Preface
Why did the ancients just put down the broken silver after the meal and left? Why did the shopkeeper never clear the order and not stop it?
When we enjoy those film and television works that depict pictures of ancient life, do we also have such questions: why do the characters in the play only need to put down a piece of broken silver after eating, and the shopkeeper waves them away, never counting the bills, and does not try to stop them? Is there some factor behind this seemingly casual habit that we don't know about?
A piece of broken silver, is it worth letting the comer go?
Let's first look at what kind of purchasing power silver meant in ancient societies.
During the reign of the Northern Song Dynasty, when the dynasty was at its peak, industry and commerce were developed, and tens of thousands of households in the north relied on silk and tea to make a living. They exchanged cloth for rice, silk for salt, and copper and silver for daily necessities. As a result, the bazaars in Hebei city are always bustling and flowing.
In the bazaar, there are two adjoining eateries. One is a restaurant opened by Boss Zhang, which produces covered rice, back-to-the-pot meat, and local specialty pastries. The other is Li's shopkeeper's small restaurant, which specializes in beef and mutton noodle soup, served with homemade fritters and chopped green onions. Both businesses are doing well, and the seats are full.
On this day, a young man with a red face and a long body came to the restaurant. He was dressed in a water-sleeved robe, a short bow scarf, and a jade bracelet inlaid with gold and jade on each hand, which was worth a lot of money when he looked at it. This is the first time Boss Zhang has seen such a guest patronize.
As soon as the young man sat down, he waved his hand and asked for a dozen cold dishes, a large table of roast duck and goose, and several pots of good wine. Boss Zhang hurriedly complied one by one, thinking that he would entertain this guest officer well today.
The boy ate it unceremoniously, swallowed a goose in three or two clicks, and cut off a wing to feast on it. Seeing that he was able to eat vigorously, Boss Zhang served a few more ducks and the most famous stinky mandarin fish in the local area. The young master turned out to be a big stomach, and he ate a table of dishes.
At this time, the boy raised his hand and beckoned Boss Zhang, making a gesture to pay. Boss Zhang hurriedly took the bill submitted by the servant and looked at it, adding up to only a few dozen dollars. He was secretly amazed, only to see that the young master took out a piece of broken silver from his arms at random and slapped it heavily on the table, which actually weighed a few taels from a rough look!
Boss Zhang hurriedly stepped forward to stop him, and said, "Guest officer, you have given too much, I will take this broken silver and weigh it first..."
The boy seemed to be a little displeased, and waved his hand: "It's okay, you can take it." I still have important things to do, so I take my leave!"
Before he could finish speaking, he had already strode out of the restaurant. Boss Zhang hurriedly chased out the door and thanked him from afar.
This scene happened for the first time in Boss Zhang's shop. He looked down at the silver in his hand again, and the delicate lines on it showed that it was extremely pure. This young master really has a lot of hands!
In ancient societies, the purchasing power of a tael of silver was not trivial. In the Northern Song Dynasty, for example, one tael of silver could buy four to eight stones of rice. One stone is about 59.2 kilograms, and at 2.5 yuan per catty, one kilogram of rice is worth 5 yuan. Then one tael of silver is worth about 1,500 yuan. It can be seen that at that time, its purchasing power was extraordinary.
However, the silver that was cast into ingots was mostly measured in fifty taels, twenty-five taels, six taels, and so on. The smallest six taels of silver ingots are also equivalent to more than 9,000 yuan. In life, these large and small silver ingots are not convenient for circulation.
Therefore, people use scissors to cut the ingots into pieces, measure the value through the scale and use it. A piece of broken silver is worth anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of dollars. It became a commonly used currency in private transactions. For smaller daily consumption, copper coins are used to pay. It has always been worth a tael of silver, which is equivalent to a thousand copper coins. A copper coin was worth about 1.5 yuan today. It can be seen that it is very close to the purchasing power of one yuan.
So, was such valuable gold and silver misused in the market transactions at that time? We might as well take a more typical example -- the grand occasion of the Huizong period of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Huizong was very happy, and the expenses were very great. He not only built palaces and built a large number of buildings, but also collected antiques with heavy gold and sent a large amount of gold and silver to foreign tribes. This directly led to the flood of silver in the market, and the price soared, until the Jingkang disaster, the price of silver rose by as much as five or six times compared with the Zhiping years.
As a monarch, Huizong's squandering of gold and silver is enough to show how widespread the circulation and use of these currencies were in the market life at that time. Let's take another idiom allusion with a very high silver content as an example, the banquet in "500 feasts, 300 sheep killed" is made of pure silver tables, chairs and utensils, and the huge number can be seen.
So, when a man like Wu Song wiped out five catties of beef and eighteen bowls of spirits in a small restaurant, but put down thousands of yuan of broken silver and left, did the little two be surprised by this?
The character of Wu Song has a very enthusiastic and unrestrained personality, and he does things informally. He was an orphan and grew up in Zhuozhou since he was a child, and was later accepted as an apprentice by Lin Jiaotou to learn martial arts. He is straightforward by nature, attaches great importance to affection and righteousness, and ignores financial gain, and later avenged his master's blood revenge. This time I went to Beijing to catch the exam, drank and slept along the way, and planned to have a big meal before arriving at Jingyanggang.
He has been living in a small restaurant here for many years. Li Er, the shopkeeper, is a local, and he has been exposed to his father's skills since he was a child, and his wonton noodles are very authentic. Li Er hurriedly received this big man and brought up his most proud special dishes.
Who knew that Wu Song was extremely heroic, basically overturning the posture of the table. He ordered five catties of fine beef tenderloin, plus eighteen bowls of spirits, and turned over a bowl as soon as he raised his hand. Li Erxin said that you are too good to eat, hurry up and serve new wine, and persuade with a smile.
The beef was soon bottomed out, and there was not much wine left. Wu Song burped, waved his big hand, and grabbed a large handful of scattered silver! The click on the table, crackling, more than a dozen pieces of broken silver jumped on the table. Li Er only felt that his eyes lit up, his father had been open for decades, and he had never seen such a heroic person.
Li Er hurriedly said: "You gave too much, guest officer, this meal is only a few taels of silver, I can't afford so much..."
Before he could finish speaking, Wu Song had already stood up, patted his belly and said, "It's okay, you can take it! The things in your store are good, I will come again!" After saying that, he turned around and left, Li Er hurriedly chased to the door and bowed again from afar.
Li Er turned around, a few pieces of broken silver flashed on the table, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but rise. This year's harvest is in its heyday!
The tavern settles accounts, is the price really not worth mentioning?
With the above understanding of the value of ancient money, let's take a look at the story of Wu Song's meal in a small restaurant in front of Jingyang Gang.
Wu Song is a man who eats a lot. Alone, he wiped out five catties of beef, eighteen bowls of spirits, and the total price of food and drink was only three or four hundred yuan. However, what he raised his hand to shoot was a piece of broken silver worth thousands of yuan.
This makes people think that in some other film and television works, the protagonists eat a bowl of noodles and symbolically take out a whole piece of silver ingots. The gap is probably more than dozens to hundreds of times!
The shopkeepers have always been calm and calm, more like acquiescing to this behavior. Do they really treat the silver as a mustard for the guests to take with them? We have to wonder if there is something hidden in it that we don't know.
Fast and effective, the secret technique of the little two's silver inspection
It turned out that the money paid by these customers had already passed the quick review of the juniors. We just didn't notice.
Precious metals such as gold and silver are known to be extremely malleable. For professionals like the juniors, it is actually very easy to distinguish the authenticity.
They can lightly scratch silver nuggets with their fingernails, leaving visible scratches; You can also bite lightly with your teeth to see a bright blue-gray in the silver. These small actions are enough to be completed in a moment.
Moreover, ancient smelting techniques were not sufficient to produce counterfeit silver of such quality that could deceive professionals. The juniors can use their skills boldly and with confidence.
Therefore, when Wu Song was about to get up and leave the table, Xiao Er had already used his own method to quickly identify the authenticity of the silver. Naturally, he would not live up to the trust of the guests and forcibly stopped people.
This may be the reason why the ancients were well versed in the business philosophy of "customer first", and when they were given psychological and freedom of action, customers would have the idea of coming back again. And once the problem is identified, the person has not gone far, and the shopkeeper can immediately recover it.
Therefore, they are always calm and do not pay attention to the broken silver at all. This may be said to be a kind of calm and trust in professional attitude.
epilogue
So, in today's society, what kind of inspiration and reflection can we draw from the trust and tolerance of the ancients?
Perhaps we can imagine that in modern fine dining restaurants, waiters are also habitually believing that customers will pay in full. They don't have the cheekiness to count bills for fear of offending guests. This is also to a certain extent the basic dignity of business services.
However, contemporary people are accustomed to wariness and suspicion for more time. We are on the lookout for telecom scams all day long and check the authenticity of text messages. In all walks of life, cheating and abduction have been heard endlessly. This has undoubtedly widened the trust gap in interpersonal relationships.
And the mutual trust and tolerance that the ancients were able to achieve is precisely the quality that is lacking in today's society. Perhaps we should reflect on the fact that that the simple and rich humanistic relationship is the inexhaustible driving force for social progress.
When we witness those costume films and television works again, we may be more tolerant and less suspicious of the behavior of the characters in the play. This kind of exchange of trust between people may be something that we need to cherish more in today's society.