Chapter 46 Section 6 Banknotes of National and Regional Banks

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, under the circumstances of brutal invasion by imperialist powers and foreign banks taking the opportunity to plunder, the whole country was indignant and demanded reform and reform to save the nation and save the country. It suggested setting up banks, issuing banknotes, and resisting the invasion and exploitation of foreign banks and their currencies.At the same time, China's old-fashioned financial industry is no longer able to resist the invasion, and has instead become a tool for foreign banks to penetrate the mainland.However, China's government-run and private industries and businesses are gradually emerging and urgently need financial support.In the 30th year of Guangxu (AD 1904), the Ministry of Households issued the "Articles of Association of the Trial Bank", of which Articles 20 to 23 have detailed regulations on the issuance of banknotes.In March of the following year (AD 1905), the Ministry of Finance approved the printing of "Banknotes of the Ministry of Household Bank", which was the first official bank exchange certificate issued. Immediately, silver bills were issued in Beijing, Tianjin, Fengtian, Hankou and other places. There are 28 kinds of thousand taels in total, three kinds of silver dollar bills of one, five and ten yuan, and five kinds of money tickets of two, three, four, five and ten hangs.Among them, silver bills are widely circulated and gradually occupy the market.In the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (AD 1908), the branch formulated 24 articles of the "Regulations of the Bank of Great Qing" and updated 40 articles of the current detailed regulations. Specific provisions.Before and after, the Qing court issued a variety of regulations to unify the issuance rights, regulate the circulation of banknotes, cancel the laissez-faire policy, centralize the issuance rights, stipulate issuance preparations and other management provisions, and lay the foundation for the issuance of banknotes after the Republic of China.In the thirty-three years of Guangxu (AD 1907), the Ministry of Posts and Communications established the Bank of Communications, which is a professional bank for road, telecommunications, postal and aviation. There are four types of silver bills, and the number of issuances accounted for about 2% of the total issuance of banknotes at that time.

All provinces have set up official bank money bureaus to issue local banknotes without the approval of the central government: such as Hubei official banknotes, Jiangsu official banknotes, Anhui banknotes, Sichuan, Hunan, and Shandong banknotes, Jilin official posts, Heilongjiang money notes, and Xinjiang banknotes. Oilcloth tickets, money tickets, Fujian Taifu tickets, small silver dollar tickets, and Guangdong silver cents tickets.All of the above are circulated in the province, and there is no issuance reserve, no guarantee, and no cash.From 1900 to 1911, all provincial and local banks (including official banking bureaus) issued a total of more than 8 million taels of silver bills, 29.06 million taels and 3.36 million yuan of silver dollar bills, and 43.4 million taels of money bills and 10363 yuan. There are more than 10,000 strings and 106.6 million copper coins.These provincial notes are used at a discount in the market.For example, banknotes in Guangdong Province have fallen to 50% off, Guizhou 50% off, Sichuan, Hunan and Jiangxi 30% off, and some have become waste paper.By the 1930s, measures had been formulated to ban or reorganize the provincial official money bureaus.Until the end of the 1940s, local banknotes continued to be used in the northwest border areas.

In the early days of the Republic of China, the Nanjing Provisional Government issued the "Military Ticket of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China".After the newly established Bank of China took over the Bank of Great Qing, it promulgated the "Articles of Association of the Bank of China", stipulating that the Bank of China performs the functions of a national bank and has the privilege of issuing banknotes.In the early years of the Republic of China, due to the flood of foreign banknotes and provincial banknotes, the circulation of Bank of China banknotes was not much.The Bank of Communications still maintains its original name, still operates in accordance with the newly promulgated Bank of Communications Articles of Association, is under the leadership of the Ministry of Communications, and still performs the functions of a national bank.When Yuan Shikai was preparing for the Hongxian Monarchy, he confiscated assets such as gold and silver from the Beijing-Tianjin China Bank and the Communications Bank as deposits for issuance, which caused a wave of runs and affected many provinces.The government ordered the cessation of currency exchange, and once again issued a large amount of Beijing banknotes to advance military and government expenses, causing inflation and social unrest, which took nearly ten years to subside.At that time, the Bank of China in Shanghai resolutely withstood the pressure from the Yuan government in Beijing and cashed in as usual to restore its reputation.In the future, the business of China Bank and Communications Bank will develop steadily. In the past 20 years, the assets have increased several times, and the banknotes issued are very creditworthy.The two banks also used effective measures such as the "Regulations on Banning Banknotes" and the coupon system to regulate the circulation of banknotes in the market and control some commercial banks and money houses.At that time, the place-name coupons in the Bank of China Exchange Notes were, in principle, exercised in a certain area.The Exchange Notes of the Bank of Communications were also issued in districts to adapt to the objective and actual situation of the local separatists at that time.In addition, the Ministry of Finance also set up Ping City Official Money Bureaus in some counties in several provinces near Beijing to issue small-value banknotes for local use, which were gradually withdrawn after a few years.

In the thirteenth year of the Republic of China (AD 1924), Mr. Sun Yat-sen personally planned to establish a central bank in Guangzhou, issue central bank notes, and reserve more than 60% of the cash. In 1926, the Northern Expedition Army occupied Hunan and Hubei, and established the Hankou Central Bank in Wuhan. In June of the following year, the central bank issued exchange notes printed with Hankou, which were divided into five types: one yuan, five yuan, 10 yuan, 50 yuan, and 100 yuan.Soon, the Central Bank of Hankou was closed, and the exchange certificates and treasury bills issued were invalidated.In the seventeenth year of the Republic of China (AD 1928), the national government established the central bank in Nanjing and promulgated the "Central Bank Law", which stipulated that the central bank enjoys four privileges: currency issuance, coin minting, treasury management, and public debt handling.The National Currency Regulations of the early Republic of China were amended, and a series of policies, systems and regulations on financial management, currency system and banknote issuance were successively promulgated, gradually increasing the central bank's power to monopolize finance and control issuance.At the same time, it revised the method that more than half of the official shares of China and Communications were brought in, and the newly established China Farmers Bank was added to form the National Bank Group with the Central Bank as the core; later, it joined the Central Trust Bureau, Postal Savings and Remittance Bureau and Central Cooperative Treasury, commonly known as "four banks, two bureaus and one treasury" or "big four banks".The four banks of China, China, Communications and Agriculture have been issuing a large number of banknotes, and the central bank tops the list.The government also gradually reduced and eliminated the banknote issuance power of Chinese Commercial Bank and local banks through the coupon system and other restrictive measures.And relying on the US dollar and British pound as the background, other foreign banknotes are gradually squeezed out of the Chinese market.It's just that the enemy's counterfeit banknotes issued by Japan in its occupied areas were used until the end of the War of Resistance. In March 1933, the "abolition of taels and change to yuan" was implemented. From then on, silver taels were abolished for accounting and accounting, and all silver dollars were used;In this way, the silver dollar standard system was actually officially implemented.The silver two-currency system withdrew from the stage of history.In the twenty-fourth year of the Republic of China (AD 1935) on November 3, the legal currency policy was implemented, stipulating that the state monopolizes the issuance of banknotes, and silver is state-owned.The banknotes of the four national banks of the Central Bank, China Bank, Communications Bank, and Chinese Peasant Bank are explicitly ordered to be the legal tender, and other public and private banking organizations are not allowed to issue banknotes from now on. In fact, the banknote standard system is implemented. In 1942, the specialization of the four banks was implemented, and the unified issuance method was promulgated in May. From July 1, 1942, the three banks of China, Communications, and Chinese Farmers were cancelled. Highly centralized and unified policy requirements. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the four banks jointly received and rectified various banknotes issued by the enemy and puppet organizations.Since the late period of the Anti-Japanese War, banknotes have been issued more and more indiscriminately, with denominations ranging from ten thousand yuan, one million yuan to ten million yuan, causing serious depreciation.By 1948, the issuance of French currency had reached astronomical figures. On August 21 of that year, it was as high as 663,694.6 billion yuan, which was equal to 470,000 times that before the Anti-Japanese War. .The market was in a panic, and the fiat currency collapsed.In this case, the Kuomintang government abolished legal tender and issued gold dollar notes instead.In less than a year, hyperinflation occurred again, and the face value of a gold dollar coupon was as high as 6 billion yuan.Both the gold dollar certificates and the subsequent silver dollar certificates collapsed shortly after they were issued.