Yu Xia's coin, gold is three products, or yellow, or white, or red; or money, or cloth, or knife, or turtle shell. As far as the Qin Dynasty was concerned, the coins of a country were divided into three or two grades: gold was known as the upper coin in the name of overflow, and copper coins were known as half two, weighing as much as the text, and were the lower coins. The genus of pearl jade, turtle shell and silver tin is a treasure of ornamentation, not a coin, but each is always heavy and impermanent. - "History of Pinghuai Book"
Shell is a shelled sea creature, the pre-Qin period with the shell of the shell as currency, the Zhou Dynasty began to have money as a form of currency, to the Qin Dynasty abandoned the shell coin, using other forms of currency to replace it.
Many people have thought when they were young, shells were currency in ancient times, so people on the beach can go to the beach to pick up some shells and exchange for various things, isn't everyone rich? Wouldn't that be a big mess in the world?
What else do you do to work hard? Things are certainly not so simple, where is the world where there is a free lunch.
The period when shells do currency
In the pre-Qin period, our ancestors have begun to use shellfish as a medium currency in commodity exchange. The Shang Zhou was the heyday of the use of shells as currency. The shell has rightly become a symbol of wealth.
So why choose shells as currency? In the process of exchanging commodities in the market, our ancestors have been looking for a kind of thing that can be exchanged with it, that is, the general equivalent. Cattle, horses, grain, etc. have all served as general equivalents. But because other general equivalents are not too large, or inconvenient to carry and not easy to preserve, people choose to carry shells that are easy to preserve. Because the shell itself is piece by piece, there is no need to divide into unit sizes, and it is hard and lightweight, easy to carry. At that time, shell coins had their own unit of measurement, five shell coins for one series, two series for one.
Picking up money by the sea?
Why don't people pick up more shells and make themselves rich? For something to be an equivalent exchange, it must first have its own existential value. At that time of low productivity, not everyone can wear shells on their bodies. Because if you want to bring it, you have to punch the shells and thread them together. According to the level of productivity at that time, there were no metal tools, and the shell itself was very hard, and punching holes in the shell was a highly technical labor, too hard, the shell was too brittle, it would become a few pieces.
The needles of ancient punching machines should be sharp stones, but the stones are not wear-resistant. In order to punch the shells, people first had to make stone tools.
Then give up on finding food or other labor to drill the shells into strings, which is time-consuming and laborious. This kind of shell to become a "friend",
It takes a lot of labor time, so it has the value of equal exchange, rather than picking it up from the sea and becoming currency.
You can imagine the barter scene at that time, a person saw a shell necklace, it looked good, and he wanted to have such a string. But he couldn't do it, so he offered to exchange the fruits of his labor for a necklace. How much can this shell necklace be exchanged for? How do we rate the value of this shell necklace.
After discussion and consultation, the two men agreed to exchange the shells made in half a day for the proceeds of his half-day labor, so that the exchange had a basis, and neither side would suffer losses, and each would get what he wanted.
For the barter people at that time, the shell was no longer a practical object, but also became a "luxury" at that time, becoming an ornament, with cultural value and preservation value, similar to gold jewelry, calligraphy and painting.
Only then can the shell be used as currency and circulated in the market. Shells become equal exchange for their own cultural value and the labor value of the time people spend processing shells.
The reason why Bei coin was eliminated
But the elimination of Shell Coin is an inevitable result, and human technology is constantly evolving. From the time people began to discover metals, to the time people began to use metals, metal refining technology is also becoming more and more mature. At this time, punching holes is no longer time-consuming and labor-intensive work, and shell coins are naturally no longer scarce and are eliminated. As a relatively rare item, metal needs to be mined, so it replaces other items and is used as a raw material for money.
Although shell coins are no longer the currency we circulate, the social imprint of shells as money is still everywhere, and people still make money into the shape of a shell. Tin is the earliest widely used metal in human society, and its smelting technology is relatively simple, so it appeared in the Shang Dynasty. Later, with the discovery of copper and the improvement of smelting technology, copper shells also appeared and were widely used.
epilogue
No matter when and where, people can't think of taking shortcuts to get rich, we can't think of pie in the sky, think of getting something for nothing. Everyone has some material desires that we want to have, or we need to obtain them through our own labor with our own hands. Getting rich overnight is just a dream we have, and we still have to face life when we wake up in the morning. I hope that everyone can live the life they want by their own efforts and become the person they want to be.