What Fuzhou's 'Tai Fu Piao' Disaster Taught Me About Financial Risk
Honestly, after reading through the Tai Fu Piao archives, I sat there for a while. Fuzhou opened as a treaty port in 1898. Tea exports were booming. Silver dollars were running short. So the local money shops — not the government, not any central bank — got creative and issued their own banknote: Tai Fu Piao. 「Tai」 from Nan Tai, the commercial district. 「Fu」 as a homophone for the foreign Buddha-head silver dollars floating around. Backed by nothing but private credit, and it worked for twenty-five years. ...