Paper Money

By Sam Jungbluth

Inventor

• The most famous Chinese issuer of paper money was Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor who ruled China at the time. The Mongols were a ban of warriors who took over China for a few hundred years. Kublai Khan established paper money importance by stating that his paper money must be accepted by traders, or they would be executed. For more enforcement of his declaration, he took all gold and silver, even if it was brought in by foreign traders. The famous explorer Marco Polo was impressed by the productivity of the paper money system.

What is Paper Money?

• Paper money is a form of currency that is very handy. Paper currency was first used in the Szechwan province, after a copper shortage. It was most heavily used in the thirteenth century, and was used for the next four hundred years. Paper money is better than gold or silver coins because it weighs almost nothing, and can be less easily forged.

Usage

• Paper money is something that almost every country in the world uses today. People still use paper money as currency, and it is still going strong. The ancient Chinese used it just as we use it today. Today, it has values of one, five, ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred in America.

How it works

• Paper money is very simple. Someone gets a crisp banknote from the bank, which they use to trade with someone else for something. Once the trader gets the banknote from