When it comes to the place with the most money, I believe that the first thing that comes to mind is the national treasury. It is also true that as a place to collect the wealth of the whole country, the national treasury naturally stores the most money, which has been true since ancient times. Of course, the money in the ancient treasury is more impressive, because in many film and television dramas, there are camera descriptions of this: the treasury is lined with wooden cabinets, and the wooden cabinets are all neatly arranged gold and silver, giving people a considerable shock. So where did all this money in the treasury go after the fall of the dynasty? Let's not talk about the distant Qing Dynasty, just talk about the Qing Dynasty, which is the nearest to us, where did the money in the national treasury go after xuantong abdicated?
As we all know, the national treasury is the lifeblood of the country, whether it is marching to fight a war or allocating funds for disaster relief, it is inseparable from the silver stored in the national treasury. Once there is a shortage of silver in the national treasury, it is likely to lead to national unrest. Therefore, the rulers of successive dynasties attached great importance to the amount of silver stored in the national treasury. This point of the Qing Dynasty is no exception, its most famous is the Yongzheng Emperor to rectify the administration of officials, the recovery of the treasury to borrow silver, at that time Yongzheng in order to recover the silver returned to the national treasury, the fierce move offended many ministers. However, his achievements were also very remarkable, and the national treasury bank increased from 8 million taels when he took over the Qing Dynasty to 60 million taels passed to his son Qianlong. It is precisely because Yongzheng attaches great importance to the national treasury that there will be the "Ten Great Martial Arts" that Qianlong later boasted, and some people even say that it is precisely because Yongzheng recovered so much silver that the Qing Dynasty was able to continue for more than a hundred years, which shows the importance of silver deposited in the national treasury.
After Yongzheng, the national treasury silver reached its peak in the Qianlong period, reaching the highest level in history of 73.9 million taels, of course, thanks to his father for giving him a good foundation. However, the Qianlong Emperor was a man of great merit, so after seeing that the amount of silver in the treasury was so large, he began to use it desperately, and wanted to use it to make a name for himself in history, such as his self-proclaimed "Ten Complete Martial Arts" and emulating his grandfather Kangxi in Jiangnan, which cost a lot of money. Therefore, by the Time of Daoguang, the average amount of silver stored in the treasury was about 20 million taels, of course, this is also a lot. After that, everyone knew that the Qing government was bullied by the great powers, signed a series of unequal treaties, and compensated a large amount of silver. So by the time of Xuantong's abdication, how much silver was left in the Qing Dynasty's treasury?
This is really clearly recorded, because the newly established Republic of China government was short of funds, so it hit the idea to the former Qing treasury. In their view, the skinny camel was bigger than the horse, and even if the former Qing Dynasty fell down again, there should be some savings in the national treasury. So they happily went to the treasury before taking stock, but to their astonishment, after checking the entire treasury inside and out, they found ten silver dollars, which made people speechless. So what's going on?
In fact, this is related to the internal peasant uprising and the aggression of the great powers, in order to quell the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Qing Dynasty spent a lot of money; the war with the invaders is even a war to lose tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars, naturally will not be able to make ends meet. From the situation of the late Qing Dynasty's inventory of silver, it can also be seen that the demise of the Qing Dynasty was absolutely normal, because it was almost completely reduced to the spokesman of imperialism, snatching money from the people and then giving it to imperialism. Just as Cixi said: "Measure the material strength of China and the joy of the country", how can such a shameless, incompetent and useless government not be overthrown?