Shu Gold

The Daijo-kan notes of 1868 were among the first paper instruments issued under the new Meiji government, rushed out as the administration urgently needed to finance military operations against Tokugawa holdouts — most critically the Boshin War, which was still being fought when these notes entered circulation. The government had almost no experience managing a paper currency at national scale, and public confidence was thin. Metallic coinage, particularly gold and silver, remained the preferred medium among merchants.

The "Shu" denomination is a subdivision rooted in the old Edo-period gold coinage system — its use here reflects the awkward transitional moment when the Meiji reformers were grafting new fiscal machinery onto deeply familiar weight-based monetary units before the sen-and-yen decimal system was formally introduced in 1871.