National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

290 NOTICES OF THE LAND ROUTE TO CATHAY, ETC.

lec [Cambalec], which is the capital city of the country of Cathay, is thirty days' journey.

three classes ; viz., notes of tens, i.e. of 10, 20, 30, and 50 tsien or cash ;1 notes of hundreds, of 100, 200, and 500 tsien; and notes of strings or thousands of cash, viz. of 1000 and 2000. This money, however, was worth only half its nominal value, so that two notes of 1000 cash went for an

ounce of pure silver. There were also notes printed on silk, for 1, 2, 3,   10
5 and 10 ounces each, valued at par in silver ; but these would not circu- late. In 1277 Kublai made a new issue of very small notes ; and a com-

plete new currency in 1288. One of these new notes was as before worth

half its nominal value in silver, but was to be exchanged against five of   0
equal nominal value of the old notes !

1

In 1309 a new issue took place with a like valuation ; i.e., one ounce

note of this issue was to exchange against five of Kublai's last issue, and   0
therefore against twenty-five of his older notes ! And it was at the same time prescribed that the new notes should exchange at par with metals,

which of course it was beyond the power of government to enforce, and so the notes were abandoned.

Issues continued from time to time to the end of the Mongol dynasty, but according to the Chinese authors with credit constantly diminishing.

This depreciation might easily escape Odoric, but it is curious that it

should be so entirely ignored by Pegolotti, whose informants must have

been mercantile men. In fact he asserts positively that there was no   ?~

depreciation. (See below.)   t

The remarks of Matwanlin, a medieval Chinese historian, on this sub-

ject are curiously like a bit of modern controversy : Paper should never   ai

be money ; it should only be employed as a representative sign of value   ë~

existing in metals or in produce, which can thus be readily exchanged for paper, and the cost of its transport avoided. At first this was the mode in which paper currency was actually used among merchants. The

government, borrowing the invention from private individuals, wished to   ~y
make a real money of paper, and thus the original contrivance was perverted."

The Ming dynasty for a time carried on the system of their predecessors, and with like results, till in 1448 the chao, or note, of 1000 cash, was

worth but 3 ! Barbard still heard of the paper money of Cathay from travellers whom he met at Azov about this time, but after 1455 there is said to be no more mefition of it in Chinese history.

Though the government of China has not issued paper money since then, there has been considerable local use of such currency among the

people, even in our own time. In Fucheu some years ago it had almost

displaced bullion, and in that city the banking houses were counted by hundreds. Though the system was under no efficient control, few notes

were below par, and failures of any magnitude were rare. The notes were chiefly from copper plates (and such notes were engraved in China as early as 1168) and ranged in value from 110 cash to 1000 dollars.

Kaikhâtu Khan of Persia was persuaded to attempt the introduction