Gold is known to be a precious metal and is also considered a general equivalent. To have gold is to have wealth. So far, however, the total amount of gold mined by humans has been only 190,000 tons, more than two-thirds of which have been mined after 1950. That is to say, in the thousands of years of human history, the gold owned was only a few tens of thousands of tons, and half of it was used to make gold products. For China, which is not rich in gold resources, there was even less gold in ancient times.
However, in some film and television works, we often hear that the ancient emperors rewarded gold with ten thousand taels at every turn, even according to the weights and measures at that time, gold ten thousand two was equivalent to 500 kilograms of gold. At present, the gold reserves of a developed european country are only a few hundred tons, if there is so much gold in ancient China, where is all this gold now?
In the long history before the Qin and Han Dynasties, what our ancients called gold was actually copper. Unlike gold, the production of copper at that time was very high, and the chemical properties of copper were very stable, so copper soon became a representative of money, and trade between countries was also carried out in copper, from the appearance, copper was a yellow metal, so the "gold" at that time was copper. Copper as a currency has run through almost the entire history of ancient China, including copper coins minted using copper later.
As for gold, it has gradually entered people's vision since the Han Dynasty. At that time, the production of gold was scarce, and because of the bright color and easy texture to manufacture, the gold at that time was generally used to make gold products, mainly to appreciate the value. At that time, gold was exclusively owned by the emperor, and using gold as a reward was actually a way of rewarding meritorious service.
In the Sui and Tang dynasties, due to the increase in the amount of gold, gold had monetary properties. The value of gold is the highest, higher than the value of silver, and copper is at the lowest level. Ancient pure gold is very little, generally gold and silver, copper and other metals made of alloys, ancient emperors rewarded gold, in fact, the gold content is not much, most of them are silver and copper.
Until the Ming and Qing dynasties, due to China's thousands of years of gold reserves and the inflow of foreign gold and silver. China's gold reserves have really become the world's forefront. At that time, gold could finally stand on its own, and there were gold bars in the true sense. At this time, the gold rewarded by the emperor was basically pure gold, but there was basically no level of gold ten thousand taels, and it was a high reward to have a few hundred taels.
However, in modern times, with the invasion of Western powers and the dumping of goods, China's precious metals have flowed into overseas in large quantities, and the reason why our gold reserves are not much today is mainly for this reason.