Between 1653 and 1657, the Shunzhi Emperor's government experimented with a short-lived coinage reform that placed Chinese characters on the reverse of cash coins — a deliberate departure from the purely Manchu-script reverses introduced at the dynasty's founding. The "Yi Li" inscription denoted a weight standard of one li, an attempt to anchor public trust in the new currency during a period when the Qing were still consolidating control over a largely hostile Han population. The experiment was abandoned by 1657 in favor of a bilingual format.
Between 1653 and 1657, the Shunzhi Emperor's government experimented with a short-lived coinage reform that placed Chinese characters on the reverse of cash coins — a deliberate departure from the purely Manchu-script reverses introduced at the dynasty's founding. The "Yi Li" inscription denoted a weight standard of one li, an attempt to anchor public trust in the new currency during a period when the Qing were still consolidating control over a largely hostile Han population. The experiment was abandoned by 1657 in favor of a bilingual format.