China - Republic (中華民國) in Numista is used to classify all the coin types minted by various governments, provinces, warlords, and rebels between 1912 and 1949 in China. Coins minted by Japanese puppet states and regimes during this same era are classified under China - Japanese occupation in Numista.
(left) Flag of the Republic of China (1912-1928); (centre) Flag of the Republic of China (1928-); (right) Emblem of the Republic of China ("Blue Sky, White Sun") used from 1928 onwards.
History
For thousands of years of it's millennia-long history, China had been ruled by a series of Imperial dynasties. Internal unrest and defeats by colonial powers had led to the end of the last (Qing) dynasty in 1912, as the Xinhai Revolution, sparked by an uprising in Wuchang, took hold in the provinces of China. Sun Yat-Sen was elected by a provisional assembly to become the first President of China; his first move was to broker with Imperial military commander Yuan Shikai; that if he helped force the abdication of the emperor he would be promised the presidency. This happened as planned, and with Puyi's abdication, the legitimacy of the Republic was thus confirmed, with Yuan becoming president as promised. But unlike his predecessor, Yuan ruled more as a dictator, ignoring democratic process. He even declared himself a new emperor in 1915, after which many of the provinces' governors abandoned his regime, and set about arranging their own affairs; thus an era of provincial warlords began in China.
Sun Yat-Sen (centre) at a ceremony after being selected as President of the Republic of China, 1912
During this so-called "Warlord Era" (approx. 1916-1928), the Republic of China only had de facto control over an area around Beijing, known as the "Beiyang Government". This was the government that Yuan Shikai had taken over, and that the warlords had deserted from; thus the Republic's original founder, Sun Yat-Sen retired south and re-formed his Kuomintang (KMT) party as a rival government to the Beiyang government up north. These two factions would vie for power and favour with the various provincial warlords, but the KMT would see more success, particularly amongst Chinese intellectuals, as the Beiyang government's unpopular attempt to join the Allies of WWI (notably contributing the Chinese Labour Corps to the Western Front) and failure to re-claim the German colony of Tsingtao (given to Japan instead, until 1922) in the Treaty of Versailles, at the Paris Peace Conference (1919) led to student protests against it, such as the May Fourth movement's protests that same year, with oppositional support for the Chinese Communist Party (CPC; founded 1921) also growing amongst rural areas.
Rough map of the warlords' alliances and factions in the mid-1920s; the blue blobs in the south represent the KMT, based in Canton.
Sun Yat-Sen died in 1925, and a disciple of his, Chiang Kai-Shek assumed quasi-dictatorial leadership of the KMT. The following year Chiang launched a military campaign north to defeat the Beiyang Government once and for all, with the help of the CPC also opposed to the Beiyang, as well as aid from the USSR. This campaign unified the country (nominally; warlords that supported Chiang could continue to rule de jure) under the KMT by 1928, with the new government being established in Nanking. However, the year before, Chiang had attempted to purge the Communists in the Shanghai Massacre, and thus began the Chinese Civil War between Chiang's KMT and the now-antagonised CPC. Frequently the KMT's superior forces would triumph, but guerilla tactics made it hard to pin down the Communists; after a narrow escape (the Long March) from encirclement in 1934, Mao Zedong would emerge as a leader for the CPC. Regardless, the years 1928-37 are seen as the Republic of China's most prosperous years, with the Communists being only a minor background distraction (for now). The remaining warlords were (relatively) in step with the KMT, and a focus on modernising China's industries meant China finally looked set to join the world of the 20th century.
Map of China in the prosperous "Nanking decade" (approx. 1928-37); the area directly controlled by the KMT in blue, with various warlord factions in pink. Far-flung areas claimed by the Republic like Xinjiang and Tibet were almost completely uncontrolled by the KMT.
But it was not to be; for decades before the rising power of Japan had taken advantage of China's decline to expand it's influence in the area, having annexed Taiwan in 1895 and Korea in 1910. After a military coup in 1930, the Japanese Kwantung Army staged the Mukden Incident the following year, claiming China had sabotaged a Japanese railway; thus this was used as an excuse to occupy Manchuria, which was turned into Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state (ruled by Puyi, formerly the last Qing Emperor). Despite international condemnation by the League of Nations, Japan attempted to bombard Shanghai in 1932, but was repulsed; and in 1933 Jehol province was annexed, bringing on an uneasy truce with the KMT. The KMT responded with plans to democratise the Republic of China, such as drawing up a constitution to convince the warlords to cosy up to the KMT and help further centralisation and national unity to resist Japan. However Chiang's intransigence towards these efforts proved frustrating, and in 1936 some of his own subordinates kidnapped him and forced him to negotiate a "Unified Front" with his enemies the Communists against a common enemy, Japan.
Chiang Kai-Shek (right) and Mao Zedong (left) toasting to the United Front in a public ceremony, 1936-7.
Sensing that it was now or never, in July 1937 the Japanese seized the Marco Polo Bridge incident to launch a full-scale invasion of China. Many northern cities quickly fell to the Japanese army, and by the new year of 1938, Japan had occupied the key cities of Shanghai and Nanking, aerial bombing the first and massacring civilians in the second. Japan's superior navy meant that by the time war began in Europe (September 1939), the Japanese controlled much of China's coast. The interior proved hard to control, however, as guerillas and partisans harassed Japanese troops and supply trains. The government moved inland to Chungking, and the industrial and professional components of the Chinese home front and war effort retreated with it, trading space for time. Meanwhile the Japanese established a series of puppet governments in the parts of China they controlled, such as the one under collaborator Wang Jingwei. The war in China proved costly; as even after the USA entered the war in December 1941 after Pearl Harbour, over half of Japan's war resources were spent in an endless battle with Chinese partisans in the countryside. China's situation improved as the Allies joined it's war against Japan from 1942 onwards (linking the Second Sino-Japanese war with the European theatre of WWII), with supplies coming in from British Burma. Despite this a significant amount of land remained occupied until Japan's surrender in September 1945, after which China became a member of the permanent security council of the new United Nations.
Map of the largest extent of Japanese occupation in China during WWII; 1940. Control of many rural areas fluctuated constantly between the Japanese and partisans, and are unmarked.
Shortly after the end of WWII, the wartime "United Front" between the Communists and KMT rapidly fell apart. The KMT was the internationally recognised government; but corruption within the party contrasted rapidly with the CPC' popularity and reputation for fighting the Japanese avidly. Even before the war's end both the KMT and CPC had begun diverting resources for future conflict against each other; when the USSR occupied Manchuria towards the end of the war in May 1945, they had captured significant amounts of Japanese weaponry; this and Manchuria were handed over to the CPC as a base for operations in the upcoming, resumed Civil War. In 1947 conflict broke out, and this time a strategic base, good weapons, and Soviet support meant that the Communists now had the upper hand; by mid-1948 the tide had turned definitively with the CPC's capture of Tianjin and refugees began to flee south to escape the CPC. By the end of 1949, the CPC had effective control over the entirety of China's mainland, and Chiang's KMT fled to the island of Taiwan, where it remains today, still called the "Republic of China", commonly referred to as "Taiwan". On the 1st of October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Beijing, which remains China's form of government as of the present day.
Currency
By the end of it's existence the Qing dynasty had adopted a Yuan currency at par with the Mexican silver peso, in 1889. This Yuan would continue to be the basis for the Republic of China's currency, although the "cash" coins that had been used in China for over 2000 years were discontinued in favour of more modern, Western-style coinage. The traditional "cash" denominations (mace, candareens) used on Qing Yuan currency were removed from Republican issues; as early as 1913 coins can be found denominated 10 and 20 cents (formerly called 7.2 candareens and 1 mace 4.4 candareens respectively).
(left) The last cash coin ever issued in China; this piece is attributed to the Republic (民國) (centre) example of a decimalised denomination coin; a Kwangtung province issue; (right) Commemorative "Memento" issue of the Republic's founding, 1912 depicting Sun Yat-Sen.
From the early issues of the Republic onwards it is clear that the divided status of China affected the coins minted by various provinces; these differences vary from subtle design/die variations, to completely different designs; for example the coins from Kwangsi and Kwangtung province both are very similar, but Fukien province's coins bear a completely different design. Sometimes local warlords would leave their mark on a coin; examples include the Beiyang-issued Yuan Shikai's "Fat Man" coins.
(left)(centre) Examples of the reverses of Kwangsi and Kwangtung 20 cent coins being identical; (right) Another example of a warlord's profile on a coin; this one is of Tang Jiyao, a warlord of Yunnan Province.
Throughout all of this the Yuan established in 1889 was still the standard for Chinese coins; the "Fat Man Dollars" and "Junk Dollars" minted by the Republic were to similar specifications to Yuan (or 7 Mace 2 Candareens) silver coins minted in the last years of the Qing. The nominal unification of China after Chiang Kai-Shek's 1926 Northern Expedition lead to the establishment of a series of "national" Yuan coins not attributed to a province; thus the 1936 series of coins bearing Lin Sen's (Chairman of the Republic) profile was issued, legal tender everywhere in China. These coins came about after China left the gold standard in 1935, thus leading to a devaluation of the Yuan. In the provinces, however, provincial coinage continued to be minted by various warlords until after WWII.
(left) 1932 variant of the Junk dollar, modified because the birds looked like planes and the sun was a symbol of Japan. (centre) 1934 1 Yuan, minted by the CPC in Sichuan-Shaanxi (right) 1936 20 cents/2 jiao coin of the national Lin Sen issue. Chinese Republican issues are usually dated in the Chinese Republican calendar; add to 1911 to find date.
During WWII, Japanese puppet states (Manchukuo, Mengjiang, East Hopei, the Reformed Government of the Republic of China) issued their own coins; the latter two have their coins dated much the same way Republican issues do. Then during the war, the currency was devalued even further, with aluminium versions of the Lin Sen national coinage coming out in the early 1940s, with large amounts of currency printing after the war leading to inflation. Various revaluations in the late 1940s occurred, but it was only with the installation of the modern Renminbi by the CPC after the Republic of China had fled to Taiwan that the currency stabilised.
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/chine_republique-1.html
