In 1912, the Du Branch Mint was merged with the Du Branch Mint Tianjin Factory (formerly the Beiyang Silver Dollar Bureau) and renamed the "Tianjin Mint General Mint of the Ministry of Finance of China". The Mint of the Degree Branch is called the West Factory, which specializes in minting copper dollars, and the Mint of the Original Branch is called the East Factory, which specializes in minting silver dollars. The factory is well-organized and well-machined, and can be called the largest mint in the country. In the 3rd year of the Republic of China (1914), Wu Dingchang, then Minister of Finance of the Kuomintang Government and Supervisor of the General Mint, inscribed the four-character amount of "General Mint" for the factory.
In February 1914, according to the promulgated Regulations of the Republic of China on National Currency, the silver coin of Yuan Shikai's head (commonly known as Yuan Datou) was the national currency.
"Yuan Datou" minted a large number, from 1914 to 1917 a total of more than 180 million yuan, since Hangzhou, Nanjing and Wuchang branch casting, estimated that its total circulation is more than 590 million yuan. The coin was widely circulated in China's vast territory for 10 years.
On March 12, 1923, the Nationalist Government announced the type of national currency by presidential edict, commonly known as the "Dragon and Phoenix Coins". During the Republic of China, the Mint also minted a variety of gold and silver coins in the nature of specimen coins and commemorative coins. For example, commemorative coins were minted for Sun Yat-sen, Yuan Shikai, Xu Shichang, Cao Kun, Duan Qirui, Chu Yupu, Zhang Zuolin, Zhang Xueliang and other dignitaries and celebrities, and the mintage was relatively small.
In 1927, after the victory of the Northern Expedition, the government of the Republic of China banned the minting of Yuan Shikai's head silver dollar, and replaced it with a new coin of Sun Yat-sen's head. The factory began to mint silver coins of Sun Yat-sen's head in 1920, and minted more than 9,000 yuan in 1929.
In the early days of the Republic of China, the mint resumed the minting of copper dollars. In 1919, 500,000 copper dollars were minted every day, and by 1922, the number of copper coins was as high as 500-6 million pieces per day. In 1922 alone, about 850 million bronze dollars were minted in 20 and 10 copper dollars. Due to the increasingly inferior quality, coupled with the provincial mints minting cheap, insufficient, low-fineness copper dollars flooded the city of Tianjin, so the copper dollars were repeatedly depreciated, and the minting of copper dollars was no longer profitable, coupled with the strong resistance of the merchants, the mint began to stop minting in 1927.
In 1935, in order to invade and occupy North China, Japan actively instigated the so-called "autonomy movement" in the five provinces of North China. In December of the same year, the Kuomintang government decided to set up an "autonomous" regime in Beiping, which was essentially independent of the Nanjing government——— and the Jicha Political Affairs Committee, with Song Zheyuan, the former commander of the Kuomintang Pingjin garrison, as its chairman. In 1936, the former mint was commissioned to produce copper dollars from the "autonomous" regime.
In 1940, the Mint ceased operations. The establishment and development of the Mint has an important position and role in the financial history of the mainland.
In the 16th year of the Republic of China (1927), after the establishment of the National Government, it was re-established in order to mint the national currency and unify the currency system. In the 17th year of the Republic of China (1927), the Ministry of Finance ordered the provincial mints to stop minting, centralized the Ministry of Finance, renamed the Mint as the Central Mint, and established a supervisory committee to be responsible for clearing the debts of the Mint during the preparation period. In the 19th year of the Republic of China (1930), the debt was cleared, and the construction of the plant, the installation of equipment and various supporting projects were completed one after another. In the 21st year of the Republic of China (1932), when preparations were being made, the "January 28th" War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in Shanghai, and the factory came to a halt.
In the 22nd year of the Republic of China (1933), the national government promulgated the silver standard coin minting regulations, "abolishing the two and changing the yuan", so the silver dollar was officially minted on March l, and in the 24th year of the Republic of China (1935), the government promulgated the auxiliary currency regulations and recast auxiliary coins. Until the 27th year of the Republic of China (1938), after the outbreak of the "August 13" Anti-Japanese War, the casting was stopped, and the production lasted for more than 5 years. During the Anti-Japanese War, the factory site was occupied by the Japanese army and used as a ammunition warehouse, and the factory was forced to move inward. The Central Mint set up offices in Chongqing, and successively set up branches in Wuchang, Chengdu, Guilin, Lanzhou and Kunming.
Due to soaring prices, the depreciation of fiat currency, and the cost of auxiliary currency exceeding the face value, the production of auxiliary currency in the branches soon came to a halt, and they all relied on other products to make ends meet. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the branches in various places were closed one after another. On March 10, the 35th year of the Republic of China (1946), it received the Shanghai Central Mint, and after two years of planning and renovation, it resumed minting on October 10, the 37th year of the Republic of China (1948). At that time, Shanghai was close to liberation, prices skyrocketed, currency depreciated, and minting production was in a state of semi-shutdown. On May 5, the 38th year of the Republic of China (1949), the Nationalist Government secretly ordered the Central Mint to move to Taiwan, so on May 16 and May 18, important materials and archives were shipped to Taiwan, and the main technical staff also went to Taiwan.
In the 29 years before the liberation, the factory was built for 13 years, the Anti-Japanese War moved to the interior for 8 years, the factory was restored for 2 years, and only 6 years of intermittent production before and after, the main production technology was dependent on foreign countries, and the progress was slow.
On May 28, 1949, the Financial Department of the Shanghai Military Control Commission of the Chinese People's Liberation Army sent military representatives to take over the Central Mint and renamed it the People's Mint. In August of the same year, the People's Mint was ordered to close and establish a custodian committee to deal with the aftermath.