Great Qing Treasure Note
During the transition from Ming to Qing the Manchu government-issued notes known as Hubu Guanpiao (戶部官票) or Shunzhi Guanpiao (順治官票) or Shunzhi Chaoguan (順治鈔貫)[3] which were first issued in the year 1651 on initiative of the Minister of Revenue, Wei Xiangshu (魏象樞) during the war with the remnants of the Ming dynasty to cover the more immediate expenses of the Manchus as the finances of the Qing during this period were in dire distress, these notes were declared void only a decade after their issued.
[4][5][6] Peng Xinwei suggested that the Manchu rulers of the Qing were very much atavistic towards the inflationary pressure that the earlier Jurchen Empire experienced after they had abused their ability to print Jiaochao notes.
As these regions were completely dependent on paper money inflation hit them more severely as their notes could not be converted into a currency based on any intrinsic value, for this reason the Mongols allowed their subjects to continue using copper-alloy cash coins and issued new ones every now and then.
During the last few decades of the Yuan dynasty the inflation caused people to lose their trust in paper money and barter became the most common means of exchange.
The monetary policy of the Qing government had been effective for over 160 years, yet under the Daoguang Emperor's reign, which preceded that of Xianfeng, inherent problems to the system were becoming evident.
In the year 1713 the Kangxi Emperor had fixed the rent collected by the imperial Chinese government at ¾ tael per 6 mou (or 1 acre) of land and issued a decree that this ratio should stand for all time unchanged.
With the forced opening of the Qing dynasty's doors after the Opium Wars and the following increase in maritime trade with foreign nations, the customs duties took on a vastly expanded level of importance in the Chinese taxation system.
This resulted to a considerable amount of workload for these foreign consulates, as the funds raised through customs duties were based upon a 5% ad valorem tax on all imports and exports in Shanghai.
It was customary for example for the Shanghai banks to make advances to junk owners who were engaged in the trade of carrying tribute rice to the north, holding their vessels as collateral.
[26] The Taiping Rebellion had caused the government of the Qing dynasty to fall into an extreme debt spiral which forced it to reconsider introducing paper money as a medium for exchange.
[22] Half a century earlier in the year 1814, when Cai Zhiding (蔡之定, Ts'ai Chih-Ting), who was a high official in the Ministry of State, petitioned to the court of the Jiaqing Emperor advocating the resumption of a paper money currency, this request was denied.
Cai was later severely rebuked in the Jiaqing Emperor's memorial in which he pointed out that neither the Chinese government nor any individuals in the past had experienced benefits from the circulation of a paper money.
[22] However, the Taiping Rebellion brought both extensive devastation and high defense costs to the point that within 3 years the Xianfeng administration felt forced to re-adopt paper currency.
Both currencies would prove to become exceedingly inflationary as time passed by, this disrupted the market exchange rate of copper to silver and lead to unrest among the people.
Being lightweight, paper money could be carried around my traders and officials with ease and concealed on one's person as opposed to strings of cash coins which were always visible and a low-effort target for potential robbers.
[22] In the year Xianfeng 3 (1853) the Ministry of Revenue also gave authorisation to the local provincial governments of China to directly issue notes denominated in copper-alloy cash coins and silver taels, these banknotes bore its official seal and were valid throughout the empire.
The fall of the T'ien shops was quickened by Chinese peasants who, with the inflation affecting the paper money running rampant, opted to speedily redeem their pawned items with the depreciated Great Qing Treasure Note.
[22] As the Great Qing Treasure Note were intended to be used as a form of payment throughout the Manchu Empire, the government found it a necessity to try to bring them into circulation in the provinces by using the Yu, Ch'ien, and T'ien banking corporations.
[22] Since local provincial officials tended to display a complete disregard and disdain for the idea of record keeping, no statistics regarding the issue of Great Qing Treasure Notes outside of Beijing has ever come to light.
LET each province's governor-general, governor and military commander, and the governor of the imperial prefecture take official notice of the original memorial of the Board of Revenue and take part with their subordinates, deliberating over the local circumstances, and then quickly establish an official currency office and also devise means to raise funds to open mints to increase the casting so that the legal cash and cash notes, the one supplementing the other, are issued.
[22] Despite knowing all the risks and the predicted hyperinflation paired with many examples of historical precedent, the central government decided to pursue issuing more banknotes than they were able to back up because of the pressing matters of the Taiping Rebellion.
[22] The Great Qing Treasure Note banknotes tended not to circulate much in Southern China which (with the notable exception of Fujian) was a stronghold of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
[2] The Fuzhou government often opted to pay using heavily debased cash coins, this happened to the extent that the copper reserves which backed this issue up had lost much of its value, which compounded inflationary pressures and justified the longstanding mistrust of paper money that the Chinese public had for the medium.
[22] While certain individuals such as government officials and foreigners would get the exact amounts of cash coins as stipulated on the banknotes, the average Chinese was forced into a highly competitive bidding market to receive any metal coinage.
[51] In reality both the Hubu Guanpiao and the Great Qing Treasure Note were issued by the Ministry of Revenue, while official banknotes, which were also often denominated in copper-alloy cash coins, were distinct.
[22] The Great Qing Treasure Note contained the following text at the bottom: 此鈔即代制 錢行用並准 按成交納地 丁錢糧一切 稅課捐項京 外各庫一概 收解每錢鈔 貳千文抵換 官票銀壹兩
Cǐ chāo jí dài zhì qián xíng yòng, bìng zhǔn àn chéngjiāo nà de dīng qiánliáng, yīqiè shuì kè juān xiàng, jīng wài gè kù yīgài shōu jiě, měi qián chāo èrqiān wén dǐ huàn guān piào yín yī liǎng.
At the upper left part of the Great Qing Treasure Note, the reign title of the Xianfeng Emperor was printed with the year that the banknote was produced, on the other side the serial number could be seen.
These black ink strokes were actually already made prior to the cutting of the notes from their tallies in an attempt to prevent counterfeit currency from being produced as it was the best-known security feature available at the time.
[22] These government stamps were large or small, square or round, or oblong, they ware usually orange, vermilion, or wine-red in colour although certain seals also appear in black, they tended to be impressed on various parts of the banknote where there was space.
