preface:
In ancient times on the mainland, the most important currency used by people is silver, I believe that people who often watch costume dramas have a deep impression of silver, we often see white flowers, heavy silver, so he has another name, called "snowflake silver", but the real history of silver, and we see the difference in television is still very large.
Because people usually have to use their teeth to identify whether silver is real or fake, it is almost all tooth marks, and like the paper money we use today, if it circulates in the market for a long time, it will become more and more dirty, and it is impossible to be white. So, today we will take a look at the real face of ancient silver.
Meet "Snowflake Silver"
First of all, we have to briefly understand the currency used by the ancients - snowflake silver, the name snowflake yin first appeared in the Song Dynasty, in a lot of historical data, you can see such a name. But in fact, snowflake silver is not the official name of the currency, generally only the private will be so called, mainly because it has a high value, and can be used for trading, so in people's minds, the status of silver is very high, he has such a name.
At that time, the official government was also estimated by the weight of silver, in the Qing Dynasty, the official silver as the standard purity of silver currency, "two" is the statistical unit of silver, the silver of the Qing Dynasty period is the whole process of "Hubu Kuping full of silver", this name sounds more noble than snowflake silver, but it also makes people feel more cumbersome to read, so the people still prefer to call silver snowflake silver.
Circulation of silver
The silver we see on TV is all white flowers, and the shape is also very beautiful, which is a small treasure. Silver is one of the most important currencies in ancient times on the mainland, but in fact, the people do not really use snowflake silver directly in the daily transaction process. The main reason is that the value of this silver is very high, unless it involves some large-scale transactions with a relatively large amount, otherwise it is generally not used to use the snowflake silver, in the daily life of the people, to buy some daily necessities, or to buy some food, the use of copper coins and some broken silver.
Although there is only a small snowflake silver, it is after all a kind of precious metal, and it is still very inconvenient to carry it on the body, and if it is to buy some cheaper things, it is not convenient for the store to find money. So usually people prefer to use broken silver, not only easy to carry, but also the value is relatively low, in addition, because he has been broken, so there is no fixed specifications and shape, the ancients in the process of trading, often pick a piece of broken silver of a more suitable size and weight, and then handed over to the seller.
And in the process of transaction, the buyer pays the merchant two silver, often more weight, in order to prevent the weight of these silver two is not enough value, but also have to add additional money, so they will often directly give a sufficient amount of silver. When we watched the TV series, we found that the transaction between buyers and sellers was very simple, with one hand hand paying and the other hand delivering. But in fact, when the ancient merchants collected money, they would have special weighing tools to judge whether the other party had given enough money to themselves.
In addition, merchants will also specifically measure the silver content of broken silver. Generally speaking, the silver content is the same, but in ancient times, there will also be counterfeiting behavior, there will be some fake silver two on the market, or silver with lower purity, when the customer uses real silver, and the amount is enough, the two sides can successfully complete the transaction.
But when you use snowflake silver, the situation will be different, because the government-made snowflake silver, the above will be clearly marked how many two, buyers and sellers in the process of trading, only need to see the above logo can be, even if the amount of silver is not enough, but the seller is also willing to accept such silver. It can also be seen from this that the currency of the time could already allow for the occurrence of insufficient value.
The true appearance of snowflake silver
Whether it is snowflake silver or the broken silver that everyone usually uses, when the seller receives the money, he will often distinguish whether the silver is real or false, and the most direct means is to bite with his teeth. People who have been doing business for a long time are very familiar with the taste of these silver, as long as they bite it lightly, they can distinguish between true and false, which has led to many snowflake silver and broken silver on the ancient mainland, which are all kinds of tooth marks.
And these silver in the process of continuous circulation, through the hands of countless people, will become more and more dirty, there are all kinds of dirt on it, he is not at all as clean as we see in the TV series, but especially dirty. Of course, there are many people who will feel confused, we usually when buying silver jewelry, we will find that the gloss of these silver is very good, according to the reason, as long as you rub it slightly, the silver will not become so dirty.
But we must pay attention to the fact that silver as currency and silver as jewelry are completely different things. The gloss of these precious metals is indeed very good, but if it is usually in frequent contact with the air, it is easy to oxidize, and the luster on the surface of the silver will slowly disappear, pressing it like an ordinary piece of metal.
The history of silver is not very long
In addition, we need to tell you that these snowflake silver and broken silver that we are familiar with, their history is actually not very long. In many ancient dynasties on the mainland, these precious metals were not used as circulating currency. Taking the Ming Dynasty as an example, gold and silver at that time would only be regarded as valuable items, circulating among the nobles, and only in the middle of the Ming Dynasty did these gold and silver slowly change from precious metals to equivalent exchange, and then slowly become currency.
Therefore, before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, when people traded commodities, the most commonly used method of barter, of course, the imperial court also had a special currency, but the precious metals at that time had not officially become money, if it was a large-scale commodity transaction, they would use silver bills to trade.
After reading the above introduction, I believe that everyone also has a certain understanding of currency, the real silver two is not like we imagined, nor is it like what we see in the TV series, the difference is still very large. Therefore, when understanding history, we cannot completely rely on these history-related TV series, but we must read more history books and understand historical materials.