Hubu Guanpiao
The Hubu Guanpiao (Traditional Chinese: 戶部官票, "Ministry of Revenue Government notes") is the name of two series of government notes produced by the Qing dynasty, the first series was known as the Chaoguan (鈔官) and was introduced under the Shunzhi Emperor during the Qing conquest of the Ming dynasty but was quickly abandoned after this war ended, it was introduced amid residual ethnic Han resistance to the Manchu invaders.
[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.
Eventually, the imperial Chinese government had no recourse other than to place full responsibility in these newly formed units led by local warlords and aristocrats.
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.
[12] 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.
[24] 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.
[49][24] After the Taiping rebels had captured Nanjing the Qing government realised how big the rebellion had become and started issuing new currencies including the Hubu Guanpiao tael notes.
[27] The silver sycee-based Hubu Guanpiao were introduced alongside the copper-alloy cash coins-based Great Qing Treasure Note by the Chinese government during the third year of the Xianfeng era (1953) with their main difference being into what they could be converted.
[12] The Hubu Guanpiao were originally intended to be used to pay the salaries of government officials, this was because the Ministry of Revenue reported that its actual silver stock in its vault was too low for these immediate payments.
[27] The circulation of a Hubu Guanpiao bill was confined to its province of issuance and provincial governments were further prohibited from returning the notes back to Beijing as a part of the payment of their yearly tax quotas.
[12] To distribute these notes into the provinces outside of Beijing the Ministry of Revenue would utilise the services of special banks which were specifically appointed by the government for the purpose of bringing them onto local markets.
[12] The third and final way the government of the Qing dynasty distributed the Hubu Guanpiao tael notes into general circulation were the various commissary departments of the Chinese military as these institutions were responsible for paying the salaries of the army and navy.
[12] As soldiers and marines were paid partially using the Hubu Guanpiao this ensured that at the places where they were stationed these notes would see greater circulation, this was especially true for the areas surrounding the Grand Canal as one of the primary military strategies employed during the war with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was to hold this waterway at all costs as it was extremely vital for warfare.
[51] The Hubu Guanpiao tael notes saw limited circulation on the Chinese market, this was largely because of their high nominal values, which meant that they proved inconvenient for the rather daily exchanges.
[57][51] Some officials working for the Ministry of Revenue has argued that the government should be very conservative with issuing the Hubu Guanpiao into circulation, as they claimed that the use of silver-based notes as a means of overcoming the shortage of silver due to the ongoing war with the Taiping rebels was effective as long as the note issue was limited to only 20% of all payments conducted by the government of the Qing dynasty, a notable exception was made for people like the generals and the imperial princes who traditionally received their payments entirely in silver.
[27] The Hubu Guanpiao notes tended to be heavily discounted in exchange due to their inability to be redeemed and would eventually be entirely repudiated by the Chinese government.
[12] Up until the year Xianfeng 4 (1854) many endorsements were made on the reverse side of Hubu Guanpiao tael notes confirming the fact that they were still generally accepted by the Chinese public as a form of payment.
As in the capital city of Beijing the use of these notes led to a depreciation of office prices, but conversely, they partially alleviated the social fallout that occurred from unpaid military salaries.
[12] During the final year that the Hubu Guanpiao notes were issued, the Chinese government produced 60,2000,000 silver taels[clarification needed] in paper money onto the market.
Counterfeiters will be severely punished to the full extent of the law" 戶部奏行 官票凡願 將官票兌 換銀錢者 與銀一律 並准按部 定章程搭 交官項偽 造者依律 治罪不貸
hù bù zòu xíng guān piào fán yuàn jiàng guān piào duì huàn yínqián zhě yǔ yín yīlǜ bìng zhǔn àn bù dìng zhāngchéng dā jiāo guān xiàng wěi zào zhě yī lǜ zhìzuì bù dài It is notable that the Hubu Guanpiao contained a warning to currency counterfeiters while the Great Qing Treasure Note did not, the earliest Chinese paper currencies such as the flying cash from the Tang dynasty and the Jiaozi, Huizi, and Guanzi all contained these warnings.
[12] Hubu Guanpiao notes from the province of Zhili typically carry vermilion two-character red overprint at the top left centre to indicate their point of origin.
Additionally, early emissions of the Hubu Guanpiao teal notes which were issued through the military commissaries used a different system that was based upon the Five Confucian Virtues (五常, wǔcháng) rather than the thousand character classic.
This numbering system allowed people to ascertain from which source region any particular Hubu Guanpiao note came by knowing which Chinese character prefixes were assigned to each of these areas.
