Bamboo tally

They continued to be used during the turbulent period of the Republic of China, as many local private banks at the time suffered from shortages of coinage.

They were originally produced by mat-manufacturers of Xushuan in 1877 under the Guangxu Emperor as "emergency money", and had a nominal value of 100 wén.

These early bamboo tallies were initially meant to be used between their suppliers and customers from the countryside, but they began to circulate on the entire market, a practice which was not prohibited by local authorities due to the contemporary economic situation of the region.

From 1895 onwards, local governments of these regions began to officially condone and later issue these bamboo tallies themselves.

[5] The sides of the bamboo tallies would often be inscribed with the manufacturing company and anti-counterfeit measures such as the statement "not compensated if lost" (失去不補, shī qù bù bǔ) and warranty marks are known as shing hao.