The economic evolution of human society has gone through several stages, such as barter exchange, equivalent barter exchange, and currency exchange. For a long time, metal currencies occupied a very important position. There were gold and silver coins in the West, while copper coins were used in large quantities in ancient China. But the value of copper coins is low, and if you want to really show wealth, you have to rely on gold and silver. When watching costume dramas, it is often seen that the wealthier people directly trade gold and silver. Although this phenomenon is not widespread, it is also true. I believe that many people have thought about how much silver in ancient times is worth now? Converted into the renminbi we are using now, how much is the equivalent? Today we will discuss this issue together.
The frequency of use of gold and silver varies from dynasty to dynasty. During the Qin and Han dynasties, gold and silver appeared as luxury goods and sacrificial goods, and it was the imperial court at that time that explicitly prohibited it from being used as currency. We see that the records of "how much gold" often appear in the history books of the Qin and Han Dynasties, but in fact, they all refer to brass, not real gold. For example, Princess Longxuan, the sister of Emperor Wu of Han, in order to atone for her son's death penalty, paid a one-time "golden thousand jin", referring to brass. At this time, limited by smelting technology, the stock of gold and silver is not much, and it is indeed impossible to use as currency.
By the time of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, gold and silver had been widely used as weighing currency. In the Tang Dynasty, due to the opening of the Silk Road, a large number of foreign merchants entered China to trade. Their arrival allowed a large number of foreign gold and silver currencies to enter the currency market. For example, the Sassanid gold coins mentioned many times in the Twelve Hours of Chang'an are the currency used by the Persians. But China's gold stock is small and too valuable to circulate. Silver thus officially became popular and became a high-value metal currency that people can access on a daily basis. However, at this time, the silver currency is still only a prototype, and it cannot really be orderly circulated. If a merchant appears in the Film and Television drama of the Tang Dynasty who pays for wine with silver, it can show that the screenwriter is a person who does not understand history.
In the song, yuan, ming, and qing dynasties, silver became a relatively mature currency, entering the market and circulating copper coins. However, because the economic level, prices, inflation rates, etc. of each dynasty are different, and the economic situation in ancient and modern times is also very different, there is no fixed accounting standard for the exact value of silver. If you have to calculate, you can only turn a corner and use the ratio of silver, copper coins, and grain to convert.
In the Song Dynasty, for example, one or two pieces of silver were equivalent to consistent copper coins. Roughly, the monthly salary of a town people is 20 copper coins, which can make a family worry-free, and even eat takeaways every day; and a lower-class people's daily work income is about 100 yuan, which is almost a small family, saving money and spending a day. The government's relief to the disaster victims is based on 15-20 texts a day as the basic survival line. That is to say, a person can earn 20 taels of silver a month, but in fact, half a silver can live. It can be seen that the life of the people of the Song Dynasty is indeed quite good.
At that time, the price of grain was more drastic, and during the period of Dazhong Xiangfu (1008-1016 AD), the price of each bucket of grain was 7-8 yuan, and in the years of Tiansheng (1023-1032 AD), it became 30 yuan and a bucket. Roughly speaking, each kilogram of grain is expensive for nearly 3 yuan, and the low is less than one article, taking a median value, which is 1.5 yuan. And now the price of rice in China is at two to three yuan a catty (subject to the lowest price of a treasure). From this, we can conclude that the Song Dynasty's yuan is roughly equivalent to a few cents to about 1 yuan now. One or two pieces of silver is almost a few hundred to a thousand yuan.
Of course, it should be pointed out that this is the figure at the time of Song Zhenzong and Song Renzong, which was a prosperous world, not a chaotic world.
During the Ming Dynasty, due to the large inflow of foreign silver dollars, the purity of silver declined, and the purchasing power of one or two silver became 380 kilograms of rice, which was about equal to 700 to 800 yuan; in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, silver continued to depreciate, and the rice that one or two silver could buy was only 140 kilograms, equivalent to only 300 yuan, which was a bit less.
Of course, simply saying that purchasing power is also biased, after all, the total economic volume and deconstruction are not the same. If you want to really explain it, you have to talk about the income situation. In the Case of the Qing Dynasty, officials' salaries included silver and rice, of which one pin of civilian silver was 180 taels, grain and rice were 180 taels (about 9,000 catties), nine pins of silver were 33 taels, and grain rice was 33 hu (about 1650 catties). It seems like a lot, but this is the year, except for a 365, the days of a pin officer are tight, and the nine pins can't live at all. Therefore, after Yongzheng, an additional "raising incorruptible silver" was added, usually several times or even dozens of times the ordinary salary. Therefore, from this income level, the value of one or two pieces of silver in the middle and late Qing Dynasty should be about equal to a piece of ocean in the early years of the Republic of China. The ocean of the Republic of China is also unstable, and the value of one ocean in the early days was equivalent to 8 oceans in 1930. By 1980, the purchase price of a piece of the Republic of China ocean was 15 yuan, which was almost equivalent to the current level of inflation at that time and now, which was almost equivalent to the current level of 1500 yuan. Then it can be said that one or two pieces of silver in ancient times should be worth 1000 to 1500 yuan now.
In today's society, silver has returned to the position of luxury goods, becoming an important raw material for jewelry processing, which cannot be directly converted, so we have to go around such a large circle to calculate the value of silver. Of course, converting the value of silver is not a whim, but an important indicator of the study of ancient economy. Only by understanding the general situation of the ancient economy can we see the successes and failures of the modern economy, and then discover the value of each of our wages in life.