10 Cash – Kiangnan Province

In 1905, the currency situation in Kiangnan Province (centered on Shanghai and the lower Yangtze Delta) was one of profound complexity and instability, reflecting China's late Qing dynasty struggles with modernization and foreign encroachment. The monetary system was not unified but a chaotic mix of competing currencies. These included various silver sycee ingots (taels) weighed and assayed differently by locale, foreign-minted silver dollars (notably Mexican and British trade dollars), a growing number of Chinese provincial silver and copper coinages, and a vast circulation of copper cash coins for daily small transactions. The most important unit for large commercial transactions was the Shanghai tael, a purely imaginary accounting unit used on the Shanghai Money Market, which further abstracted value from physical coin.

This multiplicity created severe handicaps for commerce and government finance. Every transaction required expert assessment and exchange between currencies, with fluctuating discount rates (shui) causing inefficiency and risk. The provincial mint in Nanking, alongside others, attempted to standardize coinage by issuing new silver and copper yuan, but these competed with the entrenched tael system and the preferred foreign dollars, which were seen as more reliable. Furthermore, the declining intrinsic value of copper cash due to debasement caused inflation and hardship for the peasantry, while the silver-based tael system exposed the economy to volatile international silver prices.

The currency chaos in China's wealthiest province was a powerful catalyst for reformist agitation. By 1905, influential merchants, compradors, and officials in Shanghai were increasingly vocal in demanding the unification of the currency on a decimal, yuan-based standard and the abolition of the tael. This pressure, combined with the Qing government's own need for fiscal consolidation, would lead to serious, though initially unsuccessful, imperial edicts for monetary reform in the subsequent years, setting the stage for the major currency reforms attempted after the 1911 Revolution.