20 Cash – Empire of China

In 1903, the currency system of the Qing Empire was a chaotic and fragmented reflection of its waning imperial authority and economic distress. There was no unified national currency. The primary medium for large transactions and state finance remained the silver tael (liang), a unit of weight rather than a coin, leading to countless local variants and crippling complexity. Concurrently, a vast array of copper cash coins, often strung together, served as the everyday currency for the masses, but their exchange rate against silver fluctuated wildly, causing hardship for peasants and laborers. This bimetallic system, unstable and regionally inconsistent, severely hampered domestic trade and governance.

Compounding this internal disarray was the aggressive influx of foreign silver dollars, most notably the Mexican "Silver Eagle," which circulated widely due to its reliable weight and fineness. These foreign coins were often preferred in coastal trade hubs, undermining the Qing's monetary sovereignty. Furthermore, to finance indemnities from the Boxer Protocol (1901), the imperial government had to borrow heavily in foreign currency, increasing its financial dependence. Provincial mints also operated with little central oversight, producing silver and copper coins of varying quality, which further debased the currency and fueled inflation in some regions.

Recognizing this crisis as both an economic and symbolic failure, the Qing court had begun tentative reforms. In 1903, the newly established Imperial Mint in Tianjin was preparing to produce a standardized national silver coin, the "Yuan," in an attempt to displace the tael and foreign dollars. This was part of a broader, last-ditch effort at modernization under the post-Boxer "New Policies." However, in 1903, these reforms were still in their infancy, and the reality for most Chinese was a bewildering monetary landscape of old and new, native and foreign—a tangible symptom of an empire struggling to adapt to the modern world while its fiscal foundations crumbled.