Banknotes of the Da Qing Bank

The banknotes of the Da-Qing Bank were intended to become the main form of paper money of the Qing dynasty following the bank's establishment in 1905. The Da-Qing Bank had branches throughout China and many of its branches outside of its headquarters in Beijing also issued banknotes.

These banknotes were stipulated to become the only legal tender paper money in China in 1910, but due to the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 the Chinese currency system reverted to its original chaotic state during the early Republican era and the Da-Qing Bank would be reorganized as the Bank of China in 1912, which would continue to produce banknotes in Mainland China until 1942 and its Hong Kong branch is still one of the official note-issuing banks for the banknotes of the Hong Kong dollar today.

The Da-Qing Bank was the first official financial institution in the history of China to fulfill the functions of a central bank.

During the transition from Ming to Qing the Manchu government issued banknotes to finance its expensive military campaigns, but following their conquest of China they abolished these banknotes. Under the reign of the Xianfeng Emperor the Great Qing Treasure Note (大清寶鈔) copper-alloy cash coins-based banknotes and Hubu Guanpiao (戶部官票) silver tael-based banknotes were introduced in response to the Taiping Rebellion, but these banknotes would suffer severe inflation due to mismanagement and were eventually abolished causing the Chinese populace to distrust government-issued paper money once again, though private banknotes would continue to be trusted and to circulate.

Following the opening up of many treaty port cities of China after its defeat during the First Opium War during the 1840s, a large number of major foreign banks entered China and started issuing their own banknotes there for local circulation. During this same era provincial governments started setting up their own official banks to enhance their financial resources. The boom of financial institutions during this era meant that various forms of paper money, private banknotes, foreign banknotes, and many different kinds of local coinages circulated concurrently creating a very chaotic Chinese currency system. During the later part of the Qing dynasty era there was a discussion on whether or not the imperial Chinese government would have to establish a national bank which it finally did in 1905. Peng Shu (彭述) stated before the introduction of new banknotes that the national bank would have to keep sufficient reserves in "touchable" money (現金) at all times. The large number of private notes that were being produced all over the empire was to be restricted by introducing a stamp duty (印花稅). The reformer Liang Qichao campaigned for the government of the Qing dynasty to emulate the Western world and Japan by embracing the gold standard, unify refractory the currencies of China, and issue government-backed banknotes with a ⅓ metallic reserve. In order to unify the national currency system, in 1905, the government of the Qing dynasty established the "Great Qing Bank of the Ministry of Revenue" (大清戶部銀行) in Beijing, becoming the earliest officially opened national bank in China. The newly established national bank had a dual nature of being both a central bank and a commercial bank. The production of the banknotes was entrusted to the prints of the Beiyang Newspaper (北洋報局) in Northern China. In 1906 the government of the Qing dynasty sent students to Japan to be educated about modern printing techniques, with the aim to have the Shanghai Commercial Press (上海商務印書館) print the cheques of the Ministry's Bank.

The Da-Qing Bank issued two different types of banknotes, one series was denominated in "tael" (兩), these were known as the Yinliang Piao (銀兩票) and had the denominations of 1 tael, 5 taels, 10 taels, 50 taels, and 100 taels. The other series was denominated in "yuan" and were known as Yinyuan Piao (銀元票) and were issued in the denominations of 1 yuan, 5 yuan, 10 yuan, 50 yuan, and 100 yuan.

In 1908, the Great Qing Bank of the Ministry of Revenue changed its name to the Da-Qing Bank (大清銀行) and the inscriptions of the banknotes issued by it had to be changed to reflect its new name. The banknotes issued before the name change were all printed by the Beiyang Newspaper. Because there is no advanced engraving technology for banknotes in China at the time and the banknotes that were printed by the Beiyang Newspaper's commercial press were both expensive to make and easy to imitate, the government of the Qing dynasty had later commissioned the American Bank Note Company to print new banknotes for the Da-Qing Bank.

The banknotes produced by the Da-Qing Bank printed by the American Bank Note Company featured an image of Li Hongzhang on their obverse sides and were subsequently known as "Li Hongzhang notes" (李鴻章像券) to the Chinese public. However, due to the turbulent situation that arose after the death of the Guangxu Emperor and the miscommunications the "Li Hongzhang notes" were printed in various forms and the circulation was chaotic.