Those who go against the heavens survive, and those who go against the heavens die. Man dies for money, and birds die for food. - "Augmenting the Sages"
Throughout the ages, people have used gold and silver treasures to measure a person's wealth. As precious metals, gold and silver will not become worthless with the change of dynasties, so ancient societies used them as circulating currency for trade.
Although the value of gold and silver is basically fixed, their purchasing power is different from dynasty to dynasty. Today we convert the purchasing power of one or two pieces of silver into the current renminbi, and see how much one or two pieces of silver are worth in different dynasties and what they can buy.
The origin and development of money
To understand how much one or two pieces of silver are worth, we need to figure out the history of the development of money, as well as the history of the development of silver as a currency, only in this way can we better convert silver into the "RMB" we use now.
Let's first talk about the development and evolution of currency, China is one of the earliest countries in the world to use money, the history of using money is as long as 5,000 years, and the ancient Chinese currency has experienced five major evolutions in the process of formation and development.
The first evolution took place in the Shang Dynasty, from the natural currency "Shell Coin" to the artificial currency "Copper Coin". Because of the development of industry and commerce, the volume of trade increased, and the number of sea shells could not meet the circulation of money, so people eliminated shell coins and minted copper coins to replace them.
However, when people first minted copper coins, they did not form a unified shape and system, and even the raw materials for minting copper coins were uneven. This brought a lot of trouble to cross-regional commerce, especially during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, when the currencies between the princely states were various and strange.
In order to solve this problem, after Qin Shi Huang unified China, he unified the currency into two. He uniformly used round square holes and half two dollars throughout the country. Shortly after the second evolution of money in the hands of Qin Shi Huang, a third evolution was carried out in the hands of Emperor Wu of Han.
In 113 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty reclaimed the right to mint coins in the county state, and the central government uniformly minted five baht coins, and the five baht coins became the only legal currency at that time. In this evolution, the right to mint coins was firmly in the hands of the central imperial court.
This fourth and fifth evolution took place with regard to the form of money. The first evolution occurred in the Tang Dynasty, where "Tongbao" and "Yuanbao" appeared, and four or five evolutions occurred in the Song Dynasty, where paper money "Jiaozi" appeared.
And our silver came to the stage of history at the second evolution. During the Qin and Han dynasties, copper coins were the only currency. However, with the further development of commerce, the distinction between the noble and the low of goods slowly became larger, and people found that the value of copper coins was too small.
If they make large commercial transactions, they need piles of copper coins to carry them out, which is very troublesome. As a result, people set their sights on gold and silver, which are much smaller in production than copper and much more valuable than copper.
Later, people developed gold and silver into a new unified currency, solving the embarrassment of the low value of copper coins. By the time of the Tang and Song dynasties, silver had become an indispensable and important currency in the market.
In the Ming Dynasty, under the impetus of Zhang Juzheng's "one whip" method, silver ushered in its own monetary peak - silver officially replaced copper coins and became the national standard currency.
The purchasing power of one or two pieces of silver at different times
After talking about the history of silver and the development of money, let's discuss the purchasing power of one or two silver, so how do we convert one or two pieces of silver into renminbi?
Many times people take the price of rice as a reference basis, see how much rice can be bought with one or two silver in different periods, and then calculate the weight of rice with the current price of rice, basically one or two silver and RMB can be compared.
Talking about the purchasing power of one or two pieces of silver, we have to get out of the misunderstanding in film and television dramas: people in film and television dramas often have 120,000 taels of silver, or eat dozens or even hundreds of taels of silver in a meal... In this way, we have the illusion that silver is worthless.
Some people even think that one or two pieces of silver, let alone a meal, is a steamed bun may not be bought, but in fact, the purchasing power of one or two pieces of silver is far greater than we think. Let's first take the Tang Taizong period, when one or two pieces of silver were equal to 1,000 copper coins.
At that time, the price of rice was 5 yuan a bucket, one or two silver can buy 200 buckets of rice, a bucket is equal to 12.5 pounds, so one or two silver can buy 2500 pounds of rice! According to the current market price of two yuan a catty of rice, one or two pieces of silver in this period are equivalent to 5,000 yuan.
Time came to the Northern Song Dynasty, Feng, Xi years, because of the serious loss of silver, the price of silver for copper coins rose a lot, one or two silver can be exchanged for 2,000 texts, which is higher than the Tang Taizong period! But while the price of silver is high, the price of rice is even higher, coming to 30 yuan a bucket.
One or two pieces of silver can buy 67 buckets of rice, that is, about 840 pounds. In this way, the price of one or two pieces of silver is only 2100 yuan, which is a lot devalued compared with the Tang Dynasty.
In addition, according to the literature, people at that time could buy a cow or two or three sheep with two or two pieces of silver. According to the current price of cattle and sheep, the purchasing power of one or two silver is indeed around 2,000 yuan.
In the Ming Dynasty, one or two pieces of silver could buy rice and two stones of general quality, when one stone was about 94.4 kilograms, and one or two silver could buy 188.8 kilograms of rice, that is, 377.6 kilograms; in this way, one or two were only 760 yuan, and the depreciation was too severe.
Silver developed to the Qing Dynasty, its value fell to the lowest, according to the Qianlong period of state statistics can be known, each stone of grain is about "silver one two four money six cents", about silver every two exchange money for a thousand yuan.
Finally, according to the calculation of the unit, the grain of one stone is about 70 kilograms now, that is, 140 kilograms, so in conversion, one or two dollars is only less than 300 yuan.
The reason for the depreciation of silver
Why does silver depreciate more and more in the course of history? This is the reason why "things are scarce and expensive". With the development of history, the total reserves of silver are constantly increasing.
On the basis that the number of other items does not change, the amount of silver is increasing, and the value of silver as money will come down. As a result, its purchasing power will also decline.
If the amount of silver is always constant, then the price of silver will be in that value range that he should be. In addition to the increase in the total amount of silver, another inevitable factor is inflation, and the silver prices we count are in the period of relative stability of each dynasty and generation.
With the stability of the country and the further development of commerce, inflation inevitably occurs. In addition, since the emergence of the Song Dynasty, paper money has become more and more a circulating currency, which will occur the phenomenon of "bad money expelling good money", which also explains the reason why silver continues to depreciate.
Of course, the depreciation of silver is also constrained by the level of development of different dynasties, we just take the price of rice to calculate the true value of one or two silver, not a scientific and comprehensive method, but also can give everyone a visual display of the value of one or two silver. What are your different views on this?