30
G. FINDLAY ANDREW
merce throughout the fourteen districts accepted the notes from the shops and when the quantity in hand warranted it they would redeem them from me in silver sycee at my headquarters. The scheme worked very satisfactorily and when the final liquidation was achieved we found that we had cleared nearly 5% profit.
Before the year of which I write, copper coins, representing a value of ten brass cash, had already been introduced into circulation throughout the provinces near the coast. The use and circulation of these copper coins was stimulated when the content value of the brass cash exceeded the market value and the high pressure pumps had already commenced the work of pumping a steady stream of the brass cash currency over the sea to the land of the Rising Sun. Slowly the copper coins (l'ung yuan) spread into the far interior and with their coming they changed several aspects of life. Whilst they facilitated the transfer and carriage of baser currency, at the same time they increased the cost of living. A sweet (the child's necessity) which previously cost one cash now cost ten.
Those were the days of the war-lords when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes". It was not long before these gentlemen conceived the happy idea of each establishing his own arsenal with minting machinery complete so that he might furnish himself with all the sinews of modern war both in lethal weapons and silver dollars. During the days of the Manchu dynasty the Central Government had kept tight control over both arsenals and mints. A very wise ruling established that no arsenal might manufacture both arms and ammunition of the same calibre. Thus, for instance, arms produced by the Shanghai arsenal were dependent on say the Hankow arsenal for ammunition. This shows the control that Peking was able to exercise over the militarists in this connection. But from the days of the war-lords this was entirely changed. The big men produced their own arms, ammunition and coinage. Thus the control of coinage passed from Peking and it was not long before regional, and even provincial, dollars came into circulation all of varying standards. One military gentleman, of scientific bent of mind, conceived the brilliant idea of mixing sand with the copper and minting coins whose value was indicated by their size. Thus by the time he got up to the five hundred cash value coins they were so large and brittle that they crumbled when