name sze ch’ao (i.e. bank-notes referring to the weight of silk) dates back to the same time.  At any rate, at a later time, as, under the reign of Kubilai, the issuing of banknotes was decreed, silk was taken as the standard to express the value of silver and 1000 liang silk was estimated = 50 liang (or 1 ting) silver.  Thus, in consequence of those measures, it gradually became a rule to transfer the taxes and rents originally paid in silk, into silver.  The wealth of the Mongol Khans in precious metals was renowned.  The accounts regarding their revenues, however, which we meet with occasionally in Chinese history, do not surprise by their vastness.  In the year 1298, for instance, the amount of the revenue is stated in the Siu t’ung Kien to have been:—­

  19,000 liang of gold = (190,000 liang of silver, according to the
  exchange of that time at the rate of 1 to 10).

  60,000 liang of silver.

  3,600,000 ting of silver in bank-notes (i.e. 180 millions liang);
  altogether 180,250,000 liang of silver.

The number seems indeed very high for that time.  But if the exceedingly low exchange of the bank-notes be taken into consideration, the sum will be reduced to a modest amount.” (Palladius, pp. 50-51.)—­H.  C.]

[Dr. Bretschneider (Hist.  Bot.  Disc., I. p. 4) makes the following remark:—­“Polo states (I. 409) that the Great Kaan causeth the bark of great Mulberry-trees, made into something like paper, to pass for money.”  He seems to be mistaken.  Paper in China is not made from mulberry-trees but from the Broussonetia papyrifera, which latter tree belongs to the same order of Moraceae.  The same fibres are used also in some parts of China for making cloth, and Marco Polo alludes probably to the same tree when stating (II. 108) “that in the province of Cuiju (Kwei chau) they manufacture stuff of the bark of certain trees, which form very fine summer clothing.”—­H.  C.]

[1] Even now there are at least eight different taels (or liangs) in
    extensive use over the Empire, and varying as much as from 96 to 106;
    and besides these are many local taels, with about the same limits
    of variation.—­(Williamson’s Journeys, I. 60.)

[2] [The Archimandrite Palladius (l.c., p. 50, note) says that “the ting
    of the Mongol time, as well as during the reign of the Kin, was a unit
    of weight equivalent to fifty liang, but not to ten liang.  Cf.
    Ch’u keng lu, and Yuen-shi, ch. xcv.  The Yuen pao, which as
    everybody in China knows, is equivalent to fifty liang (taels) of
    silver, is the same as the ancient ting, and the character Yuen
    indicates that it dates from the Yuen Dynasty.”—­H.  C.]

[3] This is also, as regards Customs payments, the system of the
    Government of modern Italy.