The Chang Dashi of Qing Minting Factories

A mint office, not a diplomatic envoy

The *chang dashi* was an official serving in the coin-casting factories of the Qing capital's Baoquan Bureau, administered under the Ministry of Revenue. Despite the characters translated elsewhere as “great envoy” or “ambassador,” the title had no modern diplomatic meaning. The Baoquan Bureau maintained four metropolitan factories designated eastern, western, southern, and northern; their factory officials were distinct from the bureau's own *dashi*.

The *Draft History of Qing*, juan 114, separately lists the bureau officer and the four factory officers. It describes changes in appointments, including the addition of four posts in 1726 and their designation as Manchu appointments by 1729. The *Imperially Commissioned Tables of Official Offices through the Dynasties* (*Qinding lidai zhiguan biao*), juan 16, supplies further institutional detail: coin production in the capital was divided between the Ministry of Revenue's Baoquan Bureau and the Ministry of Works' Baoyuan Bureau, each supervised through its ministry.

Staffing and institutional change

The latter source records an earlier Han appointment for the Baoquan bureau post, the creation of four Han factory posts when the factories were organized in 1726, and their conversion to Manchu posts in 1729. Factory officers could be selected from ministry secretarial personnel (*bitieshi*), registered with the Ministry of Personnel, and assigned five-year terms. These were historically specific arrangements, not proof of an unchanging system across the Qing. Staffing of the Baoyuan Bureau must also be distinguished from that of Baoquan.

Related encyclopedia entry: The Qing Dynasty.

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