Hongqian
"Red cash coins" (traditional Chinese: 紅錢; simplified Chinese: 红钱; pinyin: hóng qián; French: Sapèques rouges; Uyghur: قىزىل پۇل) are the cash coins produced in Xinjiang under Qing rule following the conquest of the Dzungar Khanate by the Qing dynasty in 1757.
[1] The areas where the Dzungar pūls had most circulated, such as Yarkant, Hotan, and Kashgar, were the sites of mints operated by the Qing government.
[1] As the Jiaqing Emperor ordered that 10% of all cash coins cast in Xinjiang should bear the inscription "Qianlong Tongbao" the majority of "red cash coins" with this inscription were actually produced after the Qianlong era as their production lasted until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, making many of them hard to attribute.
[1] During the Qianlong era, mints in Xinjiang were established in Yili (伊犁), Yerkant (يارﻛﻨﺪ), Aksu (اﻗﺴﻮ), and Uši (اﺷﻲ), and probably also in Khotan (خوتن), Kashgar (قاشقر), and Qarashahr.
[4] In the year 1801, the government of the Qing dynasty set the quota on the copper to be collected in the southern circuit of Xinjiang to 21,100 jin.
[6][7] In 1826, Jahangir Khoja, with soldiers from the Khanate of Kokand, occupied the southern circuit of Xinjiang, temporarily losing Kashgar, Yarkant, and Hotän to this rebellion.
[8] The 10 wén Aksu cash coins were introduced in 1828 because of a money shortage that caused the government to be unable to pay the soldiers stationed in the region.
These "red cash coins" were produced using local weight standards and not the ones set by the Ministry of Revenue because of their high copper content.
Coins also started being cast in bronze, brass, lead, and iron;[1] this system received a chaotic response from Xinjiang's market.
[1] The Xianfeng era "red cash coins" produced at the Kashgar mint contain an obscure vertically written vorm of Arabic script.
[14] The production of Tongzhi Tongbao (同治通寶) cash coins would completely stop in the region following the loss of the cities which hosted the provincial mints during the Dungan uprisings.
[15] During the Dungan revolt from 1862 to 1877, Sultan Rashidin Khan Khoja proclaimed a Jihad against the Qing dynasty in 1862, and captured large cities in the Tarim Basin.
[14] Eventually, 3 parallel currency systems were in place while pūl coins from the Dzungar Khanate kept circulating in Kashgaria a century after the region was annexed by the Qing dynasty.
The Dungan revolt led by the Tajik Muhammad Yaqub Beg was defeated in 1878 during the Qing reconquest of Xinjiang,[18][19] and the Russians returned the territory they had occupied after signing a treaty in 1880 at Yining.
[22] A memorial about the Kucha mint issued during the 6th month of the 11th year of the Guangxu Emperor (July 1885) notes that on the 26th day of the 7th month, twenty mint employees from the 78 that were originally employed by the Kucha were to be detached for the establishment of a small fire furnace that would chiefly be used for the production of cash coin patterns.
[22] The character "十" was placed on them because what the Qing government described as the "turbaned people" did not accept the cash coins at their value without the written denomination being "當十" (dāng shí).
[22] In the year 1884, Xinjiang was upgraded to the status of "province", ending military and Lifan Yuan rule over the region, while the "Red Cash" system was reintroduced in Kashgaria but now at a value of 4 wén.
However, at the end of the reign of the Guangxu Emperor, "Red Cash" was discontinued at the Aksu mint in 1892 because of the rising costs of charcoal needed to produce the coins.
[23] In the year 1893, the government set up a combined Mines and Minting Office in the east corner of the barracks of the native city of Kashgar.
[25][24] One theory is that this might have been the local idea of what "a regulation cash coin" (制錢) should look like and that this mint mark was used to instill more trust into these Hongqian.
