3 Mithqual - Guangxu Kashgar, San Qian

Kashgar's provincial mint operated under conditions unlike any other Chinese imperial outpost — geographically isolated in the Tarim Basin, perpetually short of standardized equipment, and subject to local administrative improvisation that made consistent output nearly impossible. The mithqual weight system used here derives from Central Asian Islamic tradition, not the tael system standard elsewhere in Qing coinage, reflecting Kashgar's deeper commercial ties to Kokand and the Fergana Valley than to Beijing.

The 1890s issues from this mint are notorious for irregular flans and uneven striking pressure — not as a quality failure but as a structural reality of how the mint operated.