Expensive Preparations Were Made For This
Object; Offices Called Chao-Khanahs Were Erected In The Principal Cities
Of The Provinces,
And a numerous staff appointed to carry out the details.
Ghazan Khan in Khorasan, however, would have none of it,
And refused to
allow any of these preparations to be made within his government. After
the constrained use of the Chao for two or three days Tabriz was in an
uproar; the markets were closed; the people rose and murdered 'Izzuddin;
and the whole project had to be abandoned. Marco was in Persia at this
time, or just before, and Sir John Malcolm not unnaturally suggests that
he might have had something to do with the scheme; a suggestion which
excites a needless commotion in the breast of M. Pauthier. We may draw
from the story the somewhat notable conclusion that Block-printing was
practised, at least for this one purpose, at Tabriz in 1294.
The other like enterprise was that of Sultan Mahomed Tughlak of Delhi, in
1330-31. This also was undertaken for like reasons, and was in professed
imitation of the Chao of Cathay. Mahomed, however, used copper tokens
instead of paper; the copper being made apparently of equal weight to the
gold or silver coin which it represented. The system seems to have had a
little more vogue than at Tabriz, but was speedily brought to an end by
the ease with which forgeries on an enormous scale were practised. The
Sultan, in hopes of reviving the credit of his currency, ordered that
every one bringing copper tokens to the Treasury should have them cashed
in gold or silver.
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