5000 Cash Da-Qing Baochao

The Da-Qing Baochao notes were introduced in 1853 as part of a desperate fiscal response to the Taiping Rebellion, which had severed the Qing government's access to copper supplies and gutted its ability to mint coins at the scale the economy required. The 5,000 cash denomination is among the highest in the series — an acknowledgment that the smaller values were already losing purchasing power almost immediately upon issue.

Public trust never materialized. Merchants routinely discounted the notes heavily against coin, and by the early 1860s the series had effectively collapsed in practice well before formal withdrawal. The sole security measure was an impressed official seal, which proved easy to counterfeit.