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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

CHAP. XXIV. p. 423.   PAPER-MONEY.

71

where the paper from the bark of the mulberry tree is likewise

mentioned.

" The Chi p`u, a treatise on paper, written by Su I-kien

toward the close of the tenth century, enumerates among the

various sorts of paper manufactured during his lifetime paper

from the bark of the mulberry tree (sangp'i) made by the people

of the north.'

" Chinese paper-money of mulberry bark was known in the

Islamic World in the beginning of the fourteenth century ; that

is, during the Mongol period. Accordingly it must have been

manufactured in China during the Yüan Dynasty. Ahmed

Shibab Eddin, who died in Cairo in 1338 at the age of 93,

and left an important geographical work in thirty volumes,

containing interesting information on China gathered from the

lips of eye-witnesses, makes the following comment on paper-

money, in the translation of Ch. Schefer : 2

" ` On emploie dans le Khita, en guise de monnaie, des

morceaux d'un papier de forme allongée fabriqué avec des

filaments de mûriers sur lesquels est imprimé le nom de

l'empereur. Lorsqu'un de ces papiers est usé, on le porte aux

officiers du prince et, moyennant une perte minime, on reçoit

un autre billet en échange, ainsi que cela a lieu dans nos

hotels des monnaies, pour les matières d'or et d'argent que l'on

y porte pour être converties en pièces monnayées.'

" And in another passage : ` La monnaie des Chinois est faite

de billets fabriqués avec l'écorce du mûrier. Il y en a de grands

et de petits. . . . Ou les fabrique avec des filaments tendres du

mûrier et, après y avoir opposé un sceau au nom de l'empereur,

on les met en circulation.' 3

" The banknotes of the Ming Dynasty were likewise made

of mulberry pulp, in rectangular sheets one foot long and six

inches wide, the material being of a greenish colour, as stated in

the Annals of the Dynasty.4 It is clear that the Ming Emperors,

establishments where silkworms are reared, and our European paper would be very harmful to the latter. There seems to be a sympathetic relation between the silkworm feeding on the leaves of the mulberry and the mulberry paper on which the cocoons of the females are placed.

i Ko chi kingyiian, Ch. 37, p. 6.

2 Relations des Musulmans avec les Chinois ( Centenaire de l'Ecole des Langues Orientales vivantes, Paris, 1895, p. 17).

3 Ibid., p. 20.

4 Ming Shi, Ch. 81, p. I.—The same text is found on a bill issued in 1375 reproduced and translated by W. Vissering (On Chinese Currency, see plate at end of volume), the minister of finance being expressly ordered to use the fibres of the mulberry tree in the composition of these bills.

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