Qing dynasty coinage

Under Hong Taiji these coins bore the legend that they had a nominal weight of 10 qián (or 1 tael) modelled after contemporary Ming dynasty coinage, but in reality weighed less.

[14] Under the Yongzheng Emperor various measures were undertaken to ensure a vast supply of cash coins, though the weight was increased to 1.4 qián per wén, the copper content was lowered from 60% to 50% in 1727.

[19] Under the Jiaqing Emperor the Chinese population had reached 300,000,000 which was twice as much as just a century prior, famines had plagued the land, the government was corrupt, and hordes of secret Anti-Manchu organisations popped up everywhere, stability would not return until 1803 but this had come at tremendously high costs.

[14] The era also saw the rise of the Self-Strengthening Movement which wanted to adopt western ideas into practice in China including reforming the monetary system.

The first machine-struck cash coins were also produced under the Tongzhi Emperor in Paris at the request of governour Zuo Zongtang in 1866, but the government of the Qing refused to introduce machine-made coinage.

[32] By the end of the Qing dynasty the government's attempts at modernising the monetary system had failed and machined coins circulated alongside traditional coinages, this situation would continue under the Republic of China.

[33][15] A standard piece of copper-alloy cash coin in the 18th century weighted 0.12 tael, containing between 50%–70% of pure copper, and other metals in its alloy such as zinc and lead.

[15] Because casting is a very simple process many private (illegal) mints started producing fake cash coins known as Sīzhùqián (私鑄錢) because government mints often could not meet the market's demand for money, as there barely was a difference in quality between "real" or Zhìqián (制錢) and "fake" coins, the sizhuqian were just as widely accepted by the general population as means of payment.

[15] The higher exchange rate between silver and copper-alloy cash coins favouring the latter caused deflation and made the business of the middlemen less profitable.

[15] Despite a large silver inflow to treaty ports and urban centres throughout China, the vast Chinese rural population was now suffering from a shortage of copper-alloy cash coins.

[15] The rural Chinese workers tended to only receive their salaries in copper-alloy cash coins and would pay their taxes in silver using the official government set exchange rates between the two metal currencies.

[15] When the scarcity started causing deflation the rural workers would receive lower salaries, but the government kept maintaining a relatively high exchange rate between the two currencies.

[15] As a result, the mints operated by the government of the Qing dynasty saw less motivation to produce more copper-alloy cash coins as they were now more expensive to make, as it now cost more silver to import sufficient amounts of copper for their production.

[15] This severely negatively affected the economy of rural areas where copper-alloy cash coins circulated as the principal (if not only) currency and was used in high frequency for the daily transactions of most (if not all) people in these regions.

[15] Therefore the new technology provided a for the government of the Qing dynasty a way to mint sufficient token coins at an affordable cost without inviting forgers to debase the new coinages even further.

[15] According to Qing government memorials, large amounts of iron cash coins were used as a means to pay salaries between the years 1856 and 1857 due to a noted justification that "the Chinese public was craving for small change".

[15] There were various standards for defining the weight of a tael, this was because the weighing scales varied a lot between the different regions of China and Qing government bodies.

[12] Other models of modern silver coinages, which are known as ban (板), that were known to have been produced in the cities of Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, and Jiangxi.

[12] These silver coins were brought into general circulation through military salaries (Junxiang), and unlike the earlier attempts were accepted by the local Jiangsu market.

The centre of the obverse of the Yunnan Spring dollar contains the inscription "Xuantong Yuanbao" (宣統元寶), while on the bottom it contains the denomination of the coin as "Kuping Qi Qian Er Fen" (traditional Chinese: 庫平七錢二分; simplified Chinese: 库平七钱二分; pinyin: kù píng qī qián èr fēn, "Treasury Standard 7 Mace and 2 Candareens").

However, the imperial Chinese government soon discovered the scheme at the Yunnan mint and quickly ordered that all these of these new "spring dollar" coins were to be withdrawn and later melted down.

[12] Yet the private Chinese markets did not share this opinion with the imperial Qing government as the populations of the coastal provinces (and Guangdong most in particular) held the foreign silver coins in high esteem due to various advantages such as their fixed nominal values and their consistently reliable fineness of their silver content which all made them be used for transactions without having to undergo a process of assaying or weighing as is expected of sycees.

[12] However, as the government of the Qing dynasty never collected and compiled any statistics on the private trade of silver it is very difficult to generate any accurate hard numbers on these claims.

[72][12] List of names used for foreign silver coins during the reign of the Qing dynasty:[12][72] The paramount foreign silver coin in Chinese history was the Spanish piece of eight (or 8 reals and commonly called a peso or dollar) originally entering in circulation through trade with Manila in the Philippines to the cities of Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Xiamen in Fujian and Guangzhou and Macau in Guangdong.

[12][72] The Chinese preference of the old Spanish Carolus dollars over newer European silver coinage, Mexican real, Peruvian real (later the Peruvian sol, and the Bolivian sol (later the Bolivian boliviano) was considered to be "unjustified" by many foreign powers, it took the combined diplomatic interventions of the United Kingdom, France and the United States to lead to a proclamation by Shanghainese superintendent of customs, Chaou, to issue a decree that was dated 23 July 1855, commanding the general circulation of all foreign silver coins, whether they were new or old coinages.

[12] As many foreign nations started trading with China, the Chinese regarded these non-Spanish currencies as "new coins" and often discounted them from 20 to 30 percent due to the suspicion that they had a lower silver content than the Spanish Carolus dollars.

[72][12] Initially the Chinese market did not respond positively to this change of design and accepted the Mexican pesos at a lower rate than they did the Spanish Carolus dollars due to a fear that they might have a lower silver content, but after members the customs house of Shanghai were inviter to see the manufacturing process of the Mexican peso by the foreign mercantile community they concluded that these new coins were of equal quality and purity as the old Spanish Carolus dollars and decreed that after the next Chinese new year Chinese merchants in Shanghai can not demand a premium on transactions made in Mexican pesos and that all foreign coins would have to be judged on their intrinsic value and not on the fact if it was a Spanish Carolus dollar or not, the reason why this decree was passed was due to the widespread dishonesty among the Chinese merchants overcharging transactions paid in Mexican pesos claiming that only Spanish Carolus dollars were trustworthy.

[80] On the 26th day of the 1st month during the year Xianfeng 6 (2 March 1856) the Taoutae (or highest civil officer) of Luzhou-fu, Longjiang-fu, and Taichangzhou who also served as the acting Commissioner of Finance for Luzhou-fu as other places in Jiangnan issued a proclamation condemning the practice of discounting the value of good Spanish dollars and making it illegal to do so, Taoutae Yang cited that there were cunning stockjobbers who have been getting up a set of clever nicknames which they give to Spanish Carolus dollars out of self-interest to try and devalue certain coins and heavily discount them.

[12] The Portuguese cruzado started circulating in the southern provinces of China during the latter part of the 18th century and was dubbed the Shiqiqian (十字錢) by contemporary Chinese merchants.

[72][12] Prior to the first opium war began, around a dozen different types of foreign silver coins were circulating in China, among these was a small amount of French silver écu coins, however Spanish Carolus dollars were by far the most numerous as various trade companies such as the British East India Company purchased Chinese products such as tea with them, as all other foreign currencies were forbidden by the Qing as a means to accept payment for tea.