Chapter 44 Section 4 Silver Dollars, Copper Dollars and Minor Coins

After foreign silver dollars invaded China, it attracted the attention of all parties.In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, folk imitation castings had product names such as Guangban, Hangban, Fuban, and Suban.Later, Taiwan's birthday silver cakes and Zhangzhou military pay coins were minted in Fujian.There are also Xianfeng Ruyi silver cakes, Tongzhi Bibao silver cakes, Tongzhi birthday star silver cakes and cautious military salary silver cakes.During the Xianfeng period (AD 1851-1861), there were silver names such as Wang Yongsheng, Yu Sensheng, and Jing Zhengji in Shanghai who made their own silver cakes.The Qing court minted Tibetan silver coins in Tibet, including Qianlong treasure, Jiaqing treasure, and Daoguang treasure, with high fineness and limited use in Tibet.Sichuan imitates the rupee to resist the invasion of Indian coins. The coin has a bust of Guangxu on the face, which is the earliest portrait coin in China.Xinjiang casts "payment silver" and two kinds of "payment gold" coins; it also casts Turkish-style iron gold coins, all of which are palindrome, and are limited to local circulation.In the fifteenth year of Guangxu (AD 1889), Zhang Zhidong was the first to cast Guangxu Yuanbao silver coins in Guangdong, commonly known as "Longyang".Formulate coinage regulations, the legal one yuan coin contains 90% of silver, weighs seven cents and two cents, half yuan (five cents) weighs three cents and six cents, eighty-six cents, two cents (double cents), one cent (single cents) and five cents. They weigh one coin, four cents and eight cents, seven cents and two cents, and three cents and six cents, all of which contain 80% of silver.The latter four are also called folio, quarto, octavo, and sixteen.All provinces imitated this casting line, because of the great profits, from competitive casting to indiscriminate casting, reducing weight and deteriorating.In the 25th year of Guangxu (1899 A.D.), more than ten provinces have cast silver coins, ranging in weight and fineness. The average weight of each piece is 0.7177 taels, and the silver content is 0.6403 kuping taels, which are all lower than the standard. For example, Fengtian only contains 0.5959 taels of silver. .In the last years of Guangxu, when arguing about the issue of silver dollar units, a faction headed by Cixi advocated the use of "one tael" and formulated regulations to start casting one or two silver dollars, which did not work.In the second year of Xuantong, the other school recast Longyang according to the standard of seven cents and two cents per yuan.At the same time, Article 24 of the "Regulations on National Currency" was formulated, stipulating that the right to mint coins should be vested in the central government, stop the self-minting of each province, set up a currency system bureau, and manage the minting of coins;In May of the following year, silver coins of the Qing Dynasty and Xuantong Yuanbao were minted in Nanjing and Wuhan according to the requirements.

In the early years of the Republic of China, the commemorative coins of the founding of the country were minted, and all provinces still minted them themselves. Sichuan minted Dahan silver dollars.In the third year of the Republic of China (1914 AD), the new national currency regulations were promulgated, stipulating that the silver dollar is the national currency, that is, the standard currency, weighing seven cents and two cents, 89% silver, with Yuan Shikai's head, commonly known as Yuan Datou.All taxes and financial revenues and expenditures are in national currency, and foreign banknotes and raw silver are not allowed.This currency has a good reputation and soon became popular all over the country.First replace Longyang in Shanghai and exclude Yingyang and other foreign silver dollars.It is estimated that at the beginning of the Republic of China, about 1.4 billion silver yuan coins were minted, most of which weighed 26.8641 grams and contained 23.9024808 grams of pure silver.In the 16th year of the Republic of China (AD 1927), the national government recast the founding commemorative coins of Sun Yat-sen, commonly known as "Sun coins" or "Chuanyang".Since then, Chuanyang and Yuan Datou have been in circulation at the same time, and other Chinese and foreign silver dollars have gradually withdrawn.At the beginning of the Republic of China, there were also several kinds of gold coins, such as Yuan Shikai gold coins, Hong Xian commemorative gold coins, and Yunnan Supporting the Republic commemorative gold coins.From the beginning of the Republic of China to before the Northern Expedition, some silver coins also appeared: Sun Yat-sen bust side coin, Li Yuanhong coin, Yuan Shikai military uniform coin, Yuan Shikai founding commemorative coin, Hong Xian coin, Sichuan military government coin, Cao Kun coin, Duan Qirui coin, Xu Shichang commemorative coin coins etc.After the abolition of the two yuan and the reform of the yuan, the "silver standard casting bill" was promulgated, and it was changed to a silver yuan with a weight of 26.6921 grams, 88% silver, 12% copper, and 23.493448 grams of pure silver, which was the standard currency.Two years later, the legal currency policy was implemented, and the silver dollar no longer became a legal currency.However, silver dollars have always been hoarded by urban and rural residents, especially in the late period.

In the late Qing Dynasty, it was stipulated in the coinage regulations to mint bank coins, and various provinces minted a variety of coins, which were crudely made and used at a discount.Since the 16th year of Guangxu (AD 1890), Guangdong has minted four auxiliary coins of five cents, two cents, one cent and five cents.Among them, the two corners are called double cents, which are used as the main currency. All public and private income and expenditure are calculated in cents, not oceans.Later, it expanded to Lianghu, Guangdong, Guangxi and the southeast coastal areas together with Shanhao (one corner).Guangdong is commonly known as Haoyang, and other places are called Xiaoyang and Yinjiaozi.Yunnan half-open silver dollar (that is, five cents or half yuan) has been in circulation locally for decades as the main currency.

Copper yuan originated from two kinds of Xianfeng big money with 10 characters and 20 characters and Hong Kong cents in Hong Kong.There are eight kinds of denominations: 200 Wen, 100 Wen, 50 Wen, 20 Wen, 10 Wen, Wu Wen, Er Wen, and 1 Wen, and the latter three are very rare.The first three are commonly known as big copper coins, and the first two are commonly used in Sichuan Province, and the 50 characters are mainly used in western Hubei and northwestern Hunan. 20 characters and 10 characters are the most numerous, commonly known as double copper coins and single copper coins, which are used almost all over the country except for the popular areas and frontiers of large copper coins.In the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu (AD 1900), Li Hongzhang first cast copper coins in Guangdong, each weighing two coins, with 95% copper fineness, 4% lead, and 1% tin, round without square holes.In the middle circle of the money face, there are four characters of Guangxu Yuanbao in Chinese, filled with Wen Baoguang inside, and there are words outside the circle to indicate the value of the money, and there is a dragon pattern in the circle on the back of the money.In the future, all provinces will imitate it, with many editions and various contents, and each province has hundreds of kinds.There are also copper coins of the Qing Dynasty and Xuantong Yuanbao.By 1905, 17 provinces had set up factories for self-casting.At that time, 80 to 90 copper dollars were equivalent to one silver dollar, and 7.5 billion coins had been minted that year.The copper coins cast in the Republic of China were extremely complicated. The feudal separatist forces in various provinces, as the source of military pay, competed to cast excessively, cut corners and materials, and the market was flooded with bad coins. Compared with silver coins, the price has dropped to 130-180 pieces for one silver dollar, and their quality is lower than the official standard. , Some copper content actually differs by more than 26%.At the beginning of the Republic of China, the patterns of copper coins included crossed five-color flags and 18-star flags (referred to as double flags), commemorative coins for the founding of the People's Republic of China, commemorative coins for the Republic, etc.The Qing government and the Beiyang government formulated reform measures many times, but they were completely ineffective, and the copper dollar devalued and plummeted.Compared with silver dollars, the price has dropped to 300 pieces for one silver dollar, and in some places in the north, it has even dropped to 500 pieces for one silver dollar.Moreover, the provinces block each other, prohibiting the entry of copper coins from other provinces, and selling them to other provinces at low prices.Foreign businessmen took the opportunity to privately cast low-quality copper coins, which added fuel to the fire and increased confusion.From the Northern Expedition to before and after the Anti-Japanese War, the copper coins in the market gradually decreased.After that, it disappeared and withdrew from the market.The issuance and circulation of copper coins has a history of more than 30 years.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Germany issued five cents and one dime in Qingdao.It is stipulated in the National Currency Regulations to mint nickel coins, but it has not been done.Both Yunnan and Guangdong have issued dime and five-cent nickel coins, which are not widely circulated.