3 Mithqual - Guangxu Kashgar, San Qian Ka Shen

Kashgar's provincial mint operated under conditions almost entirely disconnected from central Qing authority. Following the reconquest of Xinjiang by Zuo Zongtang in the 1870s and its formal incorporation as a province in 1884, Beijing permitted local minting to continue in traditional Islamic weight standards — the mithqual system — rather than imposing the tael-based coinage used elsewhere. This coin exists precisely because Kashgar's economy remained oriented toward Central Asian trade routes, not toward Shanghai or Guangzhou.

The San Qian Ka Shen designation reflects the Uyghur rendering of the issuing city, a bilingual acknowledgment that this currency was meant to circulate among populations for whom Chinese script alone would not suffice.