Yuan Paper Currency Depreciation Crisis

Timeline

1. 1294–1333Dadu · North ChinaChengzong and Wuzong successively diverted the gold, silver, and note reserves of the exchange bureaus in each circuit to reward nobles. The Dazhi silver note was briefly issued and then abolished. Salt prices rose in four stages, remaining high after 1314, and Yuan notes had become irredeemable fiat currency.
2. 1333–1335Dadu · North ChinaIn the fourth year of Zhishun, salt tax revenue reached a peak of about 7.6 million ingots, accounting for eighty percent of central finances; military expenditure and official salaries were all paid in paper money. After Shun Emperor's accession politics were briefly stable, but the accumulated flaws of the note system remained, and printing notes was still the primary means of fiscal financing.
3. 1339Circuits throughout the realm · ChinaDuring the Zhiyuan era, counterfeit notes proliferated and worn notes flooded the market, and barter gradually replaced paper money in circulation. The growing gap between goods' value and notes' value worsened, private salt smugglers and popular uprisings sprang up everywhere, and the credit of Yuan notes neared collapse; the Zhizheng note reform of 1350 could no longer reverse the tide.