I Have Never Heard Of The Preservation Of Any Note Of The Mongols; But
Some Of The Ming Survive, And
Are highly valued as curiosities in China.
The late Sir G. T. Staunton appears to have possessed one; Dr. Lockhart
Formerly had two, of which he gave one to Sir Harry Parkes, and retains
the other. The paper is so dark as to explain Marco's description of it as
black. By Dr. Lockhart's kindness I am enabled to give a reduced
representation of this note, as near a facsimile as we have been able to
render it, but with some restoration, e.g. of the seals, of which on
the original there is the barest indication remaining.
[Mr. Vissering (Chinese Currency, Addenda, I.-III.) gives a facsimile
and a description of a Chinese banknote of the Ming Dynasty belonging to
the collection of the Asiatic Museum of the Academy of Sciences at St.
Petersburg. "In the eighth year of the period Hung-wu (1375), the
Emperor Tai-tsu issued an order to his minister of finances to make the
Pao-tsao (precious bills) of the Ta-Ming Dynasty, and to employ as raw
material for the composition of those bills the fibres of the mulberry
tree." - H. C.]
Notwithstanding the disuse of Government issues of paper-money from that
time till recent years, there had long been in some of the cities of China
a large use of private and local promissory notes as currency. In Fuchau
this was especially the case; bullion was almost entirely displaced, and
the banking-houses in that city were counted by hundreds. These were under
no government control; any individual or company having sufficient capital
or credit could establish a bank and issue their bills, which varied in
amount from 100 cash to 1000 dollars. Some fifteen years ago the Imperial
Government seems to have been induced by the exhausted state of the
Treasury, and these large examples of the local use of paper-currency, to
consider projects for resuming that system after the disuse of four
centuries. A curious report by a Committee of the Imperial Supreme
Council, on a project for such a currency, appears among the papers
published by the Russian Mission at Peking. It is unfavourable to the
particular project, but we gather from other sources that the Government
not long afterwards did open banks in the large cities of the Empire for
the issue of a new paper-currency, but that it met with bad success. At
Fuchau, in 1858, I learn from one notice, the dollar was worth from 18,000
to 20,000 cash in Government Bills. Dr. Rennie, in 1861, speaks of the
dollar at Peking as valued at 15,000, and later at 25,000 paper cash.
Sushun, the Regent, had issued a vast number of notes through banks of his
own in various parts of Peking. These he failed to redeem, causing the
failure of all the banks, and great consequent commotion in the city.
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