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There were no banks and safes in ancient times, so how did the ancients save money? In fact, a closer look at historical materials can be found that the ancients had many ways to save money...
"Silver dollar" in the wall of the ancestral house
Many years ago, when my grandfather was dying, he told my father to go to the dark compartment of a wall in the inner room of the ancestral house to take out a bag of antiquities. After careful observation, the father finally found the dark grid, carefully took out a small box wrapped in red cloth from the hollow of the wall, opened the box, and found that there were several "silver dollars" from the Republic of China period and four or five "tongbao" from the end of the Qing Dynasty. Due to the recent age, these ancient coins and silver dollars are actually not worth much money, and everyone is surprised at how Grandpa preserved these antiquities in those difficult years, after all, his life experience is so bumpy.
Kyushu with picture: Schematic diagram of the silver dollar of the Republic of China
Kyushu's "silver dollar" hidden in the wall of the ancestral house has led to a question: in the ancient times when "wealth is not exposed", there was no bank in society that could deposit safely, how did ordinary people store money and jewelry?
The ancients actually had many ways to save money
For this question, Kyushu carefully searched the historical data and found that in fact, the wisdom of the ancients was still very diverse, and there were many ways to save money, roughly as follows:
Solution 1: Beams
Although this method of saving money is rare, it does exist, generally seen in the homes of ordinary people with poor families, who are not easy to be remembered by thieves, and hanging on the beams is also a good choice. No, Su Shisu, one of the famous Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, did just that.
Kyushu with picture: Su Shi degraded to Huangzhou
When Su Shi was relegated to Huangzhou, because there were very few Feng Lu, the family's life became a problem. Mr. Dongpo then began a frugal life of planning expenses, dividing the money into 12 parts, one per month, and then dividing the money into 30 small portions, and only one small portion per day. After allocating the living expense plan, he hung these "shares of money" on the beam of the house, and every morning after getting up, he took a bag as the living expenses of the day, only allowing the surplus, not overspending. Now that I think about it, it is indeed too difficult for Mr. Dongpo.
Kyushu with picture: Coins removed from the beams
In addition, in the ancient Chinese housing tradition, many places have such a folk custom, that is, the ancient coins and money boxes are placed in a specific position on the beams, and more from the perspective of feng shui to pin the good wishes for the prosperity of the family. However, such a feng shui custom in architecture, from the early source, should also be related to the ancient habit of hanging money on the beams of the house. Moreover, Chinese the elegant words that describe thieves are called "gentlemen on the beams", in which thieves like to spend a lot of effort on the beams of other people's homes, in addition to the reasons why the beams are easy to hide and are not easy to find, it cannot be ruled out that many people in ancient times put money on the beams.
Method two: pounce
Just as modern people use piggy banks to store small money, there was also such a small money deposit item in ancient China, called "Flutter Full". According to volume 5 of the "Miscellaneous Records of Xijing", Yun: "Those who pounce on the full, use the soil as a tool, use the money storage tool, and they have a trick but no out, and when they are full, they pounce on it." "Ancient coins are mostly square hole round copper coins, the ancients in order to be scattered copper coins can be stored in one place, they use clay to make a special single-hole container, or jar or box shape, generally the top will open a coin slot, some will also protrude a ring in the abdomen, for the insertion of rope, suspended on the beam. Because this shape only has an entrance, no exit, after the coin is filled, it will be broken and the silver money will be taken out, which is the so-called "full and fluttering", which is also the origin of the meaning of "full". This approach is somewhat similar to what we call "zero-save round fetching" today.
Kyushu with picture: Flutter full
In ancient China, It not only appeared early, but also lasted for a very long time. It has been recorded during the Qin Dynasty, and it has been very popular during the Han and Tang Dynasties. The Qing Dynasty scholar Pu Songling described it in the "Liaozhai Zhiyi Xin Fourteen Niang": "It is also time to make a living out of gold. There is more than enough to win in the day, and the throw is full. "It can be seen that during the Qing Dynasty, It was still a common object of the people. Nowadays, people are relatively unfamiliar with the name of The Full, but in fact, in Taiwan, the piggy bank is still called the Pump, and there is a lyric in the song "Lonely Northern Hemisphere": "Remember to save your thoughts into the full." ”
Kyushu with picture: Flutter full
Method three: money altar
After all, the "fullness" introduced above is only a small deposited object used by ordinary people, and for those wealthy families with a solid family, such small objects are obviously not enough, so what method do they use to store a large amount of money?
Don't worry, the rich in ancient times had their own way. I don't know when the ancients invented a more advanced and more hidden and secure way to save money, that is, the money storage jar. People put the surplus money and jewelry into the jar and sealed it, and then quietly buried it in their homes or in specific hidden places when the moon was dark and windy, and some even carried out some camouflage on it, in order to make the burial point more hidden.
Kyushu with picture: sample of a money storage jar
Regarding the burial method of the ancients, there is one of the most common - "multi-layer burial method". The so-called multi-layer burial, as the name suggests, is to bury the money jar containing a large amount of money and silver jewelry in a deep place, while covering a layer of soil, and then bury the money jar containing a small amount of money on the shallow layer on it, and then disguise it on the surface. In this way, even if it is stolen by others, because of the psychological effect, people will only dig up the shallow jar, and will not think of a "heavy weapon" below. During the Republic of China period, Chen Cunren, a famous doctor in Shanghai, engaged in family division and property analysis, and opened the ledger to clearly write that there were 20 altars of silver hidden in the home, but no matter how many kinds of digging people dug the ground and cast a wide net, only 8 altars were dug, and the remaining 12 altars could not be found. When the family was extremely confused, an elder suggested that the place where the 8 altars of silver were found continue to dig deeper, and sure enough, under the thick layer of soil, the remaining 12 altars of silver buried in the depths were dug up. It can be seen that the ancients really racked their brains in saving money and ensuring the safety of property, and even played psychological warfare, and outsiders had to dig up the ground if they wanted to find it.
Kyushu with picture: a money jar buried in the ground
Method four: money cellar
Of course, if your family is already rich enough to be rich enough to be rich enough to be rich enough to rival the country, then the money storage jar is completely unable to meet the demand, so people have invented a more local money saving method - money cellar.
Kyushu with picture: Ancient money cellar
Kyushu with picture: Money cellar excavation site
According to the Book of Rites. Moon Order", "Book of Han. Biography of Su Wu" (苏武傳), "History. Tales of Cargo Breeding", "Zhuangzi. The records of "cellar" in ancient books such as "The Theory of Qiwu" show that the history of "cellar" is very long, and it has a very deep affection for "cellar". The ancients dug cellars mainly to store food such as grain cellars and vegetable cellars, and there was also a kind of cellar used to avoid military disasters during wartimes. In addition to these common cellars, the ancient rich families found inspiration from the cellar culture and dug deep into the cellars to store thousands of dollars of money and jewelry. Modern archaeologists have found money cellars of different sizes in many places, the most famous of which is the accidental discovery of a large Song Dynasty money cellar with a thousand-year history in 2010 in front of Xianlin Middle School in HuaXian County, Shaanxi Province, and a total of more than 20 kinds of Song Dynasty coins such as Chongning Heavy Treasure, Chongning Tongbao, Millennium Treasure, And Xianping Heavy Treasure were unearthed, weighing 2 or 3 tons, which is the largest song dynasty money cellar.
Kyushu with picture: Chongning Tongbao
Many people must wonder why such a huge wealth is abandoned or forgotten. In fact, friends familiar with history should be able to imagine that the reasons are mostly due to force majeure natural and man-made disasters, family changes or social unrest. Taking this Song Dynasty money cellar discovered in Huaxian as an example, it is very likely that it is related to the fact that at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Jin army went south, and the powerful and rich fled south in panic.
Solution five: in the wall
In ancient times, in addition to storing money on beams, fillings, jars and money cellars, the most common thing was to hide money and silver in the dark grid of the wall, which was also convenient to access. The most ruthless is to directly thicken the wall when building, and then directly lay the money on the mezzanine inside the wall, although this way is more hidden, but it is more difficult to take it.
Kyushu with picture: Reported that a huge amount of money was found in the dark grid of the wall during the renovation of the second-hand house
The Book of Han records an allusion to the "Kongbi Testament", or "Kongbi Zhongjing". It is said that during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, King Lu Gong was preparing to expand the palace, but because the neighboring Kong family's old residence was obstructing things, he ordered its demolition. As a result, a number of classic books such as the Spring and Autumn Festival, the Book of Shang, the Book of Rites, and the Book of Filial Piety were found in the demolished walls. It should be that when the Qin Dynasty burned books and pit Confucianism, the descendants of Confucius hid these heirloom classics in the mezzanine of the walls of Confucius's old residence, so they were completely preserved.
Kyushu with picture: KongBi testament
It can be seen that the ancients used wall mezzanine or hidden lattice to hide valuable or important items for a long time, and rich people were inspired by this to often use the wall to hide money, and it was used for a long time. At the beginning of the article, Kyushu introduced a package of silver dollars and ancient coins taken out of the dark grid of the wall of my ancestral house, which is the best proof.
Solution Six: Flooring
In ancient times, rich people hid money with painstaking efforts and exhausted every means. As mentioned earlier, hiding money in the wall, the ancients would also work the floor of the foot, the most common is to set up a hollow underground dark compartment in the corner of the floor of the house to store valuables, and then use the same floor tiles as the surroundings, which is difficult to find on the surface, and only the money collector knows it.
Kyushu with picture: Unearthed ancient silver
In addition, Kyushu has also heard of an incomparably strange method of hiding money - molten silver irrigation. Legend has it that during the Qing Dynasty, the Jin merchants who were rich in money to ensure that their money was foolproof, so they melted all the silver into a liquid and then poured it into the floor of the house, which was indeed a fierce anti-theft magic weapon.
Method Seven: Silver Ticket
Speaking of "silver tickets", I think everyone will not be unfamiliar, in many of today's costume TV series, you can often see those big families or rich merchants using silver tickets. In fact, the earliest silver ticket in China appeared in Sichuan in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, when it was called "Jiaozi", and it was also the earliest silver ticket in the world. However, at that time, the silver tickets were not used for trading as everyone thought, but only had the function of storage, and the cash was still used when actually trading.
Kyushu with picture: Song Dynasty silver ticket - Jiaozi
Since then, with the development and standardization of the silver ticket system, silver tickets have gradually taken on circulation and trading functions. However, the rich people take the money and silver to the silver ticket shop to exchange for a silver ticket, not a free service, but to charge a storage fee, generally about 3%. Therefore, the rich people in ancient times did not take the money and wealth of the family in exchange for silver bills, after all, the longer they put it, the more they lost.
Anecdotal anecdotes about the ancients saving money
From the introduction of the previous article, we know that the ancients did spend a lot of effort on saving money and hiding money, but in fact, no matter which way, there are more obvious drawbacks, such as hiding money and silver in the ground or in the wall, if the family suddenly changes, or if the money collector has an accident and has time to tell the family the amount and location of the treasure in the future, it is easy to appear that the precious wealth that has been painstakingly saved will not be blessed by the descendants. In addition, the ancients also appeared some interesting anecdotes in hiding money, and Kyushu gave you one or two of the following:
A guilty person gives himself away by conspicuously protesting his innocence
I believe that everyone is not unfamiliar with this saying, which originally came from a folklore allusion. In the ancient times of which dynasty, there was a pair of neighbors, one named Zhang San and one named Wang Er. Zhang Sanqian painstakingly accumulated three hundred taels of silver, so every day he was worried about being stolen by thieves, and after thinking hard, he found a box to nail all the three hundred taels of silver into the box, and then dug a pit in a clearing in the corner of the back wall to bury the box. Even so, Zhang San was still not very assured, worried that others would come here to dig, so he thought of a "magic trick", found a wooden plank to insert near the burial place, and wrote seven big words on it, "There is no silver here three hundred and two", which was relieved to leave. Unexpectedly, his actions were looked at squarely by his neighbor Wang Er. In the night, Wang Er quietly came to Zhang San's house and stole all three hundred taels of silver. In order not to let Zhang San know that he did it, he also deliberately wrote on the other side of the same wooden board: "Wang Er next door did not steal." Early the next morning, Zhang San came to the back of the house to inspect and found the seven big characters left by Wang Er on the wooden board, and the silver was also missing.
Kyushu with picture: There is no silver in this place
Although this is just a folk legend, it does prove from another perspective that the ancients liked to hide money in the ground.
Song Dynasty "Digging House Money"
"Digging house money" must be relatively unfamiliar to everyone, and the emergence of this term dates back to the Northern Song Dynasty a thousand years ago. At that time, Luoyang was already the ancient capital of many dynasties, the history was very long, and the underground cultural relics were extremely rich, the local people built houses to take soil or dig the foundation, and they could dig out treasures without paying attention. In this way, those homeowners who sell houses always feel that they have suffered losses when selling houses, so they have added a large fee on the basis of the market price, known as "digging money".
Kyushu with picture: Song Dynasty Luoyang house purchase to pay "house digging money" in advance
This is recorded in many documents, such as: "There are many houses in the land, and where the first house is placed, the diggers have not excavated the money." And "The first house in The Celó asked for sale, and the comment was directly outside the house to dig the house money, and there were many hidden places under it." (See Qingbo Magazine, vol. 6, by the Song Dynasty scholar Zhou Xuan.) In addition, Shen Kuo gave an example in the "Mengxi Pen Talk" volume 21 "Strange Things and Strange Diseases": When Song Renzong was in, Shangshu Zuo Cheng Zhang Guan bought a villa in Luoyang, and the villa price was three thousand guan, but the seller wanted Zhang Guan to pay four thousand guan, on the grounds that there may be a "treasure" under this villa.
It can be seen that the Song Dynasty was indeed an era when the market economy had been relatively developed, and people already had a forward-looking potential valuation for the transaction price of things, which surprised future generations.
There is a giant treasure under the dung pile
As we said earlier, the ancients did not have anti-theft safes, so they racked their brains to hide their wealth. The same is all buried, but the different burial sites are also very different, the place to find is not right, it is easy to be found by Wang Er next door like Zhang San. Therefore, in order to prevent thieves from finding their own place to bury their silver, rich people often choose places that others can't think of, such as dung piles, pits and other dirty and inconspicuous places.
Kyushu with picture: Houmu Pengding
In fact, at present, a treasure of the Town Museum of China, that is, the Bronze Heavy Weapon of the Shang Dynasty, the "Houmu Pengding", was inadvertently excavated under the dung pit of the Wu family's homestead, and from the excavation site, this heavy treasure was indeed deliberately hidden underground.
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In ancient times, there were no banks and anti-theft safes, and the ancients did have a lot more trouble than we do now when it came to protecting property, but they also invented a variety of ways to save and hide money with their amazing wisdom.
In fact, it is not uncommon to accidentally find large sums of wealth from the walls of ancestral houses and old houses, and there have been many such reports in the media news in recent years, such as in 2014, when it was reported that in a rural area of Leizhou City, Guangdong Province, there was a family whose ancestral house was blown down by the typhoon, and the family inadvertently found 29 silver dollars in the collapsed wall mezzanine while cleaning up the ruins of the broken wall, which is said to be valuable in the cultural relics market. Another example is in 2016, when it was reported that an old house in a city in Shandong was demolished, the demolition personnel also found a large number of copper coins in the mezzanine of the wall.
Kyushu with picture: Blown down in a typhoon of the 100-year-old ancestral house, a silver dollar was accidentally found
Therefore, if you still have an old house or ancestral house in your home, if you have the opportunity, you may wish to open the wall and investigate it carefully, maybe you will get a property or priceless treasure left by your ancestors.
Code words are not easy, welcome to pay attention!
References: Xijing Miscellaneous Records, Mengxi Pen Talks, Book of Han, etc