Late Middle Ages · East Asia · Politics

1355

Jacquerie of the Cloth: Chinese paper money collapses

1355

Yuan attempts to cover military expenses by printing paper currency reached their limit as confidence in the notes evaporated. Prices spiraled; merchants refused the notes, demanding silver or barter. Peasant discontent compounded natural disasters and religious millenarianism. Within a decade the Red Turban revolts would have made Yuan authority a fiction across most of China south of the Yangtze.