Audiences who like to watch costume martial arts dramas will find that many TV dramas have such a frequent scene: those ancient people who eat at the inn, every time they shout "Xiao Er, check out", they put down the silver two and leave, and the shop Xiao Er who came to collect the account did not count the amount of silver, and only returned to the "guest officer slow walking" after receiving the silver two. Using silver to settle accounts never counts how much money, has become a fixed routine of ancient costume martial arts dramas, so the ancients ate at the inn, really never counted how much money for meals, put down the silver and go???
Silver in costume dramas
In fact, this is just a mistake that the screenwriter does not understand history. Because the ancients really wanted to spend silver, it was far less simple than the costume TV series. This is due to the fact that in many dynasties silver was not the currency that the ancients carried with them. There were many monetary units in ancient China, such as knife coins and five-baht coins in the Qin and Han dynasties; the currency used for transactions during the Tang Dynasty was "money and cloth"; paper money appeared in the two Song Dynasties; and copper coins were issued during the Yuan Dynasty. Therefore, in these dynasties, there is basically no picture of settling accounts with silver, after all, silver in this period is not yet a social circulation currency. ????
Qin Dynasty five baht money
As for silver becoming the circulating currency in history, in fact, in the 8th year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, the use of silver became frequent due to the active foreign trade in the Ming and Qing dynasties, especially in many Ming and Qing novels such as "Golden Bottle Plum" and "Water Margin", the author always tied the value of silver with the monetary units used at that time, such as Wen, Guan, baht and other currency units used to describe the use, resulting in later generations of literati, when writing martial arts works set in ancient China, all of which were collectively referred to as "silver two". When martial arts works are adapted into film and television dramas, screenwriters, directors and even readers never study the true identity of "silver two", and use the silver of white flowers to represent "silver two". This kind of shooting method of TV dramas has led the public to mistakenly think that the ancients used silver to settle the bill.
?? Costume drama shop small two
Even in the Ming and Qing dynasties, silver has become the common currency of the country, but the silver transaction is limited to large commercial trade, such as buying a house, buying a land, and those corrupt officials and corrupt officials, silver will be used as a transaction currency. This is due to the fact that "one or two pieces of silver" had extremely high purchasing power in ancient times. Some researchers have converted the purchasing power of one or two pieces of silver according to the value of rice in different periods, such as one or two pieces of silver during the Song Dynasty, which is equivalent to more than 1800 yuan now, and one or two pieces of silver during the Ming Dynasty are equivalent to the current 660 yuan. If the ancients really used a few silver to pay the bills, that is to say, they would spend thousands of yuan on a meal.
Qing Dynasty copper coins
If this is the case, then what did the ancients use to pay for when they spent in the inn?
In fact, the most used in small commercial transactions in ancient times were copper coins, and some scholars have calculated that one or two pieces of silver in the Tang Dynasty are equivalent to 3500 copper coins; one or two pieces of silver in the Ming Dynasty can also be exchanged for 2500 copper coins. Therefore, the ancients ate and ordered in the inn tavern, and when checking out, they should pay with copper coins, which were issued and used according to unified standards, and at the same time, they were convenient to carry and easy to liquidate. Therefore, when the ancients shouted xiao er to check out, how much copper money was spent on a meal, whether it was a guest or a small shop, they all knew it, just look at whether the number of copper money paid by the guests was enough, and they could check out without liquidation, which is the normal way of trading. Only by using copper coins can we meet the scene that the shop owner can check out without counting silver or two.