1 Cash - Chongzhen Tongbao, northern type, Guang

The Guang mint designation places this cash among issues from Guangzhou during the final, increasingly desperate years of the Chongzhen emperor's reign — a period when the Ming treasury was so depleted by simultaneous campaigns against Manchu incursions in the northeast and Li Zicheng's rebel forces internally that provincial mints were operating with inconsistent metal supplies and diminishing central oversight. Brass composition rather than the traditional bronze reflects exactly that resource pressure.

Chongzhen hanged himself on Coal Hill in 1644 as Li Zicheng's forces entered Beijing, ending production of this type abruptly.