10 Cash - Xianfeng Tongbao, Boo-fu

The Xianfeng-era large cash issues were an emergency fiscal measure, not a planned currency reform. The Taiping Rebellion had severed supply routes and drained imperial reserves so severely that Beijing authorized provincial mints to strike inflated-denomination coins — 10, 50, 100, even 1000 cash — to cover expenditures without actual bullion. The Fuzhou Board of Revenue mint was among the less prolific of these operations, and its output for this denomination reflects the logistical strain: brass rather than the traditional bronze alloy, inconsistent flans, and a relatively short production window before the policy collapsed under its own inflationary weight.

By 1855 the large cash experiment was effectively abandoned, the coins having lost public confidence almost immediately upon issue.