123

THE  CURRENCY
confronted  by  this  financial  difficulty.  The  early  rulers
were  compelled  for  a  time  to  continue  the  paper  issues  of
their  predecessors,  and  in  addition  there  was  during  the  first
reign,  that  of  Hungwu  (a.d.  1368-1399)»  some  i ssue  copper
token  coinage  ;  but  by  the  time  of  Yunglo  (a.d.  i4°3 _i 4 2 5)&gt;
the  reign  during  which  the  capital  was  moved  to  Peking,  the
finances  had  been  restored  from  the  condition  to  which  they
had  been  reduced  by  the  unlettered  and  warlike  Mongols,
and  the  currency  established  on  a  sound  basis.  For  two
and  a  half  centuries  the  Ming  Government  kept  the  people
fully  supplied  with  circulating  media  of  standard  size  and
weight,  the  general  average  of  the  diameter  of  the  coins
ranging  from  o  go  to  105  inch,  and  the  standard  weight
from  46  to  57  grains  ;  making  ample  allowance  for  the
longer  time  that  the  surviving  specimens  of  Tang  and  Sung
coinage  have  been  in  circulation,  the  Ming  coins  must  be
adjudged  to  be  superior  to  them,  and  fully  equal  in  appearance ­
  to  the  coinage  of  the  first  century  of  the  present  Tsing
Dynasty,  though  less  in  weight.  When  the  Manchus  came
to  the  throne,  they  continued  the  civil  government  of  their
predecessors,  merely  superadding  the  military  control
represented  by  the  now  innocuous  Tsiang-kün  (Tartar
Generals)  stationed  at  certain  strategic  points  throughout
the  Empire,  and  creating  a  few  milking  posts,  such  as  the
Hoppo  at  Canton,  a  post  abolished  only  in  1904  ;  their
rule  has  been  in  the  main  a  government  of  the  Chinese,  by
the  Chinese,  for  the  Chinese,  and  in  nothing  has  this  been
shown  more  than  in  their  continuance  for  nearly  two
centuries  of  the  financial  and  monetary  systems  of  the  Mings.
The  earliest  issues  of  coinage  by  the  first  Emperor  to  establish
himself  at  Peking,  Shunchih  (a.d.  1644-1661),  bore  inscriptions ­
  only  in  Chinese,  the  first  issues  having  on  the  reverse
only  the  mint  name,  the  second  having  in  addition  the  value,
one-thousandth  of  a  tael  (of  silver)  ;  then,  toward  the  end
of  his  reign,  the  coins  bore  the  mint  name  in  Chinese  and
Manchu.  His  successor,  Kanghi  (a.d.  1662-1722),  continued
the  bilingual  inscriptions  through  the  whole  of  his  reign,
but  toward  the  end  of  the  reign,  the  two  mints  at  Peking,