At the end of the Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms of Zhuxiong, whether yuan shao, Yuan Shu or Cao Cao, Jiangdong Sun Wu, all had their fathers' reputations and fortunes. And Liu Bei, in addition to the name of "After the King of Zhongshan Jing", is really a mat weaver who has nothing to rely on, of course, Liu Bei's difficulty in establishing a career depends mostly on this. As we all know, the grain and salary of the people and horses in the battlefield are indispensable, and Liu Bei's state of being overwhelmed and empty can only be improved when the Shu Han is established. The "Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Book of Shu" records that in 184 A.D. in the first year of Zhongping, the rich merchants of Zhongshan, Su Shuang and Zhang Shiping, passed through Zhuo County, and became acquainted with Liu Bei, who was 23 years old, at that time Liu Bei had already presented himself as "after the King of Jing in Zhongshan", and his words revealed great ambitions, so Su Zhang and the two decided to give gold to help Liu Bei find his dreams, and it was with this gold that Liu Bei raised a group of township heroes in Zhuo County and left his hometown to run for the world.
However, this bit of gold and silver was quickly used up, Liu Bei's men and horses were also lost in the process of the Yellow Turban, tossing and turning down, only Guan Yu Zhang Fei and a few other riders and horses were left around, in desperation, Liu Bei led Guan Zhang to run to his old friend Gongsun Zhan, who was able to repair in the rich Pingyuan County, and got acquainted with Qingzhou Thorn Shi Tian Kai, Tian Kai and Xuzhou Mu Tao Qian were familiar with each other, which was a very important personal connection, so when Cao Cao attacked Xuzhou in the first year of Xingping, Tian Kai received Tao Qian's request for help, and only then took Liu Bei with him to Xuzhou to help, and had the opportunity to enter Xuzhou. In Xuzhou, Liu Bei also got acquainted with a very important rich merchant Mi Zhu, in Liu Bei's Xuzhou and lost because of Lü Bu, once again nothing, Mi Zhu generously donated, donated a huge amount of gold and silver, funded Liu Bei to re-raise people and horses, and re-perked up, which shows that Liu Bei has been in a state of borrowing strength from sources in the early days.
However, for successive years of conquest, the occasional few times of assistance was really a drop in the bucket, and when he was conquest of Yizhou, Liu Bei once again encountered the problem of lack of grain. In the nineteenth year of Jian'an, after a year of fierce fighting, Liu Zhang finally surrendered Kaesong, and Liu Bei took the land of Yizhou. In order to reward the generals, Liu Bei took out Liu Zhang's gold and silver treasures to share the reward, and at that time, the grain and salary were actually stretched, and Shangshu ordered Liu Ba to give Liu Bei a brilliant plan, which can be described as an immediate effect, after Liu Bei acted according to the plan, the treasury saw rijin doujin, but it was this move that provoked the attention of future generations, and after nearly 1800 years, it still made scholars sigh. According to experts from the Sichuan Museum, as early as 1984, a villager in Tongji Town, Pengzhou, Chengdu, accidentally dug up the relics of Liu Bei of the Shu Han Dynasty while repairing and digging his own fish pond.
When the villagers dug the fish pond, in the corner of the fish pond dug out a green brick pit, the pit in the soil placed several clay pots of different sizes, the villagers opened the jar to see, roar, the inside can be all copper coins, a string of money wire connected, museum experts learned, immediately went to the fish pond, the result experts took a look at the copper money, directly called this is "Liu Bei's relics", it turns out that this large string of copper coins are Liu Bei's hand supervision and issuance of "straight hundred and five baht", that is, "straight hundred dollars", The number of archaeological discoveries is very small, so it is of extraordinary value, but before 1800, it was also "precious and abnormal". After Liu Bei occupied Yizhou, he soon faced the depletion of financial resources, so Liu Basui offered to mint "straight hundred and five baht money", which was a kind of "large-value virtual coin".
What is a large-valued virtual currency? It was this copper plate that was originally only worth 1 yuan, but Liu Bei named it "Straight Hundred and Five Baht", so that the copper plate of this 1 coin could be exchanged for 100 five baht coins, so that the wealth of the Yizhou villagers quickly flowed into Liu Bei's treasury through the "Straight Hundred Dollars", so "in a few months, the treasury was full", Liu Bei's financial resources increased, and the Yizhou township people were bitter but there was no way, so the problem of Shu Han was gradually accumulated on this small copper coin. What was even more surprising to the Shu people was that even after Liu Bei founded Shu Han and became the lord of Shu, he still did not depose the use of Zhi Bai Qian, and even after his death, Zhuge Liang and Liu Chan, the later lord, had always used Zhi Bai Qian. Excessive demands eventually led to the withering of the people's wealth in Shu and unable to continue, which laid the groundwork for the collapse of the Shu state before Wu and Wei.
In addition, scholars have studied all the archaeological excavations of Shu Han zhi 105 baht coins found that the production of this copper plate is very rough, the quality is also very poor, and in the Zhuge Liang and Liu Chan period, this straight hundred money is getting lighter and thinner and smaller, it can be said that it has been "shrinking", the most late is less than 0.8 grams, and such copper coins still have to be exchanged for 100, how can the Shu people bear it, must not be able to survive.
Therefore, in such a situation, even if Zhuge Liang's bloody southern expedition to the north and south were exhausted, it was still unable to prolong the national rule of Shu Han, because the most fundamental problem of Shu Han was in itself, not external forces. For the problem of zhibaiqian, Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei, and even everyone in the Shu Han camp knew it, but there was no way, Shudi was remote, did not want Wu Wei to be as smooth, the economy was blocked, except for making a fuss about zhibaiqian, there was no better choice.