In the twenty-seventh year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty, Yang Rong, formerly an official of the Imperial Kitchen Directorate, went to Yunnan as a tax commissioner.
Ming emperors placed great trust in eunuchs. Once these eunuchs were dispatched to the provinces, they plundered gold and silver from the people, invented pretexts for harsh levies and extortion, seized land in the name of opening mines, and demolished civilian homes. These arrogant envoys provoked resistance among the people everywhere.
Mining copper was extremely grueling work. Although the Spanish had already brought South American silver into the Ming dynasty, copper coins remained the primary currency in local circulation, while silver was mainly used for long-distance settlements.
The Ming dynasty's copper coins were minted at the Baoyuan Bureau within Beijing, directly under the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works. The money was chiefly used to pay military salaries before being distributed across the regions. Most soldiers received large quantities of copper coins where they were stationed, resulting in places like frontier outposts having more coins than they could spend, while economically developed areas suffered from insufficient supplies of copper coinage.
The Qing dynasty later reformed the system and permitted each region to mint its own copper coins. This created other problems. For instance, the exchange rate between copper coins and silver in Zhili differed from that in places like Guangzhou, making fair dealings with foreign merchants difficult.
The greatest difference between land-based and maritime powers was transportation. Maritime powers could ship food, porcelain, and other "ballast goods" by sea, while land-based powers found transporting such things exceedingly laborious and expensive. Freight costs became a major expense, and money was not the only issue; manpower was needed as well. After working hard for an entire day, copper miners might not