10 Cash - Xianfeng Zhongbao, Boo-je

The Xianfeng reign's cash coinage represents one of the most chaotic monetary episodes in Qing history. The Taiping Rebellion, which had erupted in 1850 and effectively severed southern revenue streams, forced the court to authorize increasingly debased and inflated cash denominations — this 10-cash piece among them — in a desperate attempt to cover military expenditures without adequate silver reserves. The Board of Revenue Mint in Beijing was at the center of this experiment, issuing multiple denominations simultaneously across a handful of supervised mints.

Quality control collapsed almost immediately. Brass content varied considerably across the production run, and contemporary accounts from the period note widespread refusal of higher-denomination cash by merchants who had no confidence in official valuations.