Yuan Shikai was proclaimed emperor and was opposed by the people, but the Yuan Datou he ordered to be cast was recognized.
In 1915, Yuan Shikai announced to the whole country that he would restore the imperial system, which was unanimously opposed by the whole country, and even his most trusted subordinates did not support Yuan Shikai as emperor.
Yuan Shikai's dream of becoming emperor was shattered after just over two months, and he couldn't afford to fall ill, and he passed away soon after, and all Yuan Shikai's influence dissipated.
However, Yuan Datou, which was issued by Yuan Shikai, has been able to circulate in the society and even become a currency truly recognized by the people.
So why didn't Yuan Datou, who was originally Yuan Shikai's expansion of influence, disappear with Yuan Shikai's death? Why was Yuan Datou so popular among the people?
01
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the people had been circulating real money and silver, but due to the invasion of foreign powers, a large amount of wealth was seized on the mainland, and the Qing Dynasty's control over the local area was greatly weakened.
In order to maintain their own military spending, some feudal officials or warlords not only issued currency indiscriminately, but even used various means to accumulate wealth, and the people in the country suffered unspeakably.
Throughout the late Qing Dynasty, the country's finances were a mess, and Sun Yat-sen had the idea of reforming the currency system in the early stage of the revolution, and even after becoming president, he immediately proposed to take back the right to mint coins.
In order to straighten out the country's finances, Sun Yat-sen specially contacted a person - Tao Dekun, who was not only a good friend of Sun Yat-sen, but also Yuan Datou and the second version of the renminbi issued after the establishment of New China.
When Sun Yat-sen raised the banner of anti-Qing Dynasty, Tao Dekun joined it, and Sun Yat-sen cherished his talent very much, after all, he studied economic and monetary science in the United States.
But when Sun Yat-sen was president, Tao Dekun was still working in Hubei, Sun Yat-sen didn't say a word, and immediately called Tao Dekun to Nanjing and stayed in the Ministry of Finance.
At that time, Tao Dekun proposed to use Sun Yat-sen's portrait to mint a batch of founding commemorative coins, which was recognized by the society and welcomed by the people.
Later, Yuan Shikai stole the fruits of the revolution, and Tao Dekun was forced to go to Beijing to do things for Yuan Shikai, and Yuan Shikai advocated promoting currency reform in order to improve his prestige and end the economic chaos since the end of the Qing Dynasty.
In fact, Yuan Shikai has a deeper plan, that is, to use the currency reform to find a source for his military spending, but for the people, the unification of the currency system is also very beneficial to the people.
So Yuan Shikai found Tao Dekun and expressed his idea of unifying the currency system, Tao Dekun was not interested in Yuan Shikai, first, he won the fruits of victory from his good friend Sun Yat-sen, and secondly, Yuan Shikai's ambition to be emperor became clearer and clearer.
But Yuan Shikai's currency reform is indeed a good thing for the benefit of the country and the people, so this time Tao Dekun put aside his prejudices and helped Yuan Shikai stabilize the domestic economic problems.
After months of preparation, Yuan Shikai formed a currency committee and established a currency system that would continue to use the silver standard, thereby regulating the economic situation of the whole country.
During this period, Yuan Shikai found Tao Dekun again, Tao Dekun thought it was an economic problem, but when he asked, he found out that it was Yuan Shikai who wanted to print his head on the silver dollar.
At that time, some people advocated printing the portrait of Sun Yat-sen, which made Yuan Shikai deeply uneasy, and for his hegemony, it was best to have his portrait of Yuan Shikai on the silver dollar.
Tao Dekun didn't want to waste time arguing about whose avatar to print, so he directly agreed to Yuan Shikai's request, so the silver dollar printed with Yuan Shikai appeared on the market.
So how did this currency come into circulation?
02
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the currency of the whole country was chaotic, but Yuan Datou was able to unify the whole country economically.
This period was a period of struggle for power by major forces, why did Yuan Shikai's support for the issuance of Yuan Datou make all major forces choose to accept it?
We can see from the decree issued at that time, the first point is that the right to mint money should be returned to the state, and the local government should no longer mint money privately.
If this is mentioned alone, many warlords would still not be willing to hand over the power of coinage, but at that time, Yuan Shikai had the most elite army in the country, and most of the warlords were his subordinates, so this point had to be observed locally.
Also, in order to end the currency circulating in the market as soon as possible, the government stipulates that within a certain period of time, as long as the old currency is exchanged, you can get Yuan Datou of the same value, but after this time, it can only be converted.
This point undoubtedly made those old coins minted privately have been legally recognized, and for a time, the people of the whole country took the old coins to the banks to exchange silver dollars, and for a time the old coins in most big cities disappeared.
In addition, the content of silver dollars is regulated, and in order to reduce wear and tear, the minted silver dollars are added with 10% copper, so that the silver dollars are no longer easy to destroy.
And this is an important reason why silver dollars are in circulation, and even now, these silver dollars are well preserved and more durable than paper money.
On the front is the head of Yuan Shikai, and on the back is printed with Jiahe ornaments, and the name of Yuan Datou is also like this, and the silver dollar is minted under the unified arrangement of the government.
In order to win the voice of the people, Yuan Shikai even ordered the mint not to cut corners, but if the test failed, it would be melted down and re-minted.
Although Yuan Shikai was to improve his prestige, the strict regulatory system made Yuan Datou's value very stable, and he was deeply loved by the people as soon as it came out.
Later, in order to commemorate Sun Yat-sen, Tao Dekun presided over the distribution of some silver coins printed with Sun Yat-sen's head, which were often considered counterfeit in the market.
Although it was a silver dollar, there were also people who chose not to accept the silver dollar with the portrait of Sun Yat-sen, but there was no way, and after a small number of silver dollars were minted, the issuance of these silver dollars was stopped, and then the issuance of Yuan Datou continued.
Later, Yuan Shikai ascended the throne and became emperor, and the whole country jointly crusaded against Yuan Shikai and took the initiative to abolish various unreasonable policies of Yuan Shikai, but the people did not cancel Yuan Datou because of this, because Yuan Datou has been accepted by the people.
Yuan Shikai never thought that what would make him continue to be known to people was the silver dollar he advocated minting.
By the time of the May Fourth Movement, an anti-imperialist storm had been set off throughout the country, and the society vigorously boycotted foreign silver dollars, and the Shanghai guild directly stated that it would only accept Yuan Datou in the future, and would not approve foreign silver coins, which undoubtedly once again promoted the circulation of silver dollars in China.
Even after the establishment of New China, silver dollars were still minted in the southwest of the mainland, and what was going on?
03
In 1951, two years after the founding of New China, Yuan Datou was still being cast in the southwest.
At this time, New China had been established for two years, so why was the mainland still casting Yuan Datou in the southwest? What was going on behind this?
Since the issuance of Yuan Datou, the mainland's economic environment has achieved rare stable development, but internationally, the economic environment has indeed been changing.
First of all, countries gave up the silver standard, and the United States introduced a bill to increase the price of silver in the United States.
As a result, the price of silver in China was raised in the United States, which directly led to the price of silver in China being lower than that in the United States, and the capitalists in the United States smelled business opportunities and wantonly purchased silver from the mainland and shipped it to the United States, causing a large amount of silver to flow out of the mainland.
The people were also afraid that they would suffer from turmoil, so they exchanged them for silver, and the government of the Republic of China fell into a silver crisis for a while, in order to get rid of this crisis.
The Nationalist Government decided to carry out currency reform, issue legal tender to collect domestic silver, prevent the outflow of silver, and have a certain stabilizing effect on the country's economy in a short period of time.
But this also laid the foundation for Chiang Kai-shek's plundering of wealth in the future, and in addition, the silver dollar could still be circulated in society, because the silver dollar did not depreciate, but formed a very stable state in society.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek brazenly launched a civil war, and the huge military expenditure had already made Chiang Kai-shek miserable, in order to solve this problem, Chiang Kai-shek had to add money, which led to a sharp depreciation of paper money and fell into a vicious circle.
Chiang Kai-shek's approach was unanimously opposed by the people, and on the eve of Chiang Kai-shek's defeat in 1948, he had to re-order the restoration of the silver standard, and Yuan Datou began to be minted again throughout the country.
By 1949, when our army marched all over the country, these people did not know enough about our party and did not trust the banknotes issued by the party central committee.
They were afraid that the banknotes issued by our party would eventually become worthless, just like Chiang Kai-shek's gold yuan, so in these places, the people would rather ask for Yuan Datou than use the banknotes issued by our party.
Our party also knew that the people also needed time to adapt, so they did not enforce the issuance of banknotes, but continued to manufacture Yuan Datou in the Shenyang Foundry and circulated them in the newly liberated areas.
At that time, due to the fact that the Kuomintang had long stopped casting Yuan Datou, our party not only snared the old workers everywhere, but also found molds in the warehouse that had not been used for more than 30 years.
After being repaired and put into use, its image is still the head of Yuan Shikai used, so as to facilitate the recognition of the people in the newly liberated areas.
In 1951, in order for the People's Liberation Army to enter Tibet in the future, the Chengdu Mint minted a batch of Yuan Datou that was widely circulated in Tibet, in order to protect the interests of the local people and allow them to have a transitional period.
According to statistics, Yuan Datou printed and distributed more than 700 million pieces on the mainland, and if you count other versions of silver dollars, it is about 1.1 billion.
At that time, Tao Dekun, who cast Yuan Shikai's head for Yuan Shikai, did not follow Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan Province, and after the liberation of Nanjing, he deeply felt Chiang Kai-shek's destruction of the national economy and took the initiative to help our party fix the economic environment.
In 1954, Tao Dekun used his years of economic knowledge to write a method for improving the renminbi, and the proposal to adopt a small denomination was praised by Chairman Mao.
And with his efforts, the second version of the renminbi was designed, which was recognized by Premier Zhou, and Chairman Mao was happy and directly rewarded Tao Dekun with 3 million yuan, which is equivalent to the new version of 300 yuan, which is also a large amount.
In 1955, the second version of the renminbi was implemented by the central government and circulated throughout the country, and some areas that used silver dollars also completely abandoned the use, and these Yuan Datou became collectibles.
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