The paper money of the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

(

Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

: ) was periodically used alongside a bimetallic coinage system of copper-alloy cash coins and silver

sycee A sycee (;.. from Cantonese , , ). or yuanbao () was a type of gold and silver ingot currency used in imperial China from its founding under the Qin dynasty until the fall of the Qing in the 20th century. Sycee were not made by a central ban ...

s; paper money was used during different periods of

Chinese history The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the ''Book of Documents'' (early chapter ...

under the Qing dynasty, having acquired experiences from the prior

Song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

, Jin, Yuan, and

Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

dynasties which adopted paper money but where uncontrolled printing led to

hyperinflation In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as t ...

. During the youngest days of the Qing dynasty paper money was used but this was quickly abolished as the government sought not to repeat history for a fourth time; however, under the reign of the

Xianfeng Emperor The Xianfeng Emperor (17 July 1831 – 22 August 1861), or by temple name Emperor Wenzong of Qing (), given name Yizhu (), was the eighth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the seventh Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigned from 1850 t ...

, due to several large wars and rebellions (most notably the

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted fr ...

), the Qing government was forced to issue paper money again. The reason why the government was forced to reform the imperial monetary system with a very complex system during the Taiping Rebellion was because the rebels had blocked the access of mint metals from the southwest of China, but more money was still needed to fight the ongoing insurgency. The advisors of the Xianfeng Emperor not only introduced

copper-alloy Copper alloys are metal alloys that have copper as their principal component. They have high resistance against corrosion. The best known traditional types are bronze, where tin is a significant addition, and brass, using zinc instead. Both of t ...

cash coins with higher denominations than one, as well as introducing new cash coins made of metals other than

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...

, but also revived paper money in the shape of the ''Xianfeng baochao'' (). Quite important for the war effort is the fact that the imperial Qing government earned some revenue by issuing these new types of currencies. During the latter half of the 19th century various foreign banking corporations and credit institutes started doing business in China. The paper notes issued by these companies started circulating in China leading to many local companies imitating their designs and even outsourcing the production of paper money. The strong influence of these foreign banks had a modernising effect on both the economy and the currency of the Qing dynasty, leading to the imperial government issuing their own versions of modern paper money. The denominations on the paper money were as chaotic as that of the coinage types and the different exchange rates used regionally were also applied locally, while banknotes denominated in

currency had a different value than banknotes denominated in

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

currency. Concurrently banknotes issued by different branches or different banks were also discounted with paper bills issued by more reliable banks being both valued more and in higher demand than those issued by institutions with a less favourable reputation. In the early 20th century the government of the Qing dynasty attempted to decimalise the currency among many other economic reforms and established a

national bank In banking, the term national bank carries several meanings: * a bank owned by the state * an ordinary private bank which operates nationally (as opposed to regionally or locally or even internationally) * in the United States, an ordinary p ...

to oversee the production of paper money; however, the chaotic monetary situation continued to plague interregional trade and would later be inherited by the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

History

and other early Qing paper money

During the

transition from Ming to Qing The transition from Ming to Qing, alternatively known as Ming–Qing transition or the Manchu conquest of China, from 1618 to 1683, saw the transition between two major dynasties in Chinese history. It was a decades-long conflict between the e ...

, the Manchu government issued banknotes known as ''Hubu guanpiao'' () or '' Shunzhi guanpiao'' (). They were first issued in the year 1651 on initiative of the Minister of Revenue,

Wei Xiangshu Wei or WEI may refer to: States * Wey (state) (衛, 1040–209 BC), Wei in pinyin, but spelled Wey to distinguish from the bigger Wei of the Warring States * Wei (state) (魏, 403–225 BC), one of the seven major states of the Warring States per ...

() 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 banknotes were declared void only a decade after their issue.

Peng Xinwei Peng Xinwei 彭信威 (P'eng Hsin-wei) (1907–1967) was a Chinese economic historian, and author of ''A Monetary History of China''. Life Peng was born in Yantian, Xixiang, Jiangxi province, in 1907. After studying in Japan, he became a banker ...

suggests that the Manchus started issuing banknotes in response to the treasury of the Qing dynasty experiencing funding shortfalls which were occasioned by the a campaign to occupy the island of

Zhoushan Zhoushan , formerly romanized as Chusan, is an urbanized archipelago with the administrative status of a prefecture-level city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. It consists of an archipelago of islands at the southern mouth of H ...

(near modern

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

). An annual amount of 128,000 '' guàn'' () were issued, with a total sum of 1.28 million being produced before they were abolished. The denominations of the followed the pattern of the Ming dynasty period paper notes, but as historiographical sources about the early Qing era paper money are scarce, not much can be known about them. After the it was only rarely suggested by court officials to reintroduce paper money to the Qing Empire. Among these were

Cai Zhiding Cai or CAI may refer to: Places * Cai (state), a state in ancient China * Caí River, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil * Cái River, Vietnam * Cairo International Airport (IATA airport code) * Caithness, a historic county in Scotland (Chapman code) Org ...

() in 1814 and

Wang Yide Wang may refer to: Names * Wang (surname) (王), a common Chinese surname * Wāng (汪), a less common Chinese surname * Titles in Chinese nobility * A title in Korean nobility * A title in Mongolian nobility Places * Wang River in Thailand ...

(王懿德) in his treatise on money known as (). 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 Jiaochao () is a Chinese word for banknote first used for the currency of the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty and later by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. Jin dynasty The Jurchens swept control over northern China, conquering the Liao dynasty a ...

banknotes. Modern scholars argue that the banknotes issued during the Shunzhi period, while only brief, likely entrenched the reluctance of the Qing dynasty to issue banknotes because this issue also proved inflationary confirming their fears. During this era, privately produced paper notes and

promissory note A promissory note, sometimes referred to as a note payable, is a legal instrument (more particularly, a financing instrument and a debt instrument), in which one party (the ''maker'' or ''issuer'') promises in writing to pay a determinate sum of ...

s known as () were used in the Chinese market that were mostly issued by private banks () and other merchants. These banknotes were known as (, 'corporate notes', (, 'silver notes'), or (, 'cash notes'). As is usual for China, the names designating privately produced banknotes varied greatly across the country, with names being used such as (), (), (), (), or (). The denominations used on them varied greatly with some reaching as high as 5 '' diào'' (, 'string of cash coins'). It has been suggested by

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

ese economic historian Lin Man-houng that Chinese money shops did not start the production of their own private banknotes until the end of the Qianlong period. These shops were very likely to have been more developed in

Northern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions within China. The exact boundary between these two regions is not precisely defined and only serve to depict where there appears to be regional differences between the climate ...

, where these money shops produced banknotes which were mostly denominated in cash coins, while banknotes from

Southern China South China () is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is that most of its citizens are not n ...

tended to be denominated in taels of silver. It is also possible that private-order banknotes could have emerged earlier in the 18th century and that their presence would become very common by the 1820s. By the middle of the 1800s various

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

credit institutes and foreign banking corporations were operating in the Qing dynasty. During the late 1840s they began producing

bills of exchange A negotiable instrument is a document guaranteeing the payment of a specific amount of money, either on demand, or at a set time, whose payer is usually named on the document. More specifically, it is a document contemplated by or consisting of a ...

, promissory notes, or other forms of paper money for the Chinese market, which the Chinese referred to as (). This introduced modern credit instruments to the traditional Chinese business world and greatly bolstered the reformist monetary discourse in China and would later be emulated by homegrown Chinese modern banks. This affected both the private market and the imperial Chinese bureaucracy.

Xianfeng era paper money

During most of the Manchu Qing dynasty, the monetary system largely relied mostly on copper-alloy

cash coins In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins. In bookkeeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-immed ...

() denominated in ''wén'' () for small transactions and the general retail market and silver

s ( or ) denominated in

tael Tael (),"Tael" entry
at the

The general

exchange rate In finance, an exchange rate is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another currency. Currencies are most commonly national currencies, but may be sub-national as in the case of Hong Kong or supra-national as in the case of ...

s between these two currencies fluctuated based both on time and on the location they were traded in, however the official exchange course was set by the imperial government as 1000 of copper-alloy cash coins for 1 tael of silver. Prior to 1800, the exchange rates were actually closer to 700 or 800 for 1 tael, but by the 19th century this had increased to 1200 . By the second half of the 19th century the imperial government of the Qing decided to experiment with cash coins that had a denomination higher than 1 which were known as

Daqian Daqian (Traditional Chinese: 大錢, "big cash") are large-denomination Cash (Chinese coin), cash coins produced in the Qing dynasty starting from 1853 until 1890. Large denomination cash coins were previously used in earlier Chinese dynasties an ...

, (, 'large money') because of copper shortages, but as the shortages ran higher the government decided to reintroduce paper money. Under the reign of the

the ''Da-Qing baochao'' () was introduced. These were based on the earlier

Da-Ming baochao The Da Ming Baochao () was a series of banknotes issued during the Ming dynasty in China. They were first issued in 1375 under the Hongwu Emperor. Although initially the Da Ming Baochao paper money was successful, the fact that it was a fiat curre ...

from the Ming dynasty in style and layout and denominated in

Zhiqian Standard cash (; Manchu: ; Möllendorff: ''Durun i jiha''), or ''regulation cash coins'', is a term used during the Ming and Qing dynasties of China to refer to standard issue copper-alloy cash coins produced in imperial Chinese mints according ...

(, 'standard cash coins') which were the high quality cash coins issued by the two central government mints in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. For this reason they were popularly nicknamed (, 'cash notes'). These banknotes were initially issued in the denominations 250 , 500 , 1,000 , 1,500 , and 2,000 but as the

Chinese economy The China, People's Republic of China has an upper middle income Developing country, developing Mixed economy, mixed socialist market economy that incorporates economic planning through Industrial policy, industrial policies and strategic Five- ...

was suffering from inflation denominations of 5,000 , 10,000 , 50,000 and 100,000 were introduced. The notes were imprinted with a statement that they were convertible into copper cash coins, however the statement also included the line that these banknotes could not be used for tax payment to the government. In reality the were not redeemable at all. Imperial China saw itself as being at the center of the universe and that all territory "Under the Heavens" () and "Regions Within the

Four Seas The Four Seas () were four bodies of water that metaphorically made up the boundaries of ancient China. There is a sea for each for the four cardinal directions. The West Sea is Qinghai Lake, the East Sea is the East China Sea, the North Sea is ...

" () were included within their domains, and for this reason the copper-alloy cash notes of this era bear the four characters () in their right border design, which translated into

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

means 'to circulate under the heavens'. The banknotes were supposed to enjoy circulation in all territories of the Qing dynasty. In order to facilitate this widespread adoption of the new paper currency, the banknotes were issued to the general public through semi-official banks known as the Yu banks, Ch'ien banks, and T'ien bank groups; these semi-official banks served as the fiscal agents of the Ministry of Revenue. Strictly speaking, the Xianfeng-era banknotes issued by the official banks did not fall under the monies issued by the Qing government. However, the status and function of official banks was intertwined with that of the Daqian, , and , and the over-issue of banknotes by the official banks was probably the real reason for the Xianfeng inflation. Because the official banks were neither directly controlled by the Ministry of Revenue or supervised by them, and the fact that their operations were semi-commercial (as in they were operated by private merchants), few records of official banknotes exist today. Of the Tian, Qian, and Yu banks, the Qian banks were the oldest, as they were established in the year 1853 with four branch offices. The Qian banks were operated directly by the Ministry of Revenue for the purpose of salary payment of the bannermen. The Tian Group of banks was originally the royal pawnshop operated by the

Imperial Household Department The Imperial Household Department (; mnc, , v=dorgi baita be uheri kadalara yamun) was an institution of the Qing dynasty of China. Its primary purpose was to manage the internal affairs of the Qing imperial family and the activities of the inn ...

of the Qing dynasty (Neiwufu) in 1841, in order to increase the private vault of the imperial household (which completely was separate from the imperial government vault). The Tian Group was converted to official banks in 1854 in order to "facilitate" the Tian banks into the service of salary payment for government officials. The Yu Group of banks was established in 1855; the Yu banks were semi-official banks and were operated by private merchants with imperial charter and would (very infrequently) receive deposits from the Ministry of Revenue. In reality however, these banking groups were both independent from the Chinese government and from each other and weren't under any form of imperial government supervision. There were five "Yu Banks" which were already existing Chinese private banks, while the Ch'ien and T'ien banks were large cash shops which received a government license to distribute the new paper currency. The T'ien shops also fulfilled the purpose of being publicly funded pawnshops; they dealt in both pawned items and deposits. It is important to note that none of these institutions would survive the inflation, drowning in an ever increasing sea of cash notes. By the year Xianfeng 11 (1861) these institutions had all closed as they went bankrupt. 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 Da-Qing baochao. This run on the T'ien shops practically doomed the Chinese pawnshop business overnight. The Tian, Qian, and Yu banks were all modeled on the private ''

qianzhuang Qianzhuang () were local independent Chinese banks in the early modern period, as distinguished from the nation-wide bank networks headquartered in Shanxi province called the " Shanxi banks" (票號, ''piaohao''). Also known by a variety of reg ...

'' that were operating in Beijing at the time. The Tian, Qian, and Yu banks offered money exchange services, accepted deposits, and issued their own banknotes denominated in "metropolitan cash" (), hence they were known as () or (). Different banking groups would also deliver slightly different financial services and their funding situation also differed from each other. The banknotes issued by the Tian, Qian, and Yu banks were initially fully convertible, which made them similar to the already circulating ''

zhuangpiao The Zhuangpiao (), alternatively known as ''Yinqianpiao'' (銀錢票, "silver money notes"), ''Huipiao'' (會票, "corporate notes"), ''Pingtie'' (憑帖), ''Duitie'' (兌帖), ''Shangtie'' (上帖), ''Hupingtie'' (壺瓶帖), or ''Qitie'' (期� ...

''. Because of their similarities with the , the official banknotes were both recognised and widely used in the market. The difference of the Tian, Qian, and Yu banks from private financial institutions was that they were responsible for changing government paper notes (mostly the cash notes) into real money (a combination of Daqian, iron cash coins, and official banknotes). With the Tian, Qian, and Yu banks acting as intermediaries, the government issued paper notes of Ministry of Revenue became convertible: they were linked to both the Daqian and a larger amount in unbacked official banknotes. During this era another type of banknote was also introduced known as the (, 'silver notes') or (, 'silver notes') which were issued by the Ministry of Revenue and were commonly known as ''Hubu guanpiao'' () for this fact. These silver notes were issued in denominations of values 1 tael, 3 taels, 5 taels, 10 taels, and 50 taels. These banknotes had a guideline written in both

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and ...

and

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

declaring that they had to be discounted by 2% when they exchanged into Beijing market silver and when counted against the Kuping tael, the notes were discounted at 6 per cent. The conversion rate between copper-alloy cash notes () and silver tael notes () was two cash notes to one silver note, these banknotes exchangeable into copper cash coins and silver, but only in certain institutions in Beijing under the Ministry of Revenue. The term () was first used exclusively for paper notes issued by the imperial government, but later on was also used to refer to privately produced paper notes issued by private market banks and merchant companies. These banknotes were all introduced in 1854 and during the first few months after they were minted, they started being distributed in the form of salary for both government officials and the military; however, the imperial government itself did not accept them as a method of payment including for taxation, likewise many provincial governments also refused to accept the new paper currency. Later on these banknotes were slowly gaining acceptance throughout the Qing Empire. Consequentially due to their limited acceptability these paper notes were severely discounted in the private market sector, if accepted at all. In 1855 a cash note of 1000 or a silver note of 1 tael were just accepted for 450 Beijing cash (, ) or 200-300 standard cash coins by the private market. The market value of paper currency would consistently decrease as the imperial government kept printing both more of it and higher denominations, and by 1861 the government mandated paper money had overstayed their usefulness and consequently was completely abolished. During this year had already disappeared from general circulation, and a 1,000 cash note had a market value of as little as 26 , or 52 at the most. During the period when the and series of banknotes were introduced, nine government banks in Beijing (of which four were newly established institutions) started issuing another type of cash note known as the (). These cash notes were backed by reserves kept in Daqian rather than standard cash coins. The were modeled after privately produced banknotes known as the (). These private cash notes would also continue to circulate alongside the new currencies. Both the and were based on the Jingqian accounting unit of cash coins as was used in Beijing. This meant that, for example, if one were to exchange 15,000 worth of or cash notes in the year 1861, that person would only receive 7500 worth of physical coins (or 750 cash coins of 10 to be more precise). This practice was asymmetrical as government documents noted a string of cash coins as 1000 while paying out only 500 for these cash notes. Both the cash notes and tael notes continued to be accepted in the practice of office selling and would continue to circulate in the provinces of China proper as non-interest bearing debentures until 1867–1868. As the government of the Qing dynasty saw that banknotes that were denominated in "metropolitan cash" could circulate well in the Chinese market, the Qing government, besides promoting government issued cash notes, also started to focus on the promotion of official banknotes with three major measures. The first of these measures was having the imperial government place large amounts of capital into the Qian and Tian banks and then encouraging them to produce more banknotes. These newly produced Qian and Tian banknotes were then directly transferred to the Qing Treasury vault and were used to pay for imperial government expenditures. The second measure undertaken to help promote official banknotes was depositing money with the Yu banks, as these banks primarily dealt with exchanging cash notes for their own banknotes. The third and final measure undertaken to help promote official banknotes was establishing the Copper Donation Bureau, or () in Mandarin. The Copper Donation Bureau was originally created to encourage the citizens of the Qing dynasty to donate their copper in exchange for titles and/or degrees; afterwards the Copper Donation Bureau became solely responsible for receiving all kinds of donations to the Qing government, such as the () and the (). With these donations, the Copper Donation Bureau had enough reserves to issue its own banknotes (similar to the official banknotes) that were also put directly into the imperial government's Treasury to be used for its expenditures, where they were mostly used to pay for the bannermen's salaries. The total amount of banknotes issued by the Qian, Tian, and Yu banks is difficult to estimate because none of their bank account books have survived into the modern age. However, the number of official banknotes that were printed specifically for use in expenditures of the government of the Qing dynasty can be found in the imperial treasury records. The total number of official banknotes issued through government expenditure (from both the Qian and Tian Groups of official banks and the Copper Donation Bureau) was the equivalent to 31,953,038 taels of silver. As this rough estimate does not include the official banknotes that circulated in the private market through the money exchange services of these banks, and in particular the amount of banknotes issued by the Yu banks, the total quantity of official banknotes that circulated in the contemporary Chinese market was likely much higher. The reserves that the Qing government deposited into the Qian and Tian banks were not enough; government documents stated that the Qian banks received government endowments of 20,000 '' diào'' () in as initial capital directly from the imperial Chinese Treasury from the Ministry of Revenue. The government documents do not specify how often they pumped money into the official banks, nor is it specified in which form of currency the payment to these banks was realised. The imperial treasury records show that in 1853 a total number of 13,784 taels of silver was transferred from the government to the Qian and Tian banks "as their 20% reserve money". While the banknotes of the Qian, Tian, and Yu banks were denominated in "metropolitan cash" () or , in the official government treasury accounts all figures for banknotes were kept with () as the main unit of account. The figures for these official banknotes were converted by the official ratio between and , which was 2,000:1 (this means that the official ratio between a and a is 2:1). The reported total amount of official banknotes possessed by the imperial treasury was 63,906,076 , and was equivalent to 31,953,038 taels of silver at the official government-set exchange rate between copper-alloy cash coins and silver in 1853. The Chinese government records were deliberately kept vague to cover up the obvious fact that there was a shortage of capital. The reserves of the semi-private Yu banks seemed to be the weakest of all the official banks: they had an initial capital reserve of about 10,000 ; the Yu banks would later receive government deposits that were composed mainly of iron cash coins and lead cash coins. Because of their low capital reserves, the Yu banks experienced the worst case of over-issuing paper money, which caused a great demand for exchanging cash notes against a limited reserve of mainly Daqian and Zhiqian. After a number of

bank run A bank run or run on the bank occurs when many clients withdraw their money from a bank, because they believe the bank may cease to function in the near future. In other words, it is when, in a fractional-reserve banking system (where banks no ...

s, the Yu banks all folded in 1857; subsequently the Qian and Tian banks all folded due to bank runs in June of 1861. During the early Tongzhi era (, 1862–1874), the provincial governments of

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

and

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

completely stopped accepting paper money for tax payments and again began requiring tax payments exclusively in silver, yet the provincial government of

Zhili Zhili, alternately romanized as Chihli, was a northern administrative region of China since the 14th-century that lasted through the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty until 1911, when the region was dissolved, converted to a province, and renamed ...

continued to accept the paper notes for tax payments, at least in a certain proportion to silver, which was preferred. The Xianfeng era paper currency was ultimately given up in 1868.

Foreign banks and the currency reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

大清帝國 1 Dollar - Imperial Chinese Railways, Shanghai Branch (1899) 01

During the final decades of the 19th century, private Chinese banks and merchant companies used two types of paper money for their daily exchanges; one type was denominated in Chinese money and the other type was denominated in foreign currencies. Various foreign banks in China, which were locally known as () or (), issued paper money for local circulation. These foreign financial institutions both challenged the Chinese banking system and set an example for them to improve themselves. Foreign banks were crucial in laying the foundation for the rise of modern Chinese banks and the popularisation of banknotes in the Qing dynasty in the early 20th century. These foreign banks included Mackellar (), the

Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (), commonly known as HSBC (), was the parent entity of the multinational HSBC banking group until 1991, and is now its Hong Kong-based Asia-Pacific subsidiary. The largest bank in Hong ...

(), the

Deutsch-Asiatische Bank Deutsch-Asiatische Bank (DAB) () was a foreign bank in China. Its principal activity was trade financing, but together with English and French banks, it also played a role in the underwriting of bonds for the Chinese government and in the financ ...

(), and the

City Bank of New York Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City Ba ...

() produced notes denominated in silver taels () and Chinese silver dollars (). The banknotes of Mackellar, the

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tri ...

, and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank were denominated in 1

tael Tael (),"Tael" entry
at the

yuan, 3 yuan, 10 yuan, 50 yuan, and 100 yuan. These banknotes were commonly used in the region around the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...

. Meanwhile, in

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

the

Russo-Chinese Bank The Russo-Chinese Bank (russian: Русско-Китайский банк, french: Banque russo-chinoise, Traditional Chinese: 華俄銀行) was a foreign bank, founded in 1895, that represented joint French and Russian interests in China during ...

() issued

Russian ruble ''hum''; cv, тенкĕ ''tenke''; kv, шайт ''shayt''; Lak: къуруш ''k'urush''; Mari: теҥге ''tenge''; os, сом ''som''; tt-Cyrl, сум ''sum''; udm, манет ''manet''; sah, солкуобай ''solkuobay'' , name_ab ...

notes () and the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese banks operating in the region issued military notes (). In

the

Yokohama Specie Bank was a Japanese bank founded in Yokohama, Japan in the year 1880. Its assets were transferred to The Bank of Tokyo (now MUFG Bank) in 1946. The bank played a significant role in Japanese overseas trade, especially with China. The original ba ...

() issued

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

notes () and Hong Kong notes () for the local market. Foreign banks established branches throughout imperial China in order to facilitate trade with the home country of those operating these companies. These credit institutions were not permitted to operate wherever they wished to set up an office and had no right to do business outside their assigned jurisdictions as their operations were limited to the "

treaty port Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire. ...

s" which the Chinese government had set aside under the terms of the indemnity laws enforced upon the Qing dynasty after losing two

opium wars The Opium Wars () were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century. The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and the United Kingdom, and was triggered by the Chinese government's cam ...

. Operating entirely within the foreign-held enclaves of China, these banks were not subject to

Chinese law Chinese law is one of the oldest legal traditions in the world. The core of modern Chinese law is based on Germanic-style civil law, socialist law, and traditional Chinese approaches. For most of the history of China, its legal system h ...

, rather they were operating under the banking laws of their respective mother countries. Some foreign banks also maintained several branches in multiple treaty ports, which permitted a bank in one locality to discount its own banknotes from another branch. Despite the restrictions placed upon foreign banks their operations, with few exceptions, were so successful that the Chinese people preferred them over "indigenous" Chinese banks. Because their operations were so reliably managed, the banknotes issued by the foreign banks were in great demand and consequently circulated throughout all of Qing territory. The main financial institutions serving as intermediaries between the

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

ans and the Chinese for financial purposes were the ''

'' (, known in

as "money shops" or "native banks"); the tended to be small proprietorships which had unlimited liability. These financial institutions were often sparsely aligned along family and

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

ties and they were rarely patronised by the local government authorities. Larger would issue

company scrip Company scrip is scrip (a substitute for government-issued legal tender or currency) issued by a company to pay its employees. It can only be exchanged in company stores owned by the employers. In the United Kingdom, such truck systems have lo ...

against individual deposits which were known as (, 'shop coupon'). This scrip was also accepted by proximate shops, but to cash these out would take around 10–15 days after it was given to the shop. This was because couriers would have to liaise with the issuing shop in order to rule out fraudulent notes. During the 1860s the of Shanghai started looking to the foreign banking companies as a source of

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

, and by 1888, sixty-two of the largest had engaged in borrowing millions of taels in silver in loans from foreign banks on a yearly basis. The would mobilise their domestic resources to an order of magnitude that would exceed the paid-up capital that they initially received several times over; this happened mostly through issuing banknotes and deposit receipts. British banks operating in China would often accept as a security for the loans they gave out to . This makes it plausible that chop loans originated because of the widely used prevalence of in China; British banks could not simply reject them when they were being offered to them by foreign merchants in China. During this era foreign banking companies tended to have an account with at least one , since only the guilds operated by them could clear the large number of forms that were circulating in the city of Shanghai. This happened through a rather elaborate daily mechanism which was dubbed (, 'draft exchange'). The main business foreign banks conducted themselves in was the handling of bills of exchange for which foreign banks enjoyed a practical monopoly in the lucrative

foreign exchange The foreign exchange market (Forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. It includes all as ...

business. The foreign banks were in such a dominant position that they dominated exchange rates between China and the outside world. As China was made up of many different types of currency in its different geographical areas, there existed a great opportunity for profit which foreigners benefited from. The currency situation in China made this profitability possible for the simple reason that in China hard money was always viewed as a commodity which only coincidentally served as a

medium of exchange In economics, a medium of exchange is any item that is widely acceptable in exchange for goods and services. In modern economies, the most commonly used medium of exchange is currency. The origin of "mediums of exchange" in human societies is ass ...

. This meant that a foreign bank's buying and selling rates on currency in circulation differed, generally returning a

net profit In business and accounting, net income (also total comprehensive income, net earnings, net profit, bottom line, sales profit, or credit sales) is an entity's income minus cost of goods sold, expenses, depreciation and amortization, interest, a ...

to the bank on each and every transaction dealing with money exchange. Additional sources of income for foreign banks operating in China were derived from floating loans for the cash-starved government of the Qing dynasty and by transmitting remittances to and from China. The monetary units ''yuan'' ( and ) were first seen during the late 18th century and were used on foreign-issued banknotes. In 1895 the first Chinese banknotes denominated in yuan () were issued, by the government-owned

State Railway Company of Beiyang :''This article is part of the history of rail transport by country series.'' The history of rail transport in China began in the late nineteenth century during the Qing dynasty. Since then, it has become one of the largest rail networks in the wor ...

(). These banknotes were printed in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and are generally seen as the first modern paper bills of China, as they are designed horizontally and in a much smaller format than the traditional Chinese paper notes, and are inscribed in Mandarin Chinese and

("Imperial Chinese Railways"). In 1895 the Central Paper Money Office in Tainan () in

issued banknotes denominated in the currency unit dayuan (, 'big yuan'), and had the denominations 1 dayuan, 5 dayuan, and 10 dayuan; however, these banknotes followed the traditional design of Chinese paper notes. The

Imperial Bank of China The Imperial Bank of China (Traditional Chinese: 中國通商銀行, Simplified Chinese: 中国通商银行) was the first Chinese-owned bank modelled on Western banks and banking practices. It was founded in Shanghai by Mr. Sheng Xuanhuai in 189 ...

(, IBC) was founded in 1897 based on a suggestion made by

Sheng Xuanhuai Sheng Xuanhuai (; November 4, 1844 – April 27, 1916) was a Qing dynasty Chinese tycoon, politician, and educator. He founded several major banks and universities and served as Minister of Transportation of the Qing Empire. He was also known as ...

(, 1844–1916). In 1898 it began issuing the first Chinese commercial cheques () which were denominated in taels or in yuan. The IBC is also notable for being the first Chinese bank to order its banknotes from foreign printing bureaus. In 1913 (after the fall of the Qing dynasty) the Imperial Bank of China was renamed the

Commercial Bank of China The Imperial Bank of China (Traditional Chinese: 中國通商銀行, Simplified Chinese: 中国通商银行) was the first Chinese-owned bank modelled on Western banks and banking practices. It was founded in Shanghai by Mr. Sheng Xuanhuai in 189 ...

(). Various provincial authorities also started issuing local paper money during this era. In the province of

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...

, the local money office () started producing banknotes of 1000 which used the traditional Chinese banknote designs. Later, in 1899, the

Zhang Zhidong Zhang Zhidong () (4 September 18375 October 1909) was a Chinese politician who lived during the late Qing dynasty. Along with Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang, Zhang Zhidong was one of the four most famous officials of the late Qing ...

(),

Viceroy of Huguang The Viceroy of Huguang, fully referred to in Chinese as the Governor-General of Hubei and Hunan Provinces and the Surrounding Areas; Overseeing Military Affairs, Food Production; Director of Civil Affairs, was one of eight regional Viceroys in C ...

ordered the local money office to also start making modern-style banknotes. The production of these was outsourced to the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

using high-quality methods; however, the design of these banknotes was still vertical as opposed to the horizontal banknotes used elsewhere. In the province of Guangdong, a series of modern-style banknotes was introduced in 1904 which were denominated in 1 yuan, 5 yuan, and 10 yuan. These banknotes were printed by the Japanese

Ministry of the Treasury The (lit. the department of the great treasury) was a division of the eighth-century Japanese government of the Imperial Court in Kyoto, instituted in the Asuka period and formalized during the Heian period. The Ministry was replaced in the Meij ...

(), but unlike the notes printed for Hubei had a Western-style vertical design. The principal function of a foreign bank was to promote and finance foreign trade. For this reason foreign banks in Qing China could only finance projects within the treaty ports and were not allowed to participate in those beyond without sanction of the imperial Chinese government. In this way foreign banks did not compete with the interests of the local Chinese commercial banks. Typically, a foreign bank would return an annual profit of from 15% to 20% to its

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...

s. The funds held on deposit by foreign banks were always large, and compared to the funds of Chinese commercial banks were extremely secure, as the bulk of them represented Chinese customs and salt revenues held as collateral against foreign loans. Because of this security, the banknotes issued by foreign banks were in great demand by the Chinese causing them to circulate freely throughout the Chinese empire, in contrast to the limitations placed upon the banks' operations which were only allowed inside of the treaty ports. During the late Qing dynasty period the old paper notes remained in common usage; these included the traditional privately produced paper notes which were printed on one side of the bill issued by merchant banks known as (), (), and () and pawn shops known as (), as well as the old-style banknotes issued by provincial government institutions, to the modern banknotes which were introduced by a dozen or so of foreign banks operating in China and modern Chinese banks which were created in very large numbers in the later years of the 19th century. Furthermore, there were also banknotes which were brought into the Chinese financial markets by imperial government-owned firms like railway companies, and foreign bills coming to China through the trade ports like

. The large spectrum of these types of paper money reflected the structure of the general Chinese credit market in the late Qing period. The traditional Chinese credit institutes were local banks, banks, banks, and pawnshops, of which a considerably number was always to be found in each city across the Chinese Empire. Many provincial governments founded their own local provincial, state-owned banks which were known as () or (); in some provinces even several modern credit institutes were to be found, like the Yuning Bank () and the Yusu Bank () in the province of

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...

. Quite a few of these provincial credit companies opened branches in other provinces due to their success. After it became clear to the Qing government that their finances were not going to remain self-sufficient in light of the two

Opium Wars The Opium Wars () were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century. The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and the United Kingdom, and was triggered by the Chinese government's cam ...

, the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the po ...

, and the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...

, the imperial Chinese court decided that it would have to raise capital through the foreign banking corporations operating in China. The Chinese defeats during these wars were perceived as being unexpected by the Qing government and threw it into a state of turmoil; the Qing was plunged deeply into debt to pay for war indemnities making the need for foreign capital great. The foreign banking corporations that had been established in the preceding decades then saw the opportunity to quickly expand their business in China to meet the Chinese government's demands. By the end of the 19th century there were a total of 19 foreign banks operating in China with 101 branches spread over the important trading cities. These foreign bank corporations enjoyed the protection of extraterritoriality laws and were able to issue their own banknotes to circulate within Qing territory, had the ability to take in large deposits, and were trusted to manage the Maritime Customs revenue and Chinese government transfers. These foreign banks also served as acting receiving agents for war indemnities which were owed by the Qing government to foreign nations. The largest loans that were negotiated under the Chinese "borrowing foreign capital" policy were through the

Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (), commonly known as HSBC (), was the parent entity of the multinational HSBC banking group until 1991, and is now its Hong Kong-based Asia-Pacific subsidiary. The largest bank in Hong K ...

(HSBC). Between the years 1895 and 1911 HSBC concluded a total of 112 loans to the government of the Qing dynasty which were worth 1,806,000,000 silver dollars. Of paramount principle among the business interests of the Chinese government during the Qing dynasty was the financing of 2,800 miles of newly constructed railroads in the

Yangtze valley The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...

. All these expensive loans with various foreign banking corporations were secured by China's salt tax as well as Chinese customs revenues. By making so many loans to the Chinese government, foreign banking companies were able to establish what were essentially

spheres of influence In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity. While there may be a formal al ...

in different regions of China, with the

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

in the

northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

(specifically

), the United Kingdom which enjoyed more influence in the Yangtze valley, the Japanese Empire which exercised their influence in the

northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ra ...

and central regions of China, and the French who were more influential in the southern regions. From the mid-nineteenth century up to the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, no fewer than twelve foreign countries maintained banks in China. Due to a large number of

unequal treaties Unequal treaty is the name given by the Chinese to a series of treaties signed during the 19th and early 20th centuries, between China (mostly referring to the Qing dynasty) and various Western powers (specifically the British Empire, France, the ...

, foreign banks enjoyed extraterritoriality rights when operating in China, which also included the freedom to issue their own banknotes. The influx of foreign banks into China also brought with them a new type of financing which became an inspiration for Chinese entrepreneurs to found similar financial institutions in China itself; some of these were government-owned institutions, while others were privately run. These institutions were the made up of the following banks: *

(); *

Ta-Ching Government Bank The Ta-Ching Government Bank (), known as the Ta-Ching Bank of the Ministry of Revenue (大清戶部銀行) from 1905 to 1908, was the name of the Bank of China as a government agency of the Qing dynasty until the empire's dissolution in 1912. I ...

(); *

Bank of Communications Bank of Communications Limited (BoComm) (; often abbreviated as ), is the fifth-largest bank in mainland China. Established in 1908, the Bank of Communications claims a long history in China and is one of the banks to have issued banknotes in mo ...

(); *

Ningpo Commercial Bank Ningbo (; Ningbonese: ''gnin² poq⁷'' , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly romanized as Ningpo, is a major sub-provincial city in northeast Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises 6 urban districts, 2 sate ...

(); * Bank of Territorial Development (); * Hsing Yeh Bank of Che Kiang or Industrial Bank of Che Kiang () in

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

; * Che Kiang Bank () in Zhejiang; * Sin Chun Bank of China () in

; * Hsin I Savings Bank () in

Hankou Hankou, alternately romanized as Hankow (), was one of the three towns (the other two were Wuchang and Hanyang) merged to become modern-day Wuhan city, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers wher ...

; * Beijing Savings Bank () in

; * Baoshan Yinhang () in Beijing; * Hetai Yinhang () in

Yangzhou Yangzhou, postal romanization Yangchow, is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province (Suzhong), East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north, Yan ...

; * Chinese Mercantile Bank () in Yangzhou. Despite the fact that the number of these banks was not very high, their business proved to have a great impact on the modernisation of the financial and monetary system of China during the late imperial and the early Republican era. Even certain government-owned institutions like the railway corporations can be seen as modern credit institutes because they issued their own modernised paper money. An alternative narrative argues that privately issued banknotes by native banks and local money shops had become a fundamental in the late-Imperial Chinese currency system a long time before the entry of Western banking corporations into China during the late 1840s. An important hypothesis of this alternative narrative speculates that the Chinese population at the time did not trust government-issued banknotes, while banknotes issued by established private banks, shops and financiers tended to be well-accepted by the general populace. By the end of the 19th century provincial governments started setting up their own note issuing banks like the Hupeh Provincial Bank (, ) with branches in

Wuchang Wuchang forms part of the urban core of and is one of 13 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, China. It is the oldest of the three cities that merged into modern-day Wuhan, and stood on the ri ...

and

. The issued a series of banknotes known as the ''Hubei guanpiao'' (). These banknotes were denominated in

tael Tael (),"Tael" entry
at the

strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

for copper-alloy cash coins. The Hubei was abolished over a decade after the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1927 with the bankruptcy of the . China signed the

Mackay Treaty The Mackay Treaty () was a sixteen article treaty signed by the governments of Great Britain and the Chinese Qing dynasty on 5September 1902. Under the terms of the treaty, the ''likin'' system of taxation was abolished and the first moves made to ...

with the United Kingdom on 5 September 1902. This treaty included a provision where the imperial Chinese government would create a uniform coinage "which shall be legal tender in payment of all duties taxes and other obligations throughout the Empire by British and Chinese subjects". The idea behind this provision was to remove obstacles for trading in the form of a very diverse coinage system throughout China. The reality was that subsidiary production of coinage was not so lucrative to begin with. Despite the provisions set for creating a uniform coinage, the treaty made no reference to banknotes. During this era both local and foreign businesses demanded the creation of a uniform Chinese currency system, which would not occur during the Qing dynasty era. There was a major question at the time whether this uniform currency system would be placed on the

silver standard The silver standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of silver. Silver was far more widespread than gold as the monetary standard worldwide, from the Sumerians 3000 BC until 1873. Following t ...

or the

gold standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the la ...

. The introduction of a uniform currency also meant that the responsibility over monetary affairs would be completely transferred over to the hands of the imperial government which at the time was heavily in debt and did not have any grip on its own finances.

Establishing a national bank

10 Dollars - Ta-Ching Government Bank (1910, undated)

During the later part of the Qing dynasty era there was a discussion on whether or not the imperial Chinese government would have to establish a

, which it finally did in 1905.

Peng Shu Peng may refer to: * Peng (surname) (彭), a Chinese name * Peng (state) (大彭), a state during the late Shang dynasty * Peng (mythology) (鵬), a legendary Chinese creature * ''Peng!'', 1992 album by Stereolab * ''PENG!'', a 2005 comic * P.Eng. ...

() stated before the introduction of new banknotes that the national bank would have to keep sufficient reserves in "tangible" money () at all times. The large number of private notes that were being produced all over the empire was to be restricted by introducing a stamp duty (). The reformer

Liang Qichao Liang Qichao (Chinese: 梁啓超 ; Wade–Giles, Wade-Giles: ''Liang2 Chʻi3-chʻao1''; Yale romanization of Cantonese, Yale: ''Lèuhng Kái-chīu'') (February 23, 1873 – January 19, 1929) was a Chinese politician, social and political act ...

campaigned for the government of the Qing dynasty to emulate the Western world and Japan by embracing the

, unifying the currencies of China, and issuing government-backed banknotes with a ⅓ metallic reserve. At the end of 1905 the Ta-Ching Bank of the Ministry of Revenue () was founded, and the production of the banknotes was entrusted to the prints of the

Beiyang Newspaper The term Beiyang (; pinyin: Běiyáng; Wade-Giles: Peiyang) literally means Northern Ocean.Northern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions within China. The exact boundary between these two regions is not precisely defined and only serve to depict where there appears to be regional differences between the climate ...

. In 1906 the government of the Qing dynasty sent students to Japan to be educated in modern printing techniques, with the aim to have the

Shanghai Commercial Press The Commercial Press () is the first modern publishing organisation in China. History In 1897, 26-year-old Xia Ruifang and three of his friends (including the Bao brothers Bao Xian'en and Bao Xianchang) founded The Commercial Press in Shang ...

() print the cheques of the Ministry's Bank. The Ta-Ching Bank of the Ministry of Revenue were still issuing two different types of banknotes. One series was denominated in tael, known as the (), and had denominations of 1 tael, 5 taels, 10 taels, 50 taels, and 100 taels. The other series was denominated in yuan, known as the () and was issued in denominations of 1 yuan, 5 yuan, 10 yuan, 50 yuan, and 100 yuan. In the year 1907 the Ta-Ching Bank of the Ministry of Revenue was renamed the

(); accordingly the inscription on all banknotes had to be changed to reflect this. Following the Chinese tradition of issuing new money in a new reign, the

Xuantong Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...

administration had the design of the official Ta-Ching Government Bank paper notes somewhat changed to herald in the new emperor. The new design was inspired by the designs of the

banknotes of the United States dollar Banknote, Banknotes of the United States dollar are currently issued as Federal Reserve Notes (1914–). Previous banknote versions that have been issued include: Silver certificate (United States), Silver Certificates (1878–1964), Gold certif ...

of this era; some banknotes showed the portrait of

Li Hongzhang Li Hongzhang, Marquess Suyi ( zh, t=李鴻章; also Li Hung-chang; 15 February 1823 – 7 November 1901) was a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty. He quelled several major rebellions and served in important ...

, and others depicted that of

Zaifeng, Prince Chun Zaifeng (12 February 1883 – 3 February 1951), also known as Tsai Feng, Prince of Ch'ün, formally known by his title Prince Chun, was a Manchu prince and regent of the late Qing dynasty. He was a son of Yixuan, the seventh son of the Dao ...

who at the time was the current Chinese Minister of Finance. At the eve of the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China. The revolution was the culmination of a d ...

in 1911, there were 5,400,000 tael worth of banknotes circulating in China, and 12,400,000 yuan in banknotes.

List of banknotes denominated in copper-alloy cash coins issued during the Xianfeng era

List of banknotes denominated in copper-alloy cash coins issued during the Xianfeng era:

List of banknotes denominated in silver taels issued during the Xianfeng era

List of banknotes denominated in silver tael sycees issued during the Xianfeng era:

Banknotes produced by Belgian banks

10 Mexican Dollars - Sino-Belgian Bank (Banque Sino-Belge), Shanghai Branch (1905-1912)

The

Kingdom of Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the ...

, despite being a small country, was a state with a rather highly developed industrial base and which also enjoyed being a centre of international trade during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. The Sino-Belgian Bank (

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

: ) was founded by King Leopold for doing business in remittances and conducting international trade; the Sino-Belgian Bank belied its name because it did not have any indigenous Chinese participation at all, making it a purely Belgian company. Following the

in 1900 the Sino-Belgian Bank set up a branch in Shanghai, where its primary business was in handling out long-term loans for the construction of railways in China. Other branches were later opened in the cities of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hankou. Belgium itself benefited from this as it exported materials to China, especially construction materials which were used for railroads. In the scramble for Chinese railroad concessions the Sino-Belgian Bank worked closely together with the Compagnie General de Chemins de Fer et de Tramways en Chine to issue bonds, first in 1903 and once more in 1913. These company bonds were used to finance Chinese railroad construction during the early 20th century. The Sino-Belgian Bank issued banknotes in the year 1908 with denominations of 1 dollar, 5 dollars, 10 dollars, and 50 dollars at all of its branches as Mexican dollars, alluding to the old Spanish silver dollars that were traditionally in wide circulation across the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

, even during

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

times. They initially emanated from the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

as part of the

Spanish East Indies The Spanish East Indies ( es , Indias orientales españolas ; fil, Silangang Indiyas ng Espanya) were the overseas territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia-Pacific, Asia and Oceania from 1565 to 1898, governed for the Spanish Crown from Mexico C ...

in the

Spanish colonial empire The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predece ...

from the

Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade fil, Galyon ng Maynila , english_name = Manila Galleon , duration = From 1565 to 1815 (250 years) , venue = Between Manila and Acapulco , location = New Spain (Spanish Empire ...

with

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

that minted the silver coins, which were usually mined in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

. These banknotes mostly circulated within the

Shanghai International Settlement The Shanghai International Settlement () originated from the merger in the year 1863 of the British and American enclaves in Shanghai, in which British subjects and American citizens would enjoy extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction ...

and the

Shanghai French Concession The Shanghai French Concession; ; Shanghainese pronunciation: ''Zånhae Fah Tsuka'', group=lower-alpha was a foreign concession in Shanghai, China from 1849 until 1943, which progressively expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Th ...

. In 1912 the Sino-Belgian Bank changed its name to the

Banque Belge Pour l'Étranger The ''Banque Belge pour l'Étranger'' (BBE, "Belgian Bank for Lands Abroad") was a Belgian bank that operated mainly in Asia. It was originally established in 1902 in Brussels as the ''Banque Sino-Belge'' ("Chinese-Belgian Bank"), by the Sociét� ...

. Banknotes issued after 1912 during the Republican period carried the new name of the bank to reflect this change. At the Shanghai International Settlement the circulation of paper notes was by the never allowed to exceed 1,000,000 dollars. The Sino-Belgian Bank/ enjoyed a positive reputation in China and its banknotes were at all times well-received and could easily be redeemed at the bank's offices. The was forced to cease its business when the Chinese republican government took over the Chinese economy from foreign management in the year 1935.

Banknotes produced by British banks

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

banknotes in China during the Qing dynasty were by far the most common and the most highly esteemed of all banknotes of foreign origin circulating in China at the time. Early British banknotes that circulated in China became very influential for later Chinese banknotes and were essential for informing Chinese monetary thinking later in the 19th century and early 20th century.

Early British Indian banks in China

5 Mexican Dollars - Chartered Bank of India, Australia & China, Shanghai Branch (1900-1912) 01

At one time there were never less than 15 British-owned banks that did business in the Qing dynasty; seven of these banks were from the

British Indian Empire The British Raj (; from Hindi language, Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Q ...

. After the conclusions of the

First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

and

Second Opium War The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Sino War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a colonial war lasting from 1856 to 1860, which pitted the British Empire and the French Emp ...

s the United Kingdom forced a number of "

" on the Qing demanding trade rights with several Chinese ports which became known as

s. Soon after these agreements were signed, the leading merchant houses of British India, setting themselves up as private banks, pursued new sources of revenue in imperial China. Both the central and provincial governments held very little restraint in printing paper money during the Xianfeng period; this made it so that

the Bund The Bund or Waitan (, Shanghainese romanization: ''Nga3thae1'', , ) is a waterfront area and a protected historical district in central Shanghai. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East Zhongshan Road No.1) within the former Shang ...

in the foreign concessions of

was one of the few places in China where paper money had actually been standardised. This also led to the Bund being one of the few places where paper money could actually be exchanged for silver trade dollars or silver bullion of quality that could be verified without regard to the outside political climate. This situation was not much different in the city of Shanghai until the first British banks established offices there. The first of these, the

Oriental Bank Corporation The Oriental Bank Corporation (), or "OBC", was a British imperial bank founded in India in 1842 which grew to be prominent throughout the Far East. As an Exchange bank, the OBC was primarily concerned with the finance of trade and exchanges of ...

, was quick to establish a branch in Qing territory. The Oriental Bank Corporation went bankrupt in 1884. The

-based

Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China The Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, later Mercantile Bank Ltd (), was an Anglo-Indian bank with business focus in the Far East. It was founded in Bombay in 1853 as the Mercantile Bank of Bombay; and later in 1857 was renamed to Mer ...

opened a branch in the British crown colony of Hong Kong in 1845 and some time after the branch's establishment commenced issuing banknotes denominated in Spanish milled dollars as Mexican dollars due to the former wide circulation of Spanish silver dollar, even in

times, through trade with the

as part of the

in the

that minted the silver coins from

. This series of paper notes was based upon the Carlos silver dollar, which at the time was still the generally preferred

among Chinese merchants. The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China later opened a branch in the British concession of the port city of Shanghai in October of 1854, where they issued both silver dollar and tael banknotes. Between 1845 and 1866 many other British banks that were based in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

started setting up offices in cities along the

coastline of China China’s coastline covers approximately 14,500 km (around 9,010 mi) from the Bohai gulf in the north to the Gulf of Tonkin in the south. Most of the northern half is low lying, although some of the mountains and hills of Northeast China ...

such as

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

and Hong Kong along the

Pearl River Delta The Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region (PRD; ; pt, Delta do Rio das Pérolas (DRP)) is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary, where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. Referred to as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Mac ...

and Shanghai along the

Yangtze River Delta The Yangtze Delta or Yangtze River Delta (YRD, or simply ) is a triangle-shaped megalopolis generally comprising the Wu Chinese-speaking areas of Shanghai, southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang. The area lies in the heart of the Jiangnan reg ...

. Among these Indian-based banks were the Agra and United Services Bank (established in 1853, but went bankrupt in 1866), the Asiatic Banking Corporation, the

(established in 1853), the Bank of Hindustan, China and Japan, and the

Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (informally The Chartered Bank) was a bank incorporated in London in 1853 by Scotsman James Wilson, under a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria.

(established in 1857). The

Comptoir d'Escompte de Paris The Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris (CNEP), from 1854 to 1889 Comptoir d'escompte de Paris (CEP), was a major French bank active from 1848 to 1966. The CEP was created by decree on 10 March 1848 by the French Provisional Government of 1848, ...

from

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

also started operating in China during this era. These banks functioned as the main financiers of contemporary trade between the

(especially Qing China) and the West (Europe, North America, South America, and Australia). By the year 1866 these early British banks had all opened up branches in the Chinese harbour towns of

, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. The geographic position of the latter of these ports gave it a particularly advantageous position as it is located in the Yangtze River Delta and the Grand Canal, meaning that goods that went through this port would be able to reach the entirety of China. The offices of these banks were all concentrated in an area of Shanghai known as the Bund. In the beginning the need for the services of these foreign banks in China was restricted to only trade

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

from British India into Chinese territory and exports of Chinese tea to markets across the entire world. Because tea could be exported during the summer months, and as opium imports became increasingly restricted by the government of the Qing dynasty, many of these early Anglo-Indian banks in China went bankrupt or had to be reorganised. The Oriental Bank Corporation, which was the first foreign bank to conduct its business in China by opening a local branch, also opened up a branch in the Bund where it then started issuing its own banknotes. The British-owned Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China which issued the banknotes of the Hong Kong dollar from 1859 until 1892 was later reorganised as the Mercantile Bank of India and stopped operating in China. After the fall of the Qing dynasty and when the Republic of China's rule over Mainland China, the mainland came to an end, the only British Indian bank still operating in China was the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China. The Asiatic Banking Corporation had become dependent on its trade with the Confederate States of America (CSA) and eventually tied its fate to the success of this nation which lost its American Civil War, war of independence in 1865. At the time of the American Civil War the textile mills of the United Kingdom were wholly dependent upon cotton shipped from the Confederate States of America. However the Confederates did not wish to supply cotton to the British unless they were seen as a United Kingdom and the American Civil War#Possibility of recognizing Confederacy, recognised state which the British government refused; because of this, the British decided to invest more into the History of cotton#British Empire, cotton industry of India and British Ceylon, Ceylon, attempting to create a whole cotton-raising culture overnight to make up for the lack of Confederate cotton. The price of cotton in the United Kingdom went up immensely as the demand could not be met with the supply. Speculation in cotton futures at the time started to run rife, of these futures the Asiatic Bank was the principal provider of capital. After the American Civil War ended with a decisive victory for the United States of America in 1865, the Asiatic Bank had to close its doors in 1866 as the cheap cotton from the Southern United States was freely available on the British market again, ending the experiment with the production of cotton in British India and Ceylon. All banknotes issued by the Asiatic Bank to circulate in Qing China had an identical design but had different branch names on them. The banknotes issued by these early Anglo-Indian banks which did business in the Qing dynasty between 1845 and 1870 are today exceedingly rare and are only seldom offered, making them beyond the reach of the average banknote collector due to their scarcity. The quantity of paper money channeled into Chinese monetary traffic by these Anglo-Indian banks was comparatively small and in some cases exceedingly minor which explains their current rarity.

Later British banks

The second biggest British bank in China was during the Qing dynasty was the

, which was originally formed in British India by a Royal Charter issued under the reign of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom in 1857. In 1858 the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China opened an office in the British crown colony of Hong Kong and in 1861 the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China was granted the right to issue banknotes for Hong Kong. Sizable portions of some of its early business involved the discounting of bills for the export of the narcotic opium from British India to the Qing dynasty which generated a significant amount of profit. From 1861 the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China was granted the ability to produce Notes Payable to Bearer on Demand at all of their offices. The banknotes produced by the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China were at all times within the safeguards obligated by the colonial British banking regulations and were generally met with great acceptance in Hong Kong and China, with a notable exception being the city of Shanghai, where the local Han Chinese population was known for holding a prejudice against foreign-produced paper money. This negative perception of foreign paper money was in part because of the refusal of the imperial Chinese Customs House stationed there to accept them as valid currency in payment of dues. As a result of this negative bias by the authorities, there was never a large amount of foreign banknotes in circulation in Shanghai. With the sole exception of Shanghai, the fiat money issued by the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, which may have been circulating in small quantities, was highly regarded by the Chinese public. The National Bank of China Limited was an institution of which today only very little is known. The very existence of this bank would not have been known if it were not for the discovery of several salesman's samples in the beginning of the 21st century which mention its existence. It is known to have been operating in British Hong Kong with an additional branch in the city of Shanghai. Richard von Glahn reports that the National Bank of China Limited was established by the British in colonial Hong Kong in 1891 and disbanded in 1911. At the time of its disestablishment the National Bank of China Limited had a minor amount of paid-up capital worth only British pound, £600,000. The banknotes of this bank in circulation were always small in number. Upon closing its doors permanently all banknotes produced by the bank seemed to have been fully accounted for, which is a most unusual thing to happen in China; this explains the virtual non-existence of the National Bank of China Limited today. The central government of the Qing dynasty only attempted to regulate Chinese banks and its currency near the end of the dynasty. By the time that the Qing started finally implementing financial reforms, China was beholden to the mercy of foreign powers; because of this the issue of foreign banknotes in China and restrictions on foreign banking and foreign banks (including British banks) in general were generally not made.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation

5 Mexican Dollars - Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Shanghai Branch (01

The banknotes produced by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (

) had seen extensive circulation in the territory of the Qing dynasty from the 1870s and later. In 1864 the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was established by the Scottish Thomas Sutherland (banker), Thomas Sutherland to finance Far East trade and would later grow to become both the largest and most influential of all the foreign banks during the Qing dynasty era. The Traditional Chinese characters for the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation were (Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin , Cantonese , which the British pronounced as ''Wayfung'' after the Cantonese pronunciation). These Chinese characters could be translated as "abundant remittances". Over the following years the HSBC became a banking leader in East and Southeast Asia. This happened because the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was a key player in many major events in the region, such as acting as banker for the Hong Kong government from 1880 onwards, establishing the first bank in the Rattanakosin Kingdom, Kingdom of Siam in 1888 where it printed the first banknotes of the Thai baht, Siamese tical, and overseeing the management of British Empire, British colonial government accounts in Qing China,

, Singapore, and other areas of influence. In an advertisement in the North-China Herald of 17 February 1876 the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation reported to have a paid-up capital of five million dollars and a reserved fund of one hundred thousand dollars while at the time it operated branches in eight different countries, while in China it had branches in

, Tianjin, Shanghai,

, Fuzhou, Yantai, and Xiamen. The quantity of banknotes of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation made the amounts produced by other foreign banking corporations in China at the time look minuscule by comparison. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation produced the banknotes of the Hong Kong dollar during its colonial era. The Shanghai branch of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was established only briefly after the bank opened its headquarters in the British colony of Hong Kong. The general manager of the Shanghai branch was a Scotsman named David MacLean (banker), David MacLean who fulfilled his role between 1865 and 1873 and managed to convince the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs to deposit all its incoming revenue with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which proved to be a very profitable endeavour for the British bank. HSBC soon established new branches wherever the Imperial Maritime Customs had one of its local offices. Afterwards the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation would find itself branching out beyond customs as it would expand in the businesses of money deposits and lending money to the Chinese government, collecting war indemnities on behalf of the British government, financing the construction of railways, and lending money to the military of the Qing dynasty, which was fighting an expensive campaign against warlords in the north of China. The many branches of the bank issued their own banknotes, which due to the position and positive reputation of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation were in great demand across China. During the 19th century until the breakout of World War I the United Kingdom closely cooperated with the German Empire in China to balance out the expansionist influences of the French and Russian spheres of interest in China. As a result, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation worked closely and very successfully with the

. By the turn of the 20th century HSBC had become the most important foreign banking company in imperial China, leading to a great variety of banknotes being issued by the bank during this era. As the shareholders of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation had only very limited liability for the banknotes emissed by the company, HSBC was required to hold ⅓ specie reserve in their vaults at any given time. These banknotes were thus always secured to be paid out to the bearer and never faced being defaulted. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation had effectively set the Shanghai foreign currency exchange rates, a fact which shows the extent of its sizable and growing dominant role in Chinese financial matters during the Qing dynasty and early Republican eras. The role of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation as custodian of the official finds of the Chinese government would continue until this task was assumed by the Central Bank of China and responsibilities were handled by the Chinese themselves; this was done after the Chinese currency reform enacted in 1935.

Banknotes produced by French banks

Prior to the outbreak of the first world war, the France, French operated two banking corporations in China which were granted banknote issue rights by the Chinese government; these were the Banque de l'Indochine and the Banque Industrielle de Chine.

The was created in 1875 to serve as the financial arm of France in Southeast Asia, and more particularly in French Indochina. After the turn of the century in 1900, the business interests of the were shifted from India to focus more on the Chinese market, particularly in southern China. In China the collected war indemnities for the Boxer Rebellion on behalf of the French government, where it served as the sole French representative in handling the Boxer indemnity. After the French sphere of influence established in China as southern China, the was tasked with taking over international trade between the French Republic and all of Qing China. In addition to its monopoly on issuing banknotes in French Indochina, the also circulated its banknotes in neighbouring Chinese provinces, most notably in the provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou. The was assigned a position of priority in the financing of the infrastructure of the French concession in Shanghai's International Settlement, where some of its notable accomplishments include the Shanghai Electric Power Company and the Shanghai Tramways. The opened its first branch in China in 1899 in Shanghai and quickly opened more branches in Beijing, Hankou, Kunming, and Tianjin. All of these branches produced banknotes denominated in dollars for local circulation in China. At the Shanghai branch the French had made an attempt at issuing banknotes denominated in taels but this programme was almost immediately abandoned as non-remunerative. The banknotes produced by the were tri-lingual, printed in

, and

, making them the only foreign bank to employ three languages on their paper money in China. Denominations on banknotes produced by the were described in both French francs and Mexican dollar, Mexican piastres. These banknotes circulated in relatively small quantities in China until 1940, and consequently tend to be quite rare today.

Banknotes produced by Japanese banks

Bank of Taiwan

After the

ended, the Chinese were forced to give up the island of

to the Japanese as a part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Taiwan under Japanese rule, Under Japanese rule the island was run as a colony and soon Japanese institutions were being established for the benefit of the

. In 1899 the Bank of Taiwan was established and had a starting

of Japanese yen, ¥ 5,000,000. The goals of the Bank of Taiwan were to provide capital for the export of Taiwanese raw materials to Japan proper and to expand Japanese trade with China through its branch offices in Mainland China. The first mainland Chinese branch of the Bank of Taiwan was opened in Shanghai where in 1905 it issued a series of banknotes denominated in silver dollars. The issuing of these paper notes also required permission from the Government of Japan, imperial Japanese government. In 1906 a series of banknotes was issued consisting of the denominations 1 Japanese yen, gold yen, 5 gold yen, 10 gold yen, 50 gold yen, and 100 gold yen. The designs of the banknotes of the Bank of Taiwan were not uniform nor were their sizes; the designs of these banknotes seems to have been dictated by local Chinese customs. Some had a vertical design, such as the banknotes produced by the Xiamen (Amoy) and Shantou (Swatow) branches, while those produced at the

(Canton),

, Jiujiang, Shanghai, and Fuzhou branches were all horizontal, although the general shape of the banknotes and their design patterns also differ between branches. An approximate 10% of all banknotes produced by the Japanese Bank of Taiwan were circulating on mainland China at any given time.

Yokohama Specie Bank

The only truly Japanese banking company to circulate its own banknotes in Qing dynasty era China was the

. The Yokohama Specie Bank was established in 1880 for the international trade Japan had recently Opening of Japan, been opened to. The bank primarily did business in discounting

, handling in the Japanese foreign exchange market, and in promoting trade with the Chinese Empire. In 1893 the Yokohama Specie Bank opened an office in the Chinese trade port of Shanghai. During the early years of the Yokohama Specie Bank, it survived an economic recession, after which it received loans from the imperial Japanese government and permission to issue its own paper notes. At first the bank used the

to back the banknotes it put into circulation, but due to global depreciation of silver during the late 19th century, the Meiji period imperial Japanese government had turned to using the

for Japanese currency, its currency in 1897, using the war indemnity money due to them after the defeat of the Qing dynasty in the First Sino-Japanese War as backing for the new gold yen banknotes. After the first Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, the Yokohama Specie Bank shifted its focus northwards to

where it first took over the grain trade from the Chinese and later the railroad activities from the Russians. Its branch offices tasked with producing banknotes in Manchuria were located at Dairen, Harbin, Yingkou (Newchwang), Tsinan, Liaoyang, Mukden, and Tiehling. These offices were initially established in support of Japanese military personnel stationed in Manchuria. Additional branches of the Yokohama Specie Bank in China were located in Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, and Hankou. Although the issues of paper money by the bank were small and managed in a good manner, the banknotes principally served the Japanese population in China and Manchuria, as the Chinese people rejected them due to resentments they harboured over Japanese encroachment in their country. The 1903 silver yen notes produced by the Niuzhuang branch played an important role in financing local soy bean production in the region of Manchuria. By 1907 the Yokohama Specie Bank's paper notes enjoyed circulation throughout all of Manchuria. These banknotes were circulated by the branch in the port city of Dairen. Peak circulation of the bank's paper notes was reached in 1911 when a total of 7,200,000 dollars in banknotes were paid out. Over its many years of operating in China, the Yokohama Specie Bank issued a large variety of paper notes. At different times it issued banknotes that were denominated in taels, dollars, silver yen, gold yen, big money, small money, local currency and even fractional small denominational sen notes. All banknotes produced by the bank were printed by the Printing Bureau of the Imperial Japanese Government. Today all banknotes produced by the Yokohama Specie Bank during the late Qing dynasty period between 1902 and 1911 are rare and bring exceedingly high prices on the private collector's market, the sole exception being the 1 dollar banknote which was issued in 1902; this banknote occasionally becomes available to collectors. In general Yokohama Specie Bank varieties provide private collectors with a rather wide field from which they could build up a notaphilic collection. The problem many collectors of banknotes today face is that, due to tight management by the Japanese and a near total banknote redemption, very few of these paper notes remained unredeemed, making them relatively rare today.

Banknotes produced by Russian banks

Russo-Chinese Bank

The

() was founded on 5 December 1895 in the Russian Embassy in Paris as a joint-venture, from Russian and France, French

. Approximately a year after it was established the Russo-Chinese Bank received a contract from the government of the Qing dynasty for the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway in the three provinces making up Manchuria. This venture into Manchurian railways proved to be so successful that by the end 1902, the Russo-Chinese Bank had achieved the status of being the second-largest foreign banking corporation in all of the Chinese Empire. The total of all British bank investments in 1902 (including the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) added up to 33% of the investments from foreign banks into the Chinese economy, while the Russo-Chinese Bank by itself managed to account for as much as 31.3%. The different branches of the Russo-Chinese Bank each fulfilled different roles as the Beijing office was essentially exclusively engaged in political affairs with the imperial Chinese government, while the Shanghai office was mostly invested in the mercantile exchange business. The Russo-Chinese bank enjoyed a large amount of prosperity from its Manchurian railroad charter which allowed the bank to issue two series of banknotes. In 1901 it issued banknotes denominated in Mexican dollars and a second series was issued in 1907, denominated in

tael Tael (),"Tael" entry
at the

After the Chinese Eastern Railway started opening for business, the Russo-Chinese Bank collected fares for both passengers and goods in Mexican dollar, Mexican pesos due to the former wide circulation of the Spanish silver dollar in

times through trade with the

as part of the

in the

that minted the silver coins from

. However, after the railway was fully operational, the company preferred to exclusively handle fees in

s. As an effect of the Russo-Japanese War, the Russo-Chinese Bank lost a majority of its funds as it had invested heavily in the Military history of the Russian Empire, Russian military, leading it to merge with various other imperial Russian banking companies operating in China and the Banque du Nord in 1910, becoming the Russo-Asiatic Bank.

Russo-Asiatic Bank

The Russo-Asiatic Bank was created in 1910 out of a series of mergers of the Russo-Chinese Bank with other banks during a reorganisation. This change was fundamentally only a rename as all of its outstanding assets and its business, after the deduction of its war losses, remained completely intact. Under the Russo-Chinese Bank name the bank never enjoyed a large paper note circulation. The bank's final balance sheet, published by the bank's St. Petersburg headquarters, attests to this: the number of banknotes remaining in circulation, outstanding, and unredeemed total only 146,177 banknotes in dollars and 13,766 banknotes in taels. Banknotes that still had the old name of the bank (Russo-Chinese Bank) in circulation had the name crossed out by hand by employees of the bank. After the Bolsheviks took Russia by October revolution, revolution in 1918, they nationalised all of the Russo-Asiatic Bank's properties in the country partially because the bank had supported the White movement, White Russians against the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Bolshevik state. After this the bank moved its headquarters to Paris where it would go bankrupt in 1926 after losing Pound sterling, £5,000,000 while speculating in foreign currency at the Paris financial markets. The Paris branch office then sent out a notification to the Shanghai branch office to close the doors of the establishment, forever ending the Russo-Asiatic Bank's operations in China. Banknotes produced by the East Turkestan branches of the Russo-Asiatic Bank (Kashgar, Yining, and Changuchak) during the Republican period circulating between 1913 and 1924 still prominently depicted imperial Chinese symbols such as the five-fingered dragon on both sides. They were distinguished from banknotes produced by other foreign banking corporations because they were denominated in fixed weights of pure gold, rather than specific monetary units. The banknotes from this era were printed by Bradbury Wilkinson and Company in London, United Kingdom.

Deutsch-Asiatische Bank

The

(DAB) was created on 15 May 1889 and was notable for being the first major non-British foreign banking corporation in China during the Qing dynasty period, and for being the only German bank with the right to issue its own notes in China. The main priority for the was to finance imperials loans requested by the Qing government with a special focus on both railways and mining operations within the sphere of interest held by the German Empire in the province of Shandong. The initial

the paid to the government of the Qing dynasty numbered 5,000,000

tael Tael (),"Tael" entry
at the

In 1896 the entered into a cooperation with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) to underwrite Chinese government loans aggregating British pound, £32,000,000. The money for these government loans was secured by collecting the revenue of the Imperial Maritime Customs and taxes collected on Chinese salt. The project, which cost 54,000,000 German gold mark, gold mark, led to the construction of of railways from the city of Qingdao, Kiautschou Bay concession, German Kiautschou to Tsinan. Additionally it paid 12,000,000 gold mark for the establishment of new mining operations in Shandong. The bank was later also involved with British, French and Russian interests to build railways outside of the German sphere of interest. The banknotes issued by the were denominated in silver taels and silver dollars. The paper money that the bank was allowed to bring into circulation was tightly controlled by the German imperial government in Berlin and it was always in small quantities. The initial emission of banknotes occurred in 1907 and was strictly controlled by the German government, well managed, and in great demand. The second issue occurred during the Republic of China in 1914 after the banknotes arrived shortly before the Japanese invasion during World War I. Because of the war, only a small number of banknotes actually entered circulation. Although the banknotes of the DAB had no printer's imprint on them, it was generally believed that they were produced in the Leipzig plant of the German printing company Giesecke+Devrient. All banknotes produced by this bank depict the German national personification Germania (personification), Germania alongside the imperial German eagle and a Chinese dragon prominently displayed on them. After the outbreak of World War I, the was forced to suspend its operations in China. At the time that it had to cease operating in China, an amount of 2,595,968 taels worth of banknotes was circulating. In 1917 the Chinese republican government revoked the bank's privilege to produce its own paper notes for the Chinese market.

International Banking Corporation

The sole American bank to operate in imperial China was the New York City-based International Banking Corporation, which was founded on 1 December 1901 for the purpose of promoting foreign trade with the United States in China and had two series of banknotes issued during both the Qing dynasty and early Republican periods. As the flag of the United States flew over the bank's several branch offices in China, the Chinese people began referring to the red, white, and blue coloured standard as (, 'colourful flag'), and it was not long before the International Banking Corporation itself was referred to as (, 'colourful flag bank') by the people of China. American banking companies did not do business in the Chinese banking field until the very beginning of the 20th century. With none of their own banks in imperial China, all trade remittances of the United States had to go through British banks operating in the country. United States Secretary of State, American Secretary of State John Hay advocated for the Americans to get involved in the Chinese market and obtain a share of it. As the United States had joined the eight-power alliance to put down the

in 1900, Americans felt it only right that they also participate in their share of the Boxer indemnities awarded to foreign powers in China. The first branch office of the International Banking Corporation in China was opened in Shanghai in 1902. In addition to dealing with the Boxer indemnities, the bank was active in granting loans to the government of the Qing dynasty, the largest of these loans being the Huguang Railway loan of 1911. In 1915 the National City Bank of New York had acquired a majority of shares in the International Banking Corporation. On 1 January 1927 the International Banking Corporation was to be entirely superseded by the National City Bank of New York, which took over all branch offices and would continue to operate them under its own brand name. The banknotes issued by the International Banking Corporation were denominated in local currency and were released in denominations of 1 dollar, 5 dollars, 10 dollars, 50 dollars, and 100 dollars in the year 1907. All banknotes featured a pair of globes depicting both the Eastern hemisphere, eastern and western hemispheres, an American eagle, and the Scales of Justice (symbol), scales of Justice. In the first year of its business the International Banking Corporation issued banknotes into circulation worth 202,474 dollars, later increasing this amount to 477,760 at the end of the Qing dynasty period by 1912. During the early Republican era a series of banknotes was released in 1918 which were denominated in taels. The old paper notes issued by the International Banking Corporation were very popular in China and in great demand, and were always redeemed by the bank without being discounted as was very common for other institutions. When called in, the banknotes were canceled by the bank by cutting them in half. Many banknotes of the International Banking Corporation today found in collections were altered by gluing the two halves together and tend to bear mismatched serial numbers as a result; these banknotes are worth very little when compared to unaltered specimens found today.

Netherlands Trading Society

The Netherlands Trading Society (Dutch language, Dutch: or ''NHM'') created its first branch office in China in 1903 on

in the port city of Shanghai. In comparison with other foreign banking corporations operating in China, the Netherlands Trading Society was not a large banking company. However, the bank handled a large variety of different trade businesses with the Chinese. While the Netherlands Trading Society's presence in China was small or served as a training base for the future generation of Chinese bankers, many of these native businessmen later went on to form their own private banking companies during the Qing and Republican eras. The number of banknotes produced by the Netherlands Trading Society in circulation in China was at all times relatively small in quantity because Dutch law had a substantial requirement for reserves to be held to back up the paper money issued that went into circulation. In 1909 the Netherlands Trading Society issued banknotes with the denominations 1 dollar, 5 dollars, and 10 dollars, and later under the Republic of China government in 1922 banknotes with denominations of 100 dollars and 500 dollars were issued. All banknotes issued by the Netherlands Trading Society in China had a principal vignette that depicted a Chinese warrior bearing a sword, clad in Chinese armour, and an ancient stone bridge.

Currency units used on paper money during the late Qing period

湖北省 1 Yuan (7 Mace 2 Candareens) - Hupeh Government Mint (1899) 01

The denominations of the Qing dynasty coinage, contemporary coinage were chaotic with different standards being used across regions, making it confusing to exchange between areas due to the wide range of systems and denominations used to categorise the many coinages of the Qing. There was likewise a wide range of types of paper notes. The traditional copper-allow cash was reflected in cash notes (). Some of these banknotes used the traditional government-mandated exchange rate of 1,000 ''Chinese cash (currency unit), wén'' per String of cash coins (currency unit), string of cash coins ( or ) in a system for

known as (), while others used differing local exchange rates, like the Eastern cash or () of the Liaoning, Fengtian province, with 160 cash coins per string, or the ''metropolitan cash'' () from

, which had an exchange rate of 500 cash coins per string. Local banknotes usually reflected local exchange rates. During the late Qing dynasty Japanese mon (currency), Japanese cash coins circulated in China, as well as cash coins from earlier dynasties of different shapes and sizes at different exchange rates. On the local markets, the exchange rates even deviated from the fixed denominations, as had been the case with cash coins of substandard quality for an extended amount of time. The silver currency was reflected in silver notes (), and also in other types of paper money there were great differences in the conversion rate depending on the region where the banknotes were traded or used in. In Beijing, the imperial '' Kuping tael'' (), which had a standard weight of 37.5 grams, the exchange rate was used side by side with the local ''metropolitan rate'' which was known as the (), while the Shanghai tael () was used on banknotes issued by both the Huifeng Bank () and the Shanghai Tongshang Yinhang (). The banknotes of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation were principally denominated in Chinese dollars; however, the tael, Mexican dollar, and various currencies based upon the local Chinese dollar were also employed as denominations. The denominations on the silver yuan banknotes () were the most standardised, but exchange rates still differed on the individual Chinese markets where they circulated, depending on the local value of the silver yuan coins. The imperial government attempted to clarify this chaotic situation with the Statutes for Paper Bills () decreed in the year 1909. For silver currencies the standardised government currency units were 1 () = 10 Mace (unit), mace () = 100 candareen () = 1000 Cash (unit), cash ( / ) for taels, which were based on units of weight, while the round silver coins were standardised at 1 yuan or dollar ( / ) = 10 Jiao (currency), jiao or hou ( / ) = 100 Fen (currency), fen or sin ( / ) = 1000 cash ( / ), and 1 yuan was worth a coin with a weight of 0.72 taels as standardized in 1910.

Denominations on banknotes of foreign banks in Qing China

List of note issuing foreign banks in imperial and early republican China:

Banknotes as a percentage of the Chinese money stock during the late Qing dynasty

Chinese historian

stated that in 1900, privately produced banknotes made up only 3% of the total volume of Chinese currency stock. This number would (according to Niv Horesh) be unlikely to surpass 6% if banknotes denominated in silver currencies were taken into account (these banknotes were produced by government banks and modern banking corporations). Foreign banks operating in China generally did not disclose the volume of banknotes issued by them circulating in China proper; the fact that they did not openly disclose this resulted in inflated estimates thereof over the years. For this reason Horesh states that it would be very implausible to assume that the ratio of all banknotes as part of the entirety of the Chinese money stock was any significant number higher than 10% even as late as 1900. Meanwhile, during this same period the Cash (Chinese coin), traditional cast copper-alloy cash coins made up only 17.78% of the total Chinese currency stock; the percentage representing cash coins would only decrease from this point onwards. Meanwhile, Peng estimated that foreign trade dollars circulating in China (which mostly included the silver Mexican dollar) made up 25% of the total Chinese currency stock by the 1900s. The Spanish dollar#Asia, Mexican or Spanish silver dollar had been in wide circulation since

times, due to past Maritime Silk Road trade with the

as part of the

in the

that minted the silver coins from

or Bolivia or Peru and flowed through the

. This trend was actually the opposite in the Western world and Japanese Empire, Japan where the global introduction of government steam-minted coinages halted the spread of New Spain, Mexican-mined silver pesos. This effect was most notable in North and South America as well as the

. At the same time silver was being diffused from the

and there were major discoveries of large silver deposits in the United States and West Africa.

Gallery

Notes

References

Sources

* Dai Zhiqiang (戴志強), ed. (2008). ''Zhongguo qianbi shoucang jianshang quanji'' (中國錢幣收藏鑒賞全集) (Changchun: Jilin chuban jituan). (in

). * Albert Feuerwerker, Feuerwerker, A. (1958) ''China’s early industrialization: sheng Hsuan-huai (1844–1916) and the mandarin enterprise.'' Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, Massachusetts. * Gabrisch, Karl (1990). ''Geld aus Tibet: Sammlung Dr. Karl Gabrisch; Ausstellung des Münzkabinetts der Stadt Winterthur'' (Winterthur: Departement für Kulturelles; Rikon: Tibet-Institut). (in German language, German). * * * * * Meng Pengxing (孟彭興) (1998). "Cong feiqian dao jiaozi huizi (), in Zhang Dainian (張岱年), ed. Zhongguo wenshi baike (中國文史百科) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe), Vol. 1, 414. (in

). * * The book has been translated into English by Edward 11. Kaplan as A Monetary History of China (Bellingham, WA: Western Washington, 1994). * Peng Xinwei (彭信威) (1994) ''A monetary history of China'' (translated by Edward H. Kaplan). Western Washington University (Bellingham, Washington, Bellingham, Washington (state), Washington). * Xie Tianyu (謝天宇), ed. (2005). ''Zhongguo qianbi shoucang yu jianshang quanshu'' (中國錢幣收藏與鑒賞全書) (Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe), Vol. 2, 508. (in

). * Zhou Fazeng (周發增), Chen Longtao (陳隆濤), Qi Jixiang (齊吉祥), ed. (1998). ''Zhongguo gudai zhengzhi zhidu shi cidian'' (中國古代政治制度史辭典) (

: Shoudu shifan daxue chubanshe), Pages 372, 375, 380, 381, 382. (in

). {{Chinese currency and coinage Banknotes of China Economy of the Qing dynasty Chinese numismatics

History

and other early Qing paper money

Xianfeng era paper money

Foreign banks and the currency reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Establishing a national bank

List of banknotes denominated in copper-alloy cash coins issued during the Xianfeng era

List of banknotes denominated in silver taels issued during the Xianfeng era

Banknotes produced by Belgian banks

Banknotes produced by British banks

Early British Indian banks in China

Later British banks

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation

Banknotes produced by French banks

Banknotes produced by Japanese banks

Bank of Taiwan

Yokohama Specie Bank

Banknotes produced by Russian banks

Russo-Chinese Bank

Russo-Asiatic Bank

Deutsch-Asiatische Bank

International Banking Corporation

Netherlands Trading Society

Currency units used on paper money during the late Qing period

Denominations on banknotes of foreign banks in Qing China

Banknotes as a percentage of the Chinese money stock during the late Qing dynasty

Gallery

See also

Notes

References

Sources