Kooks Reblogs

OP: Why couldn’t traditional Chinese Yinpiao银票/silver drafts be forged if they were merely slips of paper? (cr大明宝钞，渐越)

Traditional Chinese yinpiao/silver drafts were paper vouchers issued by private banks starting from the Song Dynasty(960–1279). People could exchange these slips for physical silver at bank branches across the country.

Silver drafts were made in multiple copies with matching serrated seal edges. One copy went to the customer and others stayed at the bank. All edges had to fit perfectly together to withdraw silver. The unique split edge marks were almost impossible to copy.

This mechanism is known as qifeng骑缝 (split-joint seal) in China. It first originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC). The Rites of Zhou records that contracts were written on bamboo or wooden slips in duplicate. Notches and marks were carved in the middle before splitting the slips, with each party keeping one half. The two halves would be matched by their notches for verification.

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BC), this idea evolved into hufu虎符/tiger tally tokens. A military tally was split into two pieces with identical inscriptions carved along the split edge. Troops could only be deployed if the patterns and characters on both halves perfectly aligned, serving as a metal version of the split-joint anti-counterfeiting system.

The technology matured in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Government documents and private contracts commonly used split-joint seals stamped across the dividing line. The Chinese character "hetong合同" (contract) was written across the middle before the paper was torn apart, so the complete characters would only appear when the two halves were put together. This split-coupon system was later adopted for Song Dynasty (960–1279) jiaozi paper money and yinpiao/silver drafts of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912).

Official Song dynasty paper money (Jiaozi交子) was abolished in 1107. Private silver drafts issued by Qing-era piaohao票行 (ancient exchange banks) vanished completely in 1951, hit hard by modern banks and currency reforms. Nowadays silver drafts no longer circulate as currency. Their collectible value depends on their rarity and physical condition.

First they were called "chirographs", but later the word "indenture" (in its earliest meaning as just a legal document of any kind between two people) came to be used, originating from the practice of a contract being written twice on a single piece of parchment and then cut in half with serrated edges (as in dent, "teeth" -> indents -> indenture) in order for each party to take one half, so they could later piece them together and verify that there had been no forgery -- same as the Chinese silver drafts!

(Charter of the Clerecía de Ledesma, 1252, showing the serrated indents at the top -- presumably they are cutting rather than tearing because they're using parchment, which I expect is much harder to tear than wood-pulp paper like the Chinese were using)

Ultimate basic white girl name, like the lass who sat next to you in school and had pigtails and drew little hearts over her “i”s. The Duke Leto of the Atreides, House Major of the Galactic Padishah Empire… and his girlfriend, Jessica. Hilarious.

She falls in love with the biggest wife guy in the universe, and he won’t marry her. Hilarious.

Duke Leto loves her and trusts her fully, despite knowing that she’s a witch from the long line of witches who do rapey mind control stuff for eugenecist reasons. He just reckons she’d never do that to him. And he’s RIGHT – she’s been painstakingly trained in mind control and she never uses it on him and they just have consensual sex like normal people, thanks very much. Hilarious.

She’s been raised, conditioned, and trained so she can accomplish one (1) task: have a baby girl with Leto. When it comes down to it, she reckons he’d be disappointed at the gender reveal so decides to have a boy instead, upending 10,000 years of meticulous planning and concerted effort. THEN, she ends up having a girl with him afterwards anyway. Hilarious.

She births a messiah to make her bf happy and piss off her bosses, and then births an abomination completely unintentionally. Hilarious.

Despite her Bene Gesserit training and bodily awareness and general deep understanding of things, she somehow doesn’t realise that going through the Spice Agony while pregnant will have an effect on her foetus??? Corazon mio, smoking a cigarette has an effect on your foetus. Not eating enough spinach has an effect on your foetus. Taking a massive overdose of a lethal drug was probably going to have some foreseeable side effects. Hilarious.

When Leto II and Ghanima are preborn and 9-year-old Leto II tells her that he and Ghani can remember her and their granda getting it on in extreme visceral detail and her first reaction is to that mentioning it was a little gauche of him, actually. Hilarious.

You nonetheless find the familiar step of your nomadic wanderings returning; the promise engraved in every mile travelled that the seeking itself is the answer.

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