Zhang Zuolin's formal inauguration as Grand Marshal of the Republic of China in June 1927 prompted this pattern issue, struck as a prestige piece rather than a circulating coin. He would be dead within a year — assassinated by Kwantung Army officers in June 1928 when Japanese agents detonated explosives beneath his railway car at Huanggutun, an act the Japanese government initially denied and suppressed domestically for years.
As a pattern, Kann#686 never entered general circulation. Surviving examples are rare, and the political circumstances that ended Zuolin's ambitions abruptly terminated any prospect of an official release.
Zhang Zuolin's formal inauguration as Grand Marshal of the Republic of China in June 1927 prompted this pattern issue, struck as a prestige piece rather than a circulating coin. He would be dead within a year — assassinated by Kwantung Army officers in June 1928 when Japanese agents detonated explosives beneath his railway car at Huanggutun, an act the Japanese government initially denied and suppressed domestically for years.
As a pattern, Kann#686 never entered general circulation. Surviving examples are rare, and the political circumstances that ended Zuolin's ambitions abruptly terminated any prospect of an official release.