Ming Currency Collapse

1415

The Yongle Emperor's paper money, backed by nothing but imperial authority, inflated to uselessness after years of mistrust and overprinting. The Ming economy shifted irreversibly to silver, setting up the great sixteenth-century trade that would drain Potosi's Peruvian silver mines through Manila into Chinese treasury vaults. Merchants demanded copper coins or unminted silver, creating an informal standard that made China the world's largest sink for precious metals.