The Guangxu reign (1875–1908) coincided with relentless pressure on the Qing cash system from imported machine-struck copper coinage, which circulated at fractions of the cost to produce traditional cast pieces. Board of Revenue output from this period was chronically inconsistent — the Beijing furnaces were frequently undermanned and underfunded as treasury priorities shifted toward indemnity payments following the Sino-Japanese War and later the Boxer Protocol obligations. The "Boo-dung" mint mark indicates Shandong province attribution, though attributing individual cast cash to specific provincial furnaces in this reign remains genuinely contested among specialists.
The Guangxu reign (1875–1908) coincided with relentless pressure on the Qing cash system from imported machine-struck copper coinage, which circulated at fractions of the cost to produce traditional cast pieces. Board of Revenue output from this period was chronically inconsistent — the Beijing furnaces were frequently undermanned and underfunded as treasury priorities shifted toward indemnity payments following the Sino-Japanese War and later the Boxer Protocol obligations. The "Boo-dung" mint mark indicates Shandong province attribution, though attributing individual cast cash to specific provincial furnaces in this reign remains genuinely contested among specialists.