Lin Chong in the novel "Water Margin" is undoubtedly a tragic figure. Originally, he was in front of 8, imperial coaches, and he had a beautiful wife at home. Even if he didn't become rich and expensive, he was well fed and clothed. But it happened that he got into trouble with such a powerful man as Gao Taiwei, was framed by the design, and eventually his family was ruined.

And Lin Chong fell for it all because of a knife. It is said that Lin Chong went shopping with Lu Zhishen for a drink one day, and he met a big fellow selling knives in the street. As an imperial coach, Lin Chong is naturally a man who knows and loves knives. Knowing that this is a treasure knife, he spent a thousand dollars to buy it. Unexpectedly, Gao Taiwei told him to take a knife into the White Tiger Hall on the grounds of "seeing the knife", and finally disaster came to him ...

Yang Zhi sold the knife, and as a result, he killed Niu Er angrily and sold a murder. Lin Chong bought a knife, but it also had the same effect, and he ended up in exile. I have to say that the arrangement of the story of Water Margin is really interesting.

It's worth mentioning that Lin Chonghua bought a knife, and it can be seen that their family is still quite rich. You know, this thousand penetration is not a small number.

penetration was a kind of money-making in ancient times, that is, putting copper coins on a rope, generally one thousand is consistent, so you can think of it as a monetary unit. However, it should be emphasized that in the Northern Song Dynasty. Traditionally, money is not a thousand dollars as generally understood, but seven hundred and seventy coppers.

"Seventy-seven dollars is a hundred"-

So, a thousand dollars is 77, copper coins. This is not a small sum of money. When Yang Zhi was selling knives on the street, Niu Er, the ruffian, once said that an ordinary knife can be worth 3 yuan, and you can buy more than 2, pieces for a thousand penetration.

Niu Er shouted, "What a bird knife! It costs a lot of money! I bought a handful for thirty pence, and I also cut meat and tofu. What's the advantage of your bird knife? It's called Baodao! "

of course, if it is today, this thousand dollars is also valuable. As for the specific value geometry, we might as well calculate it.

The historical background is very important for this ancient and modern currency conversion, and the values calculated in different dynasties are very different. As we all know, Lin Chong and Wu Song are both characters in Water Margin, and the author of Water Margin, Shi Naian, is from the Ming Dynasty, but the background of the story is the Northern Song Dynasty. To be precise, it should be the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, in which many historical figures and events such as Song Huizong, Gao Qiu and Fang La Uprising appeared.

so, what we need to ask is how much is the 1 yuan in the last years of the northern song dynasty equivalent to now?

At the same time, there is definitely no direct exchange rate between ancient and modern currencies with a Millennium difference, so our conversion needs to be compared with reference objects.

generally speaking, gold is the most commonly used conversion reference, because it is a hard currency that can be linked to currency in both ancient and modern times.

so, we can convert this thousand dollars into equivalent gold, and then convert the result with the current gold price. In the late Northern Song Dynasty, the exchange ratio of silver money was about 1: 2, that is, one or two pieces of silver could be exchanged for two pieces of money. If you exchange according to this ratio, you should be able to exchange 1 yuan for 5 taels of silver. In addition, the exchange ratio of gold and silver in the same period is about 1: 1, that is, one tael of gold can be exchanged for twelve taels of silver, so one thousand taels of money can be exchanged for 5 taels of gold.

Of course, the Song Dynasty was a "copper-based" monetary system. Although gold and silver are hard currencies, they are not currencies, so the price fluctuates greatly, and these ratios are only approximate due to different time and regions.

after converting it into gold, we can use the current gold price to cover it. However, it should be noted that the ancient units of mass are different from ours today. In the Northern Song Dynasty, 5 taels of gold was actually only equivalent to 4 taels now, that is, two kilograms.

it is based on the jiadiao bronze rule unearthed in Xiangtan, Hunan province in 1975, which weighs 1 Jin, but the actual weight is 128 Jin.

That is to say, a kilo in the Northern Song Dynasty was heavier than our present kilo, which had to be 64 grams. However, because the old system used 16 taels a catty, it was much lighter in the Northern Song Dynasty than our modern one, actually only 4 grams.

so how much can two kilograms of gold be worth today? I looked at the price of gold, which is about one gram of 45 yuan, which is 9, yuan.

of course, some people here will ask, why do you have to use gold price to convert, but can't silver price? This is mainly because silver depreciated too much in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. At that time, China's porcelain, tea and silk were sold overseas, earning a lot of foreign exchange, but China basically did not import foreign goods, which led to a serious trade surplus and a large amount of silver flowed into China. Later, in order to reverse the situation, western countries began to import opium, which eventually triggered the Opium War.

as the saying goes, things are rare, and if there is more silver, it will naturally depreciate. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the price difference between gold and silver was only more than ten times, but now it is a hundred times.

In fact, from this perspective, the gold conversion method is not very reliable. Although the price fluctuation is not as big as that of silver, inflation does exist after all. Therefore, in order to ensure the objectivity of the data, we can also find other conversion references, such as rice price based on purchasing power.

according to the historical data, we can estimate that the rice price of Bianjing was always about one stone in the late Northern Song Dynasty. In other words, a thousand penetration can buy a thousand stones of rice.

"Before Xi and Feng, rice stones were only six or seven hundred" (Records of Food and Goods in the History of Song Dynasty)

But one stone in the Northern Song Dynasty was equivalent to 12 Jin today, and a thousand stones was 12, Jin. According to the rice price of a kilo in 3 yuan, a thousand dollars is equivalent to 36, yuan. It can be seen that this is quite different from the value of gold conversion.

In fact, I don't think this conversion of purchasing power is very reliable. After all, the productivity in the Northern Song Dynasty is far from today's. The yield of 2 kilograms per mu and 2, kilograms per mu are basically two concepts. In addition, there are many food substitutes in our country. With the improvement of living standards, the proportion of rice expenditure is very low.

therefore, the data reflected in this way is also very objective. In fact, I prefer to compare the income and salary of the two eras.

According to the introduction of Price Research in Song Dynasty written by Mr. Cheng Minsheng, in the Northern Song Dynasty, in a first-tier central city like Bianjing, an ordinary handyman in a restaurant, or a street vendor, earned about 2 articles a day, which was about 6, articles a month.

In today's first-tier cities, such bottom-level wage earners earn only 6, to 7, yuan a month. By contrast, a penny in the Northern Song Dynasty is equivalent to one yuan today. According to the previous calculation, 1, yuan has 77, pence, which is 77, yuan. That's a lot of money. You can almost buy a small apartment in an ordinary second-tier city.

so this thousand penetration is really not a small number. From this, it can be inferred that the 1,-year-old birthday program that Chao Gai robbed at the beginning was 77 million yuan, a major robbery case with an amount of nearly 1 million yuan. No wonder you have to go up the mountain and become an outlaw, and you can't kill your head if you are caught?