f China to their own country. This produced a general
impoverishment of China. Chinese merchants fell more and more into
dependence on the foreign merchants; the only field of action really
remaining to them was the local trade within China and the trade with
Indo-China, where the Chinese had the advantage of knowing the language.

The impoverishment of China began with the flow abroad of her metallic
currency. To make up for this loss, the government was compelled to
issue great quantities of paper money, which very quickly depreciated,
because after a few years the government would no longer accept the
money at its face value, so that the population could place no faith in
it. The depreciation further impoverished the people.

Thus we have in the Mongol epoch in China the imposing picture of a
commerce made possible with every country from Europe to the Pacific;
this, however, led to the impoverishment of China. We also see the
rising of mighty temples and monumental buildings, but this again only
contributed to the denudation of the country. The Mongol epoch was thus
one of continual and rapid impoverishment in China, simultaneously with
a great display of magnificence. The enthusiastic descriptions of the
Mongol empire in China offered by travellers from the Near East or from
Europe, such as Marco Polo, give an entirely false picture: as
foreigners they had a privileged position, living in the cities and
seeing nothing of the situation of the general population.

5 _Popular risings: National rising_

It took time for the effects of all these factors to become evident. The
first popular rising came in 1325. Statistics of 1329 show that there
were then some 7,600,000 persons in the empire who were starving; as
this was only the figure of the officially admitted sufferers, the
figure may have been higher. In any case, seven-and-a-half millions were
a substantial percentage of the total population, estimated at
45,000,000. The risings that now came incessantly were led by men of the
lower orders--a cloth-seller, a fisherman, a peasant, a salt smuggler,
the son of a soldier serving a sentence, an office messenger, and so on.
They never attacked the Mongols as aliens, but always the rich in
general, whether Chinese or foreign. Wherever they came, they killed all
the rich and distributed their money and possessions.

As already mentioned, the Mongol garrisons were unable to cope with
these risings. But how was it tha