market counterfeit versions of the 10 wén appeared, illegal mints opened all over China and started producing more coins than the Qing government's set quotas allowed there to be circulating on the market. Both Chinese and foreigners soon started producing struck cash coins of inferior quality often with traces of the Korean 5 fun coins they were overstruck on, or with characters and symbols not found on official government issued coins. These coins were often minted by Korean businessmen and former Japanese

Samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

looking to make a profit on exchanging the low value copper coins into silver dollars as a single silver dollar had the purchasing power of 1000 Korean fun. The majority of the counterfeit coins bear the inscription that they were minted in either

Zhejiang ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = ( Hangzhounese) ( Ningbonese) (Wenzhounese) , image_skyline = 玉甑峰全貌 - panoramio.jpg , image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains , image_map = Zhejiang i ...

Shandong Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...

, but they circulated all over the coastal regions of China.

Cash coins made from other metals

Iron cash coins

During the second month of the year 1854 the government of the Qing dynasty supplemented the already debased coinage system with iron cash coins. The intrinsic value of iron cash coins was substantially lower than that of even the copper-alloy Zhiqian and Daqian. The aim the government had with the introduction of iron cash coins was to provide small change for a market that highly demanded it, as the Chinese market was already flooded with large denomination cash coinage and the Zhiqian 1 ''wén'' cash coins) by this point had become a rarity. The denominations of the newly introduced iron cash coins included 1 ''wén'', 5 ''wén'', and 10 ''wén''. Disregarding manufacturing costs, the intrinsic value of the 1 ''wén'' iron cash coin represented a debasement of 70% compared to the copper-alloy 1 ''wén'' Zhiqian. The market price of iron in 1854 was 40 ''wén'' (in Zhiqian) per catty. A catty of iron could be cast into 133 1 ''wén'' iron cash coins, or 66 5 ''wén'' iron cash coins (which would have a total nominal value of 330 ''wén''), or 53 10 ''wén'' iron cash coins (which would have a total nominal value of 530 ''wén''). Iron cash coins were easily produced with iron

scrap Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap can have monetary value, especially recover ...

, which on the market cost 15 ''wén'' per catty in 1854. While initially iron cash coins were mainly minted by the Ministry of Revenue mint and Ministry of Public Works mint in Beijing, afterwards the government of the Qing dynasty established a specific iron cash coins mint, known as the iron cash office (鐵錢局). The iron cash office also stored the iron cash coins. While the actual production numbers of iron cash coins remains unclear because of the limited entries about them in the records maintained by the Qing treasury, Peng Xinwei estimated, based on information he had gathered from Qing government memorials, that there had been an average annual production of 1,808,160 strings of iron cash coins between the year 1854 and 1855 and an annual production of 1,360,920 strings of iron cash coins during the years 1856 until 1859. In January of the year 1855 the province of Zhili started casting iron cash coins, a trial casting for a single year was to deliver 120,000 strings of standard cash coins to be brought to Beijing. This work was then carried out by one of the Chinese branch mints with 10 furnaces that was located just outside of the western suburbs of

Baoding Baoding is a prefecture-level city in central Hebei province, approximately southwest of Beijing. As of the 2020 census, Baoding City had 11,544,036 inhabitants, of which 2,549,787 lived in the metropolitan area made of 4 out of 5 urban distri ...

by the Lingyu Temple (靈雲宮). In May of the year 1857, the four existing copper furnaces of the main Zhili provincial mint in Baoding were altered to be iron cash coin furnaces and a new iron cash coin furnace added, while at the same time 10 new furnaces for the production of iron cash coins was added to the Zhili branch mint. The Zhili provincial mint had ceased the production of 10 ''wén'' iron cash coins in June 1857. Iron cash coin mints were also planned to be opened in the cities of

, Zhengding, and Daming for the production of 1 ''wén'' iron cash coins, but only Zhengding had established a mint for iron cash coins which had 10 furnaces in operation. In July of the year 1859 there were a total of 35 furnaces for the production of iron cash coins in the cities of Baoding and Zhengding and at that time around 1,000,000 strings of iron cash coins had been cast at both mints. Because the Chinese people were not using iron cash coins it was reported that 30 furnaces in Zhengding (which presumably also includes the furnaces of the Zhili provincial branch mint) were to be closed. In November 1859, the remaining 5 iron cash coin furnaces situated in Baoding were also closed. The function of iron cash coins was similar to that of Daqian, as it was primarily used as a way to continue paying the salaries of bannermen and other government workers. According to Qing government memorials, large amounts of iron cash coins were used as a means to pay salaries between the years 1856 and 1857 due to a noted justification that "the Chinese public was craving for small change". By the year 1856 the iron 10 ''wén'' cash coins were so much depreciated that they were dropped out of general circulation. From this point onwards only iron 1 ''wén'' cash coins would remain in general circulation, however, it was common for shops to deny them as a form of payment and there was extensive counterfeiting of iron cash coins, which further lowered the public's trust in them. Only a single entry in the Qing government archive mentions them from this point, as it is stated that in the year 1856 the government of the Qing dynasty had 431,515.849 strings of iron cash coins deposited in the imperial treasury vault. This entry may be seen as supplementary evidence to suggest that copper-alloy cash coinage had almost completely disappeared in or before this year. Iron cash coins would soon become valueless and the coinage was ultimately suspended in the year 1859.

Lead cash coins

It was reported in the records of the Qing dynasty that lead cash coins were minted for a brief period in the year 1854, although it seems that these lead cash coins were never actually introduced into the Chinese market and therefore did not circulate.

Zinc cash coins

In July 1854 a superintendent of the Ministry of Revenue mint reported that different metals like gold, silver, copper, iron, and zinc are alike when used and believed that if copper could be substituted for iron, iron could be substituted for zinc. The Ministry of Revenue mint initiated trial castings of zinc cash coins, but caused the mint staff to be anxious over the fact that zinc cash coinage is very brittle and easy to break. It was then decided to make cash coins with an alloy of 80% (brittle) zinc and 20% (soft) lead, as these zinc-alloy cash coins would then be better to circulate and would be more acceptable for the people. It was then proposed to replace the monthly production of 2 ''mǎo'' (卯) of Zhiqian with the zinc-alloy cash coins because the Ministry of Revenue mint had zinc in store, which would immediately allow the mint to save 100,000 catty of copper.

List of cash coins issued by the Qing dynasty

Silver coinage

Originally imperial China was on a monometallic standard of using only

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

cash coins during most of its history, but the large influx, because of international trade, of silver during the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

period created a bimetallic system in China. From the 3rd century B.C. copper had been the paramount currency of most of China but during the 16th and 17th centuries A.D. this had changed. Silver had long been the currency for China's overseas trade until the mid-1930s. China during most of the Qing dynasty period was not a silver producing country and its silver supply relied on imports from abroad. It was only during the 1890s that provincial Chinese mints started producing native silver coinages.

Status of silver during the Qing dynasty

During most of the Qing dynasty period silver circulated in China in two forms, that of silver sycees and foreign silver dollars (primarily

Spanish dollar The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight (, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content fine silver. It w ...

s from Spanish Philippines). Silver was used more in interregional trade and was more often used to pay for large transactions, furthermore it was not counted by denomination but by weight. The primary weight unit of silver was the

tael Tael ( ),"Tael" entry
at the

Contrary to copper, silver was not monopolised by the government but the price of silver instead was determined by the market. The tael was used both as a unit of account as well as a unit of weight, the concept is similar to " pound" and "

pound sterling Sterling (symbol: £; currency code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of sterling, and the word '' pound'' is also used to refer to the British currency general ...

". There were various standards for defining the weight of a tael, this was because the weighing scales varied a lot between the different regions of China and Qing government bodies. The weight unit "tael" (兩) usually varied between 33.99 and 37.50 grams, but when used as a

unit of account In economics, unit of account is one of the functions of money. A unit of account is a standard numerical monetary unit of measurement of the market value of goods, services, and other transactions. Also known as a "measure" or "standard" of ...

the "silver tael" (銀兩) had many different definitions that were based in terms of purity and fineness of the silver being weighed. For example, the Treasury tael (Kuping liang or Kuping tael) is the standard for taxation, the Maritime Customs tael (Haiguan liang or Haikwan tael) is the standard used in the Maritime Customs Service, the market tael (Shiping liang) is the standard used in the market in Beijing. Contrary to how the supply and demand of copper was regulated through government channels, supply and demand of silver was determined solely by the market. The domestic silver production in China was generally low and the silver in China came mostly from Edo Japan and later from

the Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.'' Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sin ...

, mainly through international trade with foreign merchants. This situation of silver in Qing China is similar to that of

medieval England England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the Middle Ages, medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early modern Britain, early modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the co ...

. The Kingdom of England did not produce significant amounts of silver by itself and therefore its coinage was closely associated with its overseas and international trade. The monarchs, both in imperial China and in the Kingdom of England, did not own the native silver supply. But unlike the

English Crown This list of kings and reigning queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Alfred styled himself king of the Anglo-Sax ...

, which had set up royal mints in England to strike the silver bullion into coins with a nominal (or face) value, the Chinese Emperor allowed only silver bullion itself to circulate in various forms throughout his empire. The government of the Qing dynasty provided only the standard unit (known as the Kuping tael) that a silver ingot should be melted into, which itself evolved into one of the many different "taels" that was used for silver bullion to be traded. Because the

purchasing power Purchasing power refers to the amount of products and services available for purchase with a certain currency unit. For example, if you took one unit of cash to a store in the 1950s, you could buy more products than you could now, showing that th ...

of silver bullion was so much higher than that of copper-alloy cash coins, silver was used primarily for larger transactions and long-distance trade as well as international trade, while copper-alloy cash coinage was therefore not taken as subsidiary money: it was the currency for daily and smaller transactions and copper was the only currency in rural China during the Qing dynasty period. Silver also enjoyed a special status as it was also the major form of currency that was used for the payment taxes and government expenditures. Because of this, the government of the Qing dynasty had attempted to establish a fixed rate for the exchange of copper-alloy cash coins and silver bullion. During the majority of the Qing dynasty period, the official ratio between silver (in taels) and copper-alloy cash coins (in ''wén'') was maintained at 1:1,000. The ratio was later revised to 1:2,000 during the 1840s, due to the rising price of silver. This theoretical official exchange rate was in practice not enforced by any government institution as because the imperial government did not coin any silver, it had no control over how silver circulated on the market. As the silver flow was primarily based on foreign trade and silver both entered and left China in large numbers, the market exchange rate between silver and copper changed drastically over time and tended to fluctuate, furthermore this exchange rate also varied from region to region. Services specialising in money exchanges, known as money-changers, developed in this currency system, and the exchange normally took place in commercial centres and trade ports where different trades were frequently carried out. The currency system in China during the Qing dynasty is sometimes called a "parallel bimetallic system", to distinguish it from the more conventional model of a bimetallic system. The term "parallel bimetallic system" is given to this system because it functioned more like a form of coexistence of "two currency systems, each using a different metal" than an actual bimetallic system. Also unlike real bimetallism in other countries, the actual exchange ratio between the two different metal currencies was not actually fixed; the exchange ratio tended to vary depending on time and place.

Imperial government produced silver coinages

Government produced silver coins during the Qianlong era During the reign of the

Qianlong Emperor The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, personal name Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China pr ...

commemorative silver coins with the portrait of the Tibetan

Panchen Lama The Panchen Lama () is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in the Gelug tradition, with its spiritual authority second only to the Dalai Lama. Along with the council of high la ...

are known to have been produced. Government produced silver coins during the Daoguang era During the reign of the Daoguang Emperor several attempts were made in China for the native production of government backed silver coinage, the first of such attempts were tried in the year 1821. Machine-struck Chinese silver coins were known to have been first produced in the year 1822, by the modern Jilin Arsenal Mint (吉林機器局). These early milled silver coins were known as the Changpingliang (廠平兩, literally "factory tael") and only had the denomination of one tael. These silver Changpingliang were not manufactured in any high numbers and are consequently very rare today. Other models of modern silver coinages, which are known as ''ban'' (板), that were known to have been produced in the cities of

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

Wuxi Wuxi ( zh, s=无锡, p=Wúxī, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu, China. As of the 2024 census, it had a population of 7,495,000. The city lies in the southern Yangtze delta and borders Lake Tai. Notable landmarks include Lihu Park, the Mt. Lings ...

, and

Jiangxi ; Gan: ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = , translit_lang1_type3 = , translit_lang1_info3 = , image_map = Jiangxi in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_caption = Location ...

. The models of milled silver coins produced in Wuxi are known as ''xiban'' (錫板) and the ones produced in Jiangxi are known as ''tuban'' (土板). There were also the models known as Wuzhuang (吳莊) and Xingzhuang (行莊). Another early attempt at creating a native government-produced silver Chinese coinage was made by

, he created a system of silver coinages known as the Yinbing (銀餅, literally "Silver cakes") which had a standard weight of 0.72 tael, but the Yinbing was eventually rejected by the Jiangsu market. The earliest known surviving modern silver coins of the Qing dynasty period were manufactured in the city of Zhangtai, Fujian. There are two types of these modern silver Zhangtai coins, one featured an image, this image either consisted of Shouxing, the God of longevity, a pair of crossed Ruyi scepters, or a pair of crossed writing brushes, which are known as ''bibao'' (筆寶). The other known type of Zhangtai silver coins featured both ornaments and inscriptions, the first type of these inscribed silver coins featured the inscriptions Daoguang Nian Zhu (道光年鑄) and Zuwen Yinbing (足紋銀餅), and the indication of the value of the coin, namely the inscription Kuping Qi-Er (庫平柒弍, "0.72 Kuping tael"). The reverse side of these coins featured a tripod with a

Manchu language Manchu ( ) is a critically endangered language, endangered Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchu people, Manchus, it was one of the official language ...

inscription indicating the mint where it was produced. The coins without images were inscribed with the Chinese characters for " Junxiang" (軍餉), this inscription being a rather clear indication of the method that the government of the Qing dynasty used to throw money on the Chinese local markets. The ornaments on the second type of silver coins were mostly imitations of the decorations that are depicted on the various foreign coins that circulated in the region at the time, but sometimes these ornaments just merged Chinese characters, like ''jinshen'' (謹慎, "reverentially"). These silver coins were brought into general circulation through military salaries (Junxiang), and unlike the earlier attempts were accepted by the local Jiangsu market. The date when these modern silver coins of southeast China were exactly produced remains unclear today, but they were certainly not produced before the 19th century. Government produced silver coins during the Xianfeng era During the Xianfeng period the government did not issue its own silver coins, but it did issue a series of banknotes that were nominally worth silver in weight (taels). Government produced silver coins during the Guangxu era Prior to 1 tael being standardised at 50 g. by the government of the People's Republic of China in 1959, the weight "tael" differed substantially from province to province, the Qing government maintained that 1 tael equals 37.5 g. and this measurement was referred to as the ''Kuping tael'' (庫平两), and by official Qing government standards 1 ''Kuping tael'' = 10 Mace = 100 Candareens. Under the

several ''Kuping tael'' coins were struck in

from 1903 until 1907, and mostly served as salary for the soldiers. Despite the central government's attempts at unifying the standards provincial coinage remained the ''de facto'' standard across China. Since the 1870s, silver was used both as an official form of currency in Qing China and a commodity in the international market, for this reason the international price of silver was considered to be indicative of the international exchange rate of the Chinese currency. When the global price of silver experienced a lot of fluctuation the unstable exchange rate of the Chinese currency made pricing on the Chinese market much less predictable and therefore the volatility in the pricing of silver at the time had discouraged trade. In the year 1903 the imperial Chinese government had issued a decree that was intended to standardise the Chinese silver coins in circulation, but in actuality the government decree was never really implemented. The highest standard of indigenous Chinese coinages produced under Qing rule was probably achieved by the gold, silver, and copper coins produced in the city of Tianjin between the years 1906 and 1907. Government produced silver coins during the Xuantong era Only as late as 1910 was it decided by the Qing government to have a unified national currency that would be produced in

Wuchang Wuchang is one of 13 urban District (China), districts of the prefecture-level city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, Hubei Province, China. It is the oldest of the three cities that merged into modern-day Wuhan, and stood on the right (southea ...

and in

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

. The government of the Qing dynasty had issued a number of new regulations that would create a uniform national silver currency system. Under the Xuantong Emperor another attempt at standardising the Qing dynasty's silver coinage was made in 1911 (Xuantong 3) a large amount of "dragon dollars" bearing the inscription "壹圓" (''yīyuán'') were minted, these were the only Qing dynasty coins with that inscription and also featured the English legend "One Dollar". These coins were all cast at the Central Tianjin Mint. The coin was called ''yuán'' (圓 or 元, in this context meaning "dollar") and they had a standard weight of 0.72 tael. It was inscribed with the words Great Qing Silver Coin (大清銀幣) and was introduced into the Chinese market in October of the year 1910. After the fall of the Qing dynasty sycees were demonetised in 1933 and Qing dynasty silver coins in 1935 as they were replaced with paper money.

Provincial and private silver coinages

Provincial silver coins based on foreign coins

1910 Yunnan "spring dollars"

In the year 1910 the provincial government of

issued a Chinese dragon dollar coin that is commonly known as the "Yunnan Spring dollar", the coin was issued after the government of the Qing dynasty had enacted the "Currency Regulations" () on 15 April 1910. The Yunnanese government had quickly taken the coin dies that they had been using to make the silver coins they issued in 1909 and would then engrave these new coins with an additional inscription at the top stating "Made in Yunnan Province in the spring of the year Gengxu (1910)" (). This the only coin in the numismatic history of China that features a season of the year as part of the date. This was done because according to the traditional

Chinese calendar The traditional Chinese calendar, dating back to the Han dynasty, is a lunisolar calendar that blends solar, lunar, and other cycles for social and agricultural purposes. While modern China primarily uses the Gregorian calendar for officia ...

that was in use at the time, the "spring" was a time that referred to the first 3 months of the year, January, February, and March. The centre of the obverse of the Yunnan Spring dollar contains the inscription "Xuantong Yuanbao" (宣統元寶), while on the bottom it contains the denomination of the coin as "Kuping Qi Qian Er Fen" (, "Treasury Standard 7 Mace and 2 Candareens"). The reverse side of the coin features prominent

dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

. The Yunnan mint deliberately wrote down that the coin was issued in "the spring of 1910", because the new regulations set by the imperial government would not take effect until April 1910. However, the imperial Chinese government soon discovered the scheme at the Yunnan mint and quickly ordered that all these of these new "spring dollar" coins were to be withdrawn and later melted down. In 1920 during the early Republican era it was discovered that an extremely small number of these coins had escaped being destroyed and these surviving specimens that are now known are commonly referred to as the "Yunnan Spring dollars" by Chinese numismatists and coin collectors. Only two genuine specimens are known to exist making it among the very rarest of China's coins. * In April of the year 2002 the first genuine "Yunnan Spring dollar" to appear at public auction was sold in Beijing, at the Hua Chen auction. * In 2007 the same "Yunnan Spring dollar" as above was re-sold in a Cheng Xuan sale in Beijing where the coin was sold for ¥3,192,000 ( $468,000). * In August of the year 2010 the same "Yunnan Spring dollar" as above was sold at a Hong Kong auction by Michael Chou, of Champion Hong Kong Auction for $1,035,000.

Private production of silver coinage

Despite silver making up the other half of the bimetallic system of the Qing dynasty's coinage it was not officially produced by the government until the later period of the dynasty where the silver coins would be based on the foreign coins that already circulated in China. Government ledgers used it as a unit of account, in particular the Kuping Tael (庫平兩) was used for this. For most of its history both the production and the measurements of silver was in the hands of the private market which handled the exclusive production of silver currency, the greatest amount of silver ingots in China was produced by private silversmiths (銀樓) in professional furnaces (銀爐), only a very small amount of silver ingots was issued by government-owned banks during the late 19th century. While assayers and moneychangers had control over its exchange rates, for this reason no unified system of silver currency in place in China but a series of different types of silver ingots that were used in various markets throughout the country. The most common form of silver ingots (元寶 or 寶銀) in China were the "horse-hoof ingots" (馬蹄銀) and could weigh as much as fifty taels, there were also "middle-size ingots" (中錠) which usually weigh around 10 taels, "small-size ingots" (小錠) that weighed between one and five taels, and "silver crumbs" (碎銀 or 銀子). All freshly cast ingots were sent to official assayers (公估局) where their weight and fineness were marked with a brush. However, these determinations were only valid on the local market and nowhere else do silver ingots were constantly reassessed which was the daily business of Chinese money changers. In fact, silver ingots were weighed in each single transaction. Silver ingots were traded at different rates that were dependent on the purity of their silver content, the average ones were known as Wenyin (紋銀) or Zubao (足寶) which had (theoretical) purity of .935374, meanwhile specimens that were of higher quality and content were referred to by true surplus that was to be advanced on changing.

Exempli gratia References Notes References Further reading * * External links * {{Latin phrases E ...

a silver ingot known as an "Er-Si Bao" (二四寶) with a weight of fifty taels was valued at 52.4 taels. Likewise other silver standards in China were all geared to the Wenyin such as the Shanghai tael that used in the foreign concession of the city, for instance, was called the Jiuba Guiyuan (九八規元) because it had 98 per cent of the purity of the Shanghai standard tael (規元). The standard tael of

was called the Xinghua (行化) and that of Hankou was known as the Yangli (洋例). During the Xianfeng period a series of "silver cakes" (銀餅) was issued in 1856 by three private banks in the city of Shanghai, namely the Wang Yong Sheng (王永盛), Jing Zheng Ji (經正記), and Yu Sen Sheng (郁森盛). Their cakes were manufactured by steel matrices and they tended to have a weight of 1 tael and 0.5 tael.

Weights and standards

The most commonly used English term to describe Chinese silver ingots is "sycee" (細絲), which comes from a

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

term meaning "fine weight" where the "weight" (絲, sī) represents 0.00001 tael. However a large number of regional terms and names for these silver ingots existed throughout China, these names include: Among the aforementioned regional names other designations for sycees were Qingsi (青絲), Baisi (白絲), Danqing (單傾), Shuangqing (雙傾), Fangcao (方鏪), and Changcao (長鏪) among many others. Aside from the large number of names for sycees that existed in China there was also a wealth of different weight standards for taels that existed that were different from market to market. One of the larger variants of the tael was the Kuping Tael (庫平兩) which was used by the Chinese Ministry of Revenue for both weight measurements as well as a unit of account used during tax collections. In 1858 a new trade tax was introduced which used the Sea Customs tael (海關兩) as a unit of account, meanwhile in

the Canton Tael (廣平兩) was used when trading with foreign merchants. Another unit of account that was used was the Grain Tribute Tael (漕平兩) which was used for measuring and accounting the tribute the imperial Chinese government received in grain.

Gold coinage

Mint marks

Gold coins issued under the Guangxu Emperor

In total there had been more than 50 local mints established that each bore their own unique mint marks, however several of these mints operated only for a brief time before discontinuing their casting of cash coins, mint marks on Qing dynasty coinage can be categorised into 7 main categories based on the scripts on the reverse sides of the coins: 1) only have Manchu script mint marks; 2) Only have mint marks in Chinese script with the weight of the coin in ''lí''; 3) have both Manchu, and Chinese script mint marks; 4) only have a single Chinese character indicating the mint on the top of the reverse side; 5) Only contain the character "一" (1) on the reserve 6) have both Manchu, and Chinese scripts together on the right and left sides of the coin, plus the denomination of the denomination on the top and bottom, and 7) have Chinese, Manchu, and

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

together on the reverse side of the coin.The Collection Museu
"An introduction and identification guide to Chinese Qing-dynasty coins"
, by Qin Cao. Retrieved 2 July 2017.

Chinese mint marks

Mint marks on coins issued from 1644 until 1661: From 1653 until 1657 another type of cash coin was simultaneously cast with the above series, but these coins contained the extra inscription of "一厘" (Equals one ''lí'' of silver) on the back. They were generally minted at the same mints as the above cash coin series but were not minted at the Yansui garrison, Shanxi province, and the Jingzhou garrison while another mint at

Jinan Jinan is the capital of the province of Shandong in East China. With a population of 9.2 million, it is one of the largest cities in Shandong in terms of population. The area of present-day Jinan has played an important role in the history of ...

, Shandong was opened for these coins, with coins cast there bearing the mark "東". Additionally there were also coins cast with no mint mark that only contain the character "一" (1) on their reserves indicating their value in ''Ií''. Between 1660 and 1661 cash coins were manufactured with both a Manchu (on the left), and a Chinese (on the right) character as mint marks. The following mints produced these coins: Under the reign of the

Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 165420 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, personal name Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign of 61 ...

coins with only Manchu reverse inscriptions and both Manchu and Chinese reverse inscriptions were cast. The coins of the Kangxi Emperor were also the basis for the coins of the Yongzheng, Qianlong, and

s. Under the Kangxi Emperor coins were produced at these mints:

Manchu mint marks

Another series of bronze cash coins was introduced with Manchu script on the reverse sides of the coin from 1657, many mints contained the Manchu word (Boo) on the left, which is

for "寶" (indicating " treasure" or "currency") on the obverse side of these coins. To the right of them would often appear a word indicating the issuing agency of the coin. Qing dynasty coinage with exclusive Manchu mint marks are by far the most commonly produced type. Large denomination cash coins of the Xianfeng Emperor bore Manchu mint marks on the left and right sides of the reverse sides, and the value of the coin on the top and bottom. Coins with exclusive Manchu inscriptions continued to be cast until the end of the Qing dynasty. Manchu mint marks are:

Chinese, Manchu, and Uyghur mint marks

Additionally coins from southern Xinjiang province can also have 3 different scripts on the reverse side of the coin being Manchu, Chinese, and

s. An example would be a coin from Aksu would have the Chinese 阿 on top, the Manchu on the left, and the Uyghur Perso-Arabic ئاقسۇ on the right. Another differentiating feature of Xinjiang coins is that they tend to be more red in colour reflecting on the colour of the local copper mined in the province.

Tibetan coinage under the Qing

Xinjiang

Commemorative coins

* In 1713, a special '' Kāng Xī Tōng Bǎo'' (康熙通寶) cash coin was issued to commemorate the sixtieth birthday of the

, these bronze coins were produced with a special yellowish colour, and these cash coins believed to have "the powers of a charm" immediately when it entered circulation, this commemorative coin contains a slightly different version of the Hanzi symbol "熙", at the bottom of the cash, as this character would most commonly have a vertical line at the left part of it but did not have it, and the part of this symbol which was usually inscribed as "臣" has the middle part written as a "口" instead. Notably, the upper left area of the symbol "通" only contains a single dot as opposed of the usual two dots used during this era. Several myths were attributed to this coin over the following 300 years since it has been cast such as the myth that the coin was cast from molten down golden statues of the 18 disciples of the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...

which earned this coin the nicknames "the Lohan coin" and "Arhat money". These commemorative ''kāng xī tōng bǎo'' cash coins were given to children as ''yā suì qián'' (壓歲錢) during

Chinese new year Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival (see also #Names, § Names), is a festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar Chinese calendar. It is one of the most important holi ...

, some women wore them akin to how an engagement ring is worn today, and in rural

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

young men wore this special ''kāng xī tōng bǎo'' cash coin between their teeth like men from cities had golden teeth. Despite the myths surrounding this coin it was made from a copper-alloy and did not contain any gold but it was not uncommon for people to enhance the coin with

gold leaf upA gold nugget of 5 mm (0.2 in) in diameter (bottom) can be expanded through hammering into a gold foil of about 0.5 m2 (5.4 sq ft). The Japan.html" ;"title="Toi gold mine museum, Japan">Toi gold mine museum, Japan. Gold leaf is gold that has ...

. * Commemorative silver coins with the portrait of the

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

are known to be produced during the Qianlong reign. * In 1905, the Qing dynasty issued special silver 1

tael Tael ( ),"Tael" entry
at the

. These coins feature the Chinese character for longevity (壽) surrounded by 2 Imperial

dragons A dragon is a magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in Western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depict ...

reaching out to the wish-granting pearl.

Vault protector coins of the Qing dynasty

Foreign silver "dollars" circulating in the Qing dynasty

Under the reign of the Qing dynasty foreign silver coins entered China in large numbers, these silver coins were known in China as the Yangqian (洋錢, "ocean money") or Fanqian (番錢, "barbarian money"). During the 17th and 18th centuries Chinese trade with European merchants was in a constant rise, as the Chinese were not consumers of larger contingents of commodities from Europe they largely received foreign silver currency for their exports. As the Europeans discovered a vast quantity of silver mines in the Americas the status of silver rose to be that of an international currency and silver became the most important metal used in international transactions globally, this also had a profound impact on the value of Chinese silver. Other than trade, Europeans were interested in the Chinese market due to the high interest rates on loans paid out to Chinese merchants in

by the Europeans. Another common reason why European merchants traded with the Chinese was because as various types of

precious metals Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value. Precious metals, particularly the noble metals, are more corrosion resistant and less chemically reactive than most elements. They are usual ...

had different prices around the world the price of gold was much lower in China than in Europe. Meanwhile, Chinese merchants used copper-alloy cash coins to purchase silver from the Europeans and Japanese during this period. Silver coins largely circulated in the coastal provinces of China and the most important form of silver were the foreign silver coins that circulated in China and these were known under many different names often dependent on the imagery depicted on them. According to the 1618 book Dong-Xiyang Kao (東西洋考) a chapter on the local products of the island of

Luzon Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...

in the

Spanish East Indies The Spanish East Indies were the colonies of the Spanish Empire in Asia-Pacific, Asia and Oceania from 1565 to 1901, governed through the Captaincy General of the Philippines, captaincy general in Manila for the Monarchy of Spain, Spanish Crown, i ...

(

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

) mentions that Chinese observers witnessed a

silver coin Silver coins are one of the oldest mass-produced form of coinage. Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks; their silver drachmas were popular trade coins. The ancient Persians used silver coins between 612–330 B ...

that came from

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

(

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

) while other Chinese observers would claim that it came from

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. These silver dollars came from the North American part of New Spain to the

through the

Manila galleon The Manila galleon (; ) refers to the Spain, Spanish trading Sailing ship, ships that linked the Philippines in the Spanish East Indies to Mexico (New Spain), across the Pacific Ocean. The ships made one or two round-trip voyages per year betwe ...

s in the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade and were brought to

Quanzhou Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city, prefecture-level port city on the north bank of the Jin River, beside the Taiwan Strait in southern Fujian, China, People's Republic of China. It is Fujian's largest most populous metropolitan region, wi ...

Zhangzhou Zhangzhou (, ) is a prefecture-level city in Fujian Province, China. The prefecture around the city proper comprises the southeast corner of the province, facing the Taiwan Strait and (with Quanzhou) surrounding the prefecture of Xiamen. Nam ...

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

Xiamen Xiamen,), also known as Amoy ( ; from the Zhangzhou Hokkien pronunciation, zh, c=, s=, t=, p=, poj=Ē͘-mûi, historically romanized as Amoy, is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Stra ...

, and

Ningbo Ningbo is a sub-provincial city in northeastern Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises six urban districts, two satellite county-level cities, and two rural counties, including several islands in Hangzhou Bay and the Eas ...

by Chinese merchants. Trade with the

Kingdom of Portugal The Kingdom of Portugal was a Portuguese monarchy, monarchy in the western Iberian Peninsula and the predecessor of the modern Portuguese Republic. Existing to various extents between 1139 and 1910, it was also known as the Kingdom of Portugal a ...

commenced after the Portuguese occupation of Macau in 1557 and two decades later trade with Castile was established, trade with the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

started in 1604 with their occupation of the

Penghu islands The Penghu ( , Hokkien POJ: ''Phîⁿ-ô͘'' or ''Phêⁿ-ô͘'' ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, about west of the main island of Taiwan across the Penghu Channel, cove ...

, and with the

Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain, also known as the Kingdom of Great Britain, was a sovereign state in Western Europe from 1707 to the end of 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the Kingd ...

in 1729. By the end of the eighteenth century China was also trading with the newly established United States of America. Despite Chinese merchants valuing both foreign silver coins (銀元) and Chinese silver ingots (銀兩) based on their silver content, the government of the Qing dynasty still enforced the opinion that the silver coins that originated in foreign countries was somehow of inferior value than the Chinese sycees. Yet the private Chinese markets did not share this opinion with the imperial Qing government as the populations of the coastal provinces (and Guangdong most in particular) held the foreign silver coins in high esteem due to various advantages such as their fixed nominal values and their consistently reliable fineness of their silver content which all made them be used for transactions without having to undergo a process of assaying or weighing as is expected of sycees. The year 1814 the market value of 1 silver foreign coin in Guangzhou was never less than 723 Chinese cash coins, while in other provinces like

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

and

they were even worth more eight hundred cash coins, or foreign silver coins could be traded for 0.73 tael of silver each. The following decades the exchange ratee would only rise and a single foreign silver coin would be worth between 1,500 and 1,900 Chinese cash coins. The Chinese authorities during this period for this reason often raised the proposition to ban the circulation of foreign silver coins within Chinese territory, on the suspicion that "good" Chinese silver went to foreign markets, while the "inferior" foreign silver coins caused the markets of southern China to inundate. There was evidence that the Qing dynasty indeed suffered a net loss of 11% when changing Chinese into foreign silver. During the initial period of the 19th century the imperial Chinese administration suspected that more silver was being exported than imported causing the Chinese to slowly develop a silver deficit as the trade balance fell on the negative side of the spectrum for the Qing. However, as the government of the Qing dynasty never collected and compiled any statistics on the private trade of silver it is very difficult to generate any accurate hard numbers on these claims. According to Hosea Ballou Morse the turning point for the Chinese trade balance was in the year 1826, during this year the trade balance allegedly fell from a positive balance of 1,300,000 pesos to a negative one of 2,100,000 pesos. According to the memorial by the governor of

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

, L. Tsiuen-Sun published on 7 November 1855 it is noted that the governor witnessed that the foreign silver coins that had been circulating in Jiangnan were held in great esteem by the local people and that the most excellent of these coins weighed 7 Mace and 2 Candareens while their silver content was only of 6 Mace and 5 Candareens. He also noted that these coins were greatly used in Fujian and Guangdong and that even the most defaced and mutilated of these coins were valued on par with Chinese sycees, in fact he noted that everyone in possession of a sycee would exchange these for foreign silver coins known as Fanbing (番餅, "foreign cakes") due to their standard weights and sizes. Meanwhile, the governor noted that in the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu these chopped dollars did not circulate as much in favour of a currency he calls "bright money". Originally a dollar was worth upwards of seven Mace; the value gradually rose over time to eight Mace, and by 1855 it exceeded nine Mace.

Pre-Qing trade

Between the 16th and 18th centuries a vast amount of foreign silver coins arrived in the Qing dynasty. During the early years of Sino-Portuguese trade at the port of Macau, the merchants from the Kingdom of Portugal purchased an annual amount of two million taels worth of Chinese commodities, additionally the Portuguese shipped about 41 million taels (or 1.65 million kilograms) of silver from Japan to China until the year 1638. A century earlier in the year 1567 the Spanish trade port in the city of

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

in the

as part of the Spanish colonial empire was opened which until the fall of the Ming dynasty brought over forty million Kuping Taels of silver to China with the annual Chinese imports numbering at 53,000,000 pesos (each peso being 8 real) or 300,000 Kuping Taels. During the Ming dynasty the average Chinese junk which took the voyage from the

to the city of

took with it eighty thousand pesos, a number which increased under the Qing dynasty as until the mid-18th century the volume of imported Spanish pesos had increased to 235,370,000 (or 169 460,000 Kuping Tael). The Spanish mention that around 12,000,000 pesos were shipped from

Acapulco Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , ; ), is a city and Port of Acapulco, major seaport in the Political divisions of Mexico, state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Located on a deep, semicirc ...

in the year 1597 as part of the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade while in other years this usually numbered between one and four million pesos. The Japanese supplied 11,250 kilograms of silver to China by merchants in direct trade annually prior to the year 1600, after the

Sakoku is the most common name for the isolationist foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and almost all ...

policy was enacted by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

in the year 1633 only 350 Japanese trade vessels sailed for China, however each of these ships had more than one thousand tons of silver.

Names of foreign silver coins

List of names used for foreign silver coins during the reign of the Qing dynasty:

Spanish dollars and Mexican pesos from the Philippines

The paramount foreign silver coin in Chinese history was the Spanish piece of eight (or 8 reals and commonly called a ''

peso The peso is the monetary unit of several Hispanophone, Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, as well as the Philippines. Originating in the Spanish Empire, the word translates to "weight". In most countries of the Americas, the symbol com ...

'' or ''

dollar Dollar is the name of more than 25 currencies. The United States dollar, named after the international currency known as the Spanish dollar, was established in 1792 and is the first so named that still survives. Others include the Australian d ...

'') originally entering in circulation through trade with

in the

to the cities of

and

. The

, as part of the

, exported to and was supplied through the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade with the

Viceroyalty of New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

(

), all as part of the Spanish colonial empire. It was known popularly in English as the ''Spanish dollar'', however to the Chinese this coin was popularly known as the ''double ball'' (雙球) because its obverse depicted two different hemispheres of the globe based on the 1494

Treaty of Tordesillas The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian (geography) ...

which divided the world between the

Crown of Castile The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Castile, Castile and Kingd ...

and the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves. The silver "double ball" coins were issued under the reigns of King Philip V and King Ferdinand VI between the years 1700 and 1759 and were minted in the

(

) which was signified by the mint mark "Mo" ("M xic") and featured

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

texts such as "VTRAQUE VNUM" ("both emispheresare one mpire) and "HISPAN·ET·IND·REX" ("king of Spain and the Indies") preceded with the name of the reigning monarch. The globes on these early Spanish dollars were flanked by two crowned pillars (representing the

Pillars of Hercules The Pillars of Hercules are the promontory, promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The northern Pillar, Calpe Mons, is the Rock of Gibraltar. A corresponding North African peak not being predominant, the identity of ...

), these pillars were entwined with S-shaped banners (which is also the origin of the peso sign, $). Under the reign of

King Charles III Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and ...

the design was changed and the pillars were moved to the reverse of the coin while of the Spanish coat-of-arms were superseded by a portrait of the reigning monarch, because of this these coins were known as "Carolus dollars" or ''columnarius'' ("with columns") in the West, while the Chinese referred to them as Zhuyan (柱洋, "pillar dollar"). Additionally on some Carolus dollars the inscription "

PLVS VLTRA Plvs Vltra is the indie rock solo project of Toko Yasuda (Enon (band), Enon, Blonde Redhead, The Lapse, The Van Pelt), featuring melodic, fractured tunes created on samplers, vintage synthesizers, drum machines and various effects alongside Ya ...

" was found. The Spanish Carolus dollars always had a standard weight of 27.468 grams, while their silver content was lowered from 0.93955 to a purity of only 0.902. From the year 1732 onwards these coins were manufactured in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

and other parts of

Spanish America Spanish America refers to the Spanish territories in the Americas during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The term "Spanish America" was specifically used during the territories' Spanish Empire, imperial era between 15th and 19th centur ...

. The portraits of kings Charles III and Charles IV (with the "IV" written as "IIII") were featured on these coins, the Chinese referred to the Latin numeral "I" as "工" causing the silver coins of Charles III to be known as Sangong (三工) while those produced under the reign of Charles IV were known as Sigong (四工) coins. Additionally the depiction of the reigning Spanish monarch inspired the Chinese people to refer these Carolus dollars as Fotou Yang (佛頭洋, "Buddha-head dollar"). The Carolus dollar came in the denominations of ½ real, 1 real, 2 reales, 4 reales, and 8 reales of which the highest denomination had a diameter of forty millimeters and a thickness of 2.5 millimeters. All Carolus dollars issued under the reign of Charles III to China were produced in the year 1790 while those under Charles IV all date from 1804 onwards. In daily exchange the Chinese rated the 8 reales Carolus dollars at 0.73 Kuping Tael and was one of the most important forms of exchange, the

Treaty of Nanking The Treaty of Nanking was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese ...

that ended the First Opium War had its payments measured in Spanish Carolus dollars. According to estimates by the British

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

the Qing dynasty imported 68,000,000 Taels worth of foreign silver coins between the years 1681 and 1833, this sets China's imports over 100,000,000 foreign silver coins with the bulk of these being Spanish Carolus dollars produced in Spanish America that entered China through trade. The Chinese preference of the old Spanish Carolus dollars over newer European silver coinage, Mexican real, Peruvian real (later the Peruvian sol, and the Bolivian sol (later the Bolivian boliviano) was considered to be "unjustified" by many foreign powers, it took the combined diplomatic interventions of the United Kingdom, France and the United States to lead to a proclamation by Shanghainese superintendent of customs, Chaou, to issue a decree that was dated 23 July 1855, commanding the general circulation of all foreign silver coins, whether they were new or old coinages. One of the reasons why the circulation of other silver coins other than the Spanish Carolus dollars because the Spanish government has long since stopped the production of these coins as the

Spanish American wars of independence The Spanish American wars of independence () took place across the Spanish Empire during the early 19th century. The struggles in both hemispheres began shortly after the outbreak of the Peninsular War, forming part of the broader context of the ...

cut them off of the majority of their colonies, this had the effect that while no new Spanish Carolus dollars were being produced many Chinese merchants started demanding more money for them as these coins started slowly but gradually disappearing from the Chinese market. As many foreign nations started trading with China, the Chinese regarded these non-Spanish currencies as "new coins" and often discounted them from 20 to 30 percent due to the suspicion that they had a lower silver content than the Spanish Carolus dollars. After Mexican independence was declared, the Mexican Empire started issuing silver pesos with their coat of arms on them, these silver coins were brought to China from 1854 and were known to the Chinese as "Eagle coins" (鷹洋), though they have commonly been incorrectly called "English dollars" (英洋) because they were mostly brought to China by English merchants. The denominations of these coins remained the same as with the earlier Spanish dollars but the currency unit "real" was replaced with "peso". Initially the Chinese market did not respond positively to this change of design and accepted the Mexican pesos at a lower rate than they did the Spanish Carolus dollars due to a fear that they might have a lower silver content, but after members the customs house of Shanghai were inviter to see the manufacturing process of the Mexican peso by the foreign mercantile community they concluded that these new coins were of equal quality and purity as the old Spanish Carolus dollars and decreed that after the next

Chinese merchants in Shanghai can not demand a premium on transactions made in Mexican pesos and that all foreign coins would have to be judged on their intrinsic value and not on the fact if it was a Spanish Carolus dollar or not, the reason why this decree was passed was due to the widespread dishonesty among the Chinese merchants overcharging transactions paid in Mexican pesos claiming that only Spanish Carolus dollars were trustworthy. This request was also forwarded to all governors of the coastal provinces, however despite the push by the Chinese authorities of the Qing to bring fiscal parity between the Spanish Carolus dollar and the Mexican peso, the Chinese people still held high esteem for the former and the prejudices favouring Spanish Carolus dollars did not cease. On the 26th day of the 1st month during the year Xianfeng 6 (2 March 1856) the Taoutae (or highest civil officer) of Luzhou-fu, Longjiang-fu, and Taichangzhou who also served as the acting Commissioner of Finance for Luzhou-fu as other places in

Jiangnan Jiangnan is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of its delta. The region encompasses the city of Shanghai, the southern part of Jiangsu ...

issued a proclamation condemning the practice of discounting the value of good Spanish dollars and making it illegal to do so, Taoutae Yang cited that there were cunning stockjobbers who have been getting up a set of clever nicknames which they give to Spanish Carolus dollars out of self-interest to try and devalue certain coins and heavily discount them. Some time after the proclamation these dealers stopped fearing the law and continued their practice. It was notable that certain types of Spanish dollars known as the "copper-mixed-dollar", the "inlaid-with-lead-dollar", the "light-dollar", and the " Foochoow dollar" were particularly targeted this proclamation as they were perceived to be intrinsically of less value, according to Eduard Kann in his book ''The Currencies of China'' he reports in Appendix IV: "A feature of Foochow currency is the chopped, or rather the scooped, the scraped, the cut, the punched dollar. This maltreatment often obliterates all trace of the original markings, some assuming the shape and appearance of a mushroom suffering from smallpox. It is obvious that such coins must pass by weight ..." The Taoutae argued that the money-changers used absurd tricks in attempting to find a flaw in the Spanish dollar while he argued that these coins were both not lighter in weight nor did they feel inferior in quality when held. The Taoutae argued that the numerous chops on them are proof of the fact that they have been rigorously checked and verified by various Chinese authorities over an extended period of time and that the chopping of these Spanish dollars did not negatively influence them in any way. Money-changers who engaged in illegally downgrading and devaluing Spanish dollars by assigning these nicknames to them in Jiangnan were placed in a cangue. A similar law was also passed by the province of

and government clerks aiding these dishonest shopkeepers were also subject to punishment if discovered.

Other foreign silver coins

The silver

ducat The ducat ( ) coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages to the 19th century. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around of 98.6% fine gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained wide inter ...

s of the

were known as the Maqian (馬錢) or Majian (馬劍) to the Chinese and it has been estimated that between the years 1725 and 1756 ships from the Netherlands bought in Canon merchandise for 3.6 million taels worth of silver, but between the years 1756 and 1794 this was only 82.697 tael. In the late 18th century the Dutch silver ducats were primarily circulating in the coastal provinces of

and

. The smallest of the Dutch ducats had a weight of 0.867 Kuping Tael. The Portuguese cruzado started circulating in the southern provinces of China during the latter part of the 18th century and was dubbed the Shiqiqian (十字錢) by contemporary Chinese merchants. The denominations of the Portuguese cruzado during that time were 50 réis, 60 réis, 100 réis, 120 réis, 240 réis, and 480 réis with the largest coin weighing only 0.56 Kuping Tael. The silver coins of the

Japanese yen The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the euro. Th ...

were first introduced in the year 1870 and circulated in the eastern provinces of the Qing dynasty, they were locally known as Longyang (龍洋, "

dollars") or Longpan (龍番) because they featured a big dragon and bore the

Kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

inscription Dai Nippon (大日本). These Japanese coins were dominated in yen (圓) and would later serve as the model for the Chinese silver coins produced at the end of the Qing period. Prior to the first opium war began, around a dozen different types of foreign silver coins were circulating in China, among these was a small amount of French silver

écu The term ''écu'' () may refer to one of several France, French coins. The first ''écu'' was a gold coin (the ''écu d'or'') minted during the reign of Louis IX of France, in 1266. The value of the ''écu'' varied considerably over time, and si ...

coins, however Spanish Carolus dollars were by far the most numerous as various trade companies such as the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

purchased Chinese products such as tea with them, as all other foreign currencies were forbidden by the Qing as a means to accept payment for tea. In the year 1866 a new mint was opened in

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was under British Empire, British rule from 1841 to 1997, except for a Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, brief period of Japanese occupation during World War II from 1941 to 1945. It was a crown colony of the United Kingdom from 1841 ...

and the British government started the production of the silver

Hong Kong dollar The Hong Kong dollar (, sign: HK$; code: HKD) is the official currency of Hong Kong. It is divided into 100 cents. Historically, it was also divided into 1000 mils. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is the monetary authority of Hong Kong an ...

(香港銀圓) that all featured a portrait of the reigning British monarch,

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

. As these Hong Kong dollars did not have as high of a silver content as the Mexican peso these silver coins were rejected by Chinese merchants and had to be demonetised a mere seven years after they were introduced. The United States in 1873 created the American trade dollar which was known to the Chinese as the Maoyi Yinyuan (貿易銀元), this coin specially designed for use in the trade with the Qing dynasty. However, because its silver content was lower than that of the Mexican peso, it suffered the same fate as the silver Hong Kong dollar and was discontinued 14 years after its introduction. Afterwards another silver British coin was introduced inspired by the American trade dollar that became known as the British dollar or British trade dollar, these coins featured the inscription "One Dollar" (in English, Chinese, and Malay) and had the portrait of the female personification of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Britannia The image of Britannia () is the national personification of United Kingdom, Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used by the Romans in classical antiquity, the Latin was the name variously appli ...

on them, these silver coins were introduced in the year 1895, and were called either Zhanrenyang (站人洋) or Zhangyang (仗洋) by the Chinese.

Notes

References

Sources

* Eagleton, C.; Williams, J., ''Money: a history'', London:

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

Press, 2007. * * Hartill, David, ''Qing cash'', Royal Numismatic Society Special Publication 37, London, 2003. * * Wu Jingzi (吳敬梓), ''Rulin Waishi'' (The Scholars). * Eduard Kann, ''Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Coins, Vol. 1: Gold, Silver, Nickel and Aluminum'' * Chen Feng, ''Financial History of the Qing Dynasty'' (1 January 1991) (in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

using

Simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized Chinese characters, character sets widely used to write the Chinese language, with the other being traditional characters. Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of ...

) * Werner Burger (numismatist), ''Ch'ing Cash''. Publisher: University Museum and Art Gallery,

Hong Kong University The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...

. Publication date: 5 July 2016 * Kalgan Shih, Sam Sloan, and Mario L. Sacripante. ''Modern Coins of China''. Publisher:

Ishi Press Richard Bozulich (born 1936) is an American author, publisher of Go (board game), Go books in English and college math instructor. He co-founded the Ishi Press. He has worked with several Japanese Go professional, professional players. He had ...

. Published: 14 December 2009. * Shi Jun Zhi, ''Outline of Chinese coins legal history'' ( Chinese Edition). Publisher: China Financial Publishing House. Published: 1 March 2015.

External links

*
Dragon Dollar & Chinese Coins
Late Qing Dynasty provincial silver coins (Beiyang mint) {{Qing dynasty topics Coins of China coinage Modern obsolete currencies Chinese numismatics

Later Jin dynasty coinage (1616–1636)

History

Early history

Kangxi era

Yongzheng era

Qianlong era

Jiaqing era

Daoguang era

Inflation during the 19th century

Tongzhi era

Modernisation under the Guangxu Emperor

Coinage under the Xuantong Emperor

Copper coinage

Purchasing power of coins

Effects of the global devaluation of silver

Scarcity of copper-alloy cash coins

Machine-struck cash coins

Counterfeit machine-struck coins

Cash coins made from other metals

Iron cash coins

Lead cash coins

Zinc cash coins

List of cash coins issued by the Qing dynasty

Silver coinage

Status of silver during the Qing dynasty

Imperial government produced silver coinages

Provincial and private silver coinages

Provincial silver coins based on foreign coins

1910 Yunnan "spring dollars"

Private production of silver coinage

Weights and standards

Gold coinage

Mint marks

Chinese mint marks

Manchu mint marks

Chinese, Manchu, and Uyghur mint marks

Tibetan coinage under the Qing

Xinjiang

Commemorative coins

Vault protector coins of the Qing dynasty

Foreign silver "dollars" circulating in the Qing dynasty

Pre-Qing trade

Names of foreign silver coins

Spanish dollars and Mexican pesos from the Philippines

Other foreign silver coins

See also

Notes

References

Sources

External links