of coins At the time Wu Jingzi's the Scholars was written in the 18th century 3 wén could buy a steamed bun, 4 wén could buy school food, 16 wén was enough for one bowl of noodles, and the annual tuition fee for school could be covered by 2,400 wén, but due to inflation the purchasing power of cash coins would decline in the next century. Effects of the global devaluation of silver Traditionally, scholars of the monetary history of the Qing dynasty, and the Far East as a whole, have often debated whether or not the inflow or outflow of silver leads to an economic boom or an economic depression. Proponents of the classic bimetallic system would suggest that having two metals would dampen the shocks that result from a shortage of either one of the metals used in the economy for doing transactions with and would therefore stabilise the currency system. Besides the movement and flow of physical silver, the price of silver also had an effect on trade and the general economy. Theoretically, "cheap silver" (a term used to denote the relatively low price of silver in international market) can be taken in a bimetallic system or a silver standard system as a sudden and exogenous currency devaluation, and this would then indicate favourable terms of trade for silver standard countries as the devaluation of silver would encourage exports as the price of goods have been reduced, thus making it more favourable for foreign merchants to purchase these goods. The economy and monetary situation of the Qing dynasty from the 1870s onwards seem to contradict this hypothesis. During the 1870s many countries around the world replaced the silver standard with the gold standard, causing old silver coinages to be demonetised lowering the price of silver on a global scale. The demonetisation of silver in many countries not only led to a drop in the price of silver, but also increased the volatility of its price, the unstable exchange also offset some of the benefit from silver depreciation. The new silver deposits discovered in the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada also contributed to the price drop. Countries like Japan, Nguyễn Vietnam, and British India all benefited from this price reduction, but Qing China did not enjoy the benefits as much as other countries. In fact the Qing dynasty, while enjoying greater exports, began to import