"Water Margin", one of the four famous works, takes the last years of the Northern Song Dynasty as the background of the times, and is one of the earliest Zhanghui novels written in vernacular in China's history, telling the story of the 108 good Han Liangshan uprisings, although it is a literary work, but some things and some characters have really existed in history.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, the "birthday class" referred to the batch of birthday gifts transported in formations. In "Water Margin", the Birth Anniversary Gang is a gold jewelry shell worth 100,000 yuan that Liang Zhongshu sent to his father-in-law Cai Jing, and the "Wisdom birth Anniversary Gang" is a very classic scene in the novel.
Cai Jing is a real figure in the history of the Northern Song Dynasty, and has served as prime minister four times, but this person is not a sage, and Chen Dong, a student of tai, once wrote a letter calling Cai Jing "the head of the six thieves". Cai Jing led the servant Feng Lu, and also pioneered sikong to send Lu money, and when he was a very popular subject, he daxing Huashi Gang, which was a special transportation traffic name that specialized in transporting exotic flowers and stones to meet the preferences of Emperor Huizong of Song.
"Gang" refers to the transport team, and a gang is usually ten ships.
In the "Water Margin" novel, Yang Zhi is the descendant of the Yang family, first because of the Huashi Gang and lost his official position, and then lost the birthday gang that Liang Zhongshu gave to Cai Jing, how much is the 100,000 birthday class worth now?
"Guan" originally meant to wear money rope, sea shell is China's earliest currency, later became copper shell, the reason why the rope is strung together, is because it is easy to carry, developed to the Northern Song Dynasty, due to the rapid economic development, everyone has a lot of money in their hands, so the more convenient to carry paper money "Jiaozi" appeared, but copper coins are still the main circulating currency.
Usually, the copper coin is worn on the rope, and a thousand is consistent, that is, 1000 texts is consistent money, but in the Song Dynasty, it was popular to save money, "seventy-seven coins for a hundred", so the consistent money was 770 money, during the Song Huizong period, one or two silver could be exchanged for two coins, and one hundred thousand yuan was 50,000 silver.
To convert the price of rice, during the Song Dynasty, consistent money can buy a stone of rice, a stone of rice is equivalent to about 60 pounds today, according to the price of 3 yuan a pound of rice, a stone of rice is 180 yuan, that is to say, the consistent money is equivalent to today's 180 yuan, 100,000 yuan is 18 million yuan.
Due to the openness of the society of the Song Dynasty, whether it is scientific innovation or cultural education, it is a prosperity, Song Zhenzong Zhao Heng to encourage the world's readers, but also said the "book has its own golden house, the book has its own Yan Ruyu" such a famous sentence, and the Northern Song Dynasty's commodity economy is more rapid development, some people on the history of the Song Dynasty after in-depth study, made a calculation, the total GDP of China in the 11th century was 26.55 billion US dollars, accounting for 22.7% of the total world economy, per capita GDP is 450 US dollars.
Because it has been in the taiping and prosperous world for a long time, the government treasury is full, and Cai Jing, a red man around Emperor Huizong of Song, advocated the theory of Feng, Heng, Yu, and Dazhi, and regarded the property of officials and lords as dung, and now looking back at history, we all feel that 100,000 guan is a big deal, but in Cai Jing's view, 100,000 guan is really nothing.
At that time, whether it was the imperial palace or the royal palace of the princes and nobles, it was particularly luxurious and luxurious. In order to ensure the continuous flow of money in the treasury, various taxes were increased during the Song Huizong period, which led to the occurrence of peasant uprisings, and the Song Jiang Uprising and the Fang La Uprising were two famous rebel armies at the end of the Song Dynasty.
However, neither the peasant uprising nor the "Qingming River Map" presented by the painter Zhang Zeduan awakened the hedonistic Song Huizong, and eventually the shame of Jingkang occurred.