Daqian
The Chinese Daqian happened concurrent with and may have inspired similar debasements of cash coinages in Tokugawa Japan, Joseon-era Korea, the Ryukyu islands, and Nguyễn-period Vietnam.
A large number of large-scale peasant uprisings, ethnic and religious minority revolts, as well as foreign invasions of China took place under the reign of the Xianfeng Emperor, including Nian, Miao, Panthay, Red Turban, Da Cheng, and Taiping rebellions, and the Second Opium War.
[2] After the Taiping rebels took Nanjing in 1853, serious debates about the monetary policy of the government of the Qing dynasty as the occupation of Southern China by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom it cut off from several sources of revenue, including tax revenues, southern provincial grain tributes, the salt tax imposed on the Huai area, and the Yunnanese copper mines from which the copper supplies for the Beijing imperial mints came from.
[3] The most influential proposals turned out to be the ones advocating for both the debasement of the copper coinage and the introduction of high denomination copper-alloy cash coins.
[3] Eventually the monetary policy of the Qing dynasty during the Xianfeng era had degenerated to forcing a debased copper-alloy currency on the Chinese people, while creating many obstacles that would prevent these new cash coins from ever returning to the government.
[3] The measures taken during the Taiping Rebellion made the Chinese monetary system even more complicated as it introduced a large number of different types of currency which all circulated concurrently as legal tender.
[4] The hyperinflation during the Xianfeng era was caused by the government of the Qing dynasty, in its desperate scramble for revenue, continuously debasing the copper content of its coinage.
[3] Furthermore, the Daqian were all intended to circulate side-by-side with the already existing currencies in China, and then be accepted at face value and the older coinage wasn't collected by the government for re-melting.
[4] During this same time the government of the Qing dynasty began issuing convertible cash bank notes, or guan-hao qianpiao (官號錢票), which were mostly backed in Daqian.
[4] Both the Daqian and guan-hao qianpiao were calculated using the Jingqian (京錢) unit of account, but they were complicated by the fact that the nominal value of these government banknotes denominated the debt owed to be satisfied by the payment of cash coins.
[4] The process under which the Xianfeng inflation unfolded revealed as much about the capacity of the government of the Qing dynasty to coerce as the constraint in its monetary management.
[5] The inconvertible paper notes that were also issued and pushed through the Chinese market received the full coercive power of the central state.
[5] Public distrust in China towards these new monies even worsened when in the end, governmental agencies refused to accept "big cash" as a form of payment.
[3] Only a few years after their introduction, both the Daqian and the government-issued paper money would start to be steeply discounted on the Chinese commercial markets.
[5] Because of their low intrinsic value and general inconvenience, all Daqian with denominations higher than 50 wén were discontinued within a year of their introduction.
[5] Both the inflationary policy of debasing the copper currencies and the issuance of inconvertible paper money were also largely confined to the Beijing capital region and the immediate neighbouring provinces, this was due to the Qing government's limited political control over much of China at the time of Taiping Rebellion.
