在一个半多世纪以前,上海不过是江南沿海的一个中等县城,航运事业并不发达,连修座堤防的财力都没有。鸦片战争后于1842年签订的南京条约,上海被列为通商口岸之一,从此改变了上海的命运,今日已成中国经济及金融中心。当中国于1890年前后开始以机器制造钱币时,上海并未赶上这股热潮,使用的仍是以鹰洋为主的外国银元,或外地制造的江南、湖北、广东等各省龙银。 More than a century and a half ago, Shanghai was only a middle-class county along the coast of southern China. Shipping business was underdeveloped. Since the Treaty of Nanking was signed in 1842 after the Opium War, Shanghai was listed as one of the ports of commerce and changed the fate of Shanghai. Today it has become China’s economic and financial center. When China started making money by machine around 1890, Shanghai did not catch up with the boom. It used still foreign silver dollars dominated by Eagle-yang or other provinces such as Jiangnan, Hubei and Guangdong.