American Institute for Economic Research, March 15, 2024
When Marco Polo arrived in Yuan Dynasty China, among the wonders he found was that money grew on trees. His travelog tells how the Emperor Kublai Khan’s mint in present-day Beijing processed the cambium layer of mulberry trees—a soft, sticky substance found between the wood and the bark—into “something resembling sheets of paper.” These were cut into rectangles and marked with an imperial seal made from cinnabar. Just like that, paper money was born…
