With the loss of his financial expert, Zhang took drastic action: in March 1926 he appointed a new governor, whose only job was to supply the Fengtian Army with large amounts of money. He issued new provincial bonds, forcing businesses and local communities to purchase them. (Early in 1927, he even entered into the opium trade by selling expensive licenses for the sale and use of opium.) Bank reserves and railway revenues were plundered, while ever more paper notes were issued. The best indicator of Manchuria's economic decline was the value of the Fengtian dollar (yuan), which had started on parity with the Japanese gold yen: by February 1928, 40 yuan was equivalent to 1 gold yen. In the winter of 1926, Manchuria's economy collapsed. Workers went on strike and hungry immigrants flooded back into Shenyang because they could not find any work.