The purchasing power of ancient currencies such as gold, silver and copper has always been an interesting topic. The Eight Diagrams Water Margin also converted the currency of the Song Dynasty into today's RMB to conform to the modern context. Master Wu Zhai is not an expert in studying the currency of the Song Dynasty, so it is obviously impossible to convert it completely and accurately. Only a rough estimate can be given here to give readers a basic concept.
Generally speaking, gold, silver and copper coins (actually copper-based alloys) were the main currencies in ancient times. The silver standard system in Song Dynasty is different from that in Ming and Qing Dynasties. This is a copper standard system. Copper coins are the main currency, and gold and silver are not used as currency. The basic units of copper coins are "Wen" and "Guan (Jin)", which is always 1000 Wen. There were 800 articles and 850 articles in the Song Dynasty when the financial situation was tight. There are also discounts of two yuan, when San Qian, when ten yuan and other disguised inflation. For example, when Yang Zhi killed Niu Er, Niu Er was once asked by San Qian to try the knife. As the name implies, San Qian spent one yuan as San Qian, and Cai Jing even spent ten yuan as prime minister. In order to simplify our calculation method, the prime minister ignored these factors.
When discussing ancient money, we usually use the following assumption:
1 two gold = 10 two silver = 10 copper coin = 10000 copper coin.
Although the exchange rate of gold, silver and copper has been fluctuating, this assumption should be basically reasonable. Mr. Wang Zengyu, an expert in contemporary Song history, once mentioned in the chapter "Victory" in the seventh chapter of Yue Fei's New Biography that the imperial court sent a provincial letter to Yue Fei: "Fourth, 60,000 pieces of stone and rice and 400,000 pieces of military supplies were handed over. 400,000 yuan is converted into100,000 taels of silver and 5200 taels of gold. At that time, gold and silver were not used as independent currencies. It can be seen that 400,000 copper coins in the early Southern Song Dynasty were equivalent to 65,438+100,000 silver and 5,000 gold, which basically met the above assumptions in order of magnitude.
To discuss the purchasing power of money, we must first mention the methods of two famous experts. In his Great History of China, Mr. Huang Renyu basically used the price of gold as the benchmark for conversion. He basically calculated the value of today's 1 copper coin based on the assumption that 1 two gold coins = 10 two silver coins = 10 two copper coins. In the book Hidden Rules, Mr. Wang takes rice price and silver price as the benchmark at the same time, and gives two figures. On the other hand, Mr. Wang prefers to use data converted from rice prices.
Then, according to the two gentlemen's methods, let's see how consistent RMB is with Song Dynasty today (June 65438+October 20041October).
1) gold benchmark
According to the international quotation, the price of gold basically fluctuates around 400 dollars per ounce. Let's take $400 an ounce as an example. One ounce is equal to 28.3 grams. In the Song Dynasty, the Jin of 1 was 640 grams ("1975, the bronze ruler of Jia Diao unearthed in Xiangtan, Hunan, weighed 100 Jin, 64 kg"). 1 Jin has 16 Liang, so 1 Liang in Song Dynasty is 40 grams today. In this way, one or two ounces of gold in the Song Dynasty is equivalent to 565 dollars, which is equivalent to 4650 yuan at today's 8.23 yuan. According to the assumption that 1 gold is 10 silver, that is, 10 money, copper coins in the Song Dynasty have always been equivalent to 465 yuan.
2) Silver benchmark
According to the international quotation, the price of silver basically fluctuates around $6 per ounce. Similar to the conversion of gold price, one or two pieces of silver will always be copper coins, equivalent to 70 yuan RMB.
3) rice price benchmark
Song dynasty 1 kg was 640 grams. In the Song Dynasty, 65,438+0 stone was 92.5 Jin Song (there are three works in Shen Kuo's Meng Xi Zhuan Juan, "Whoever makes stone takes 92.5 Jin as the method, and the Han balance is 34 1 Jin"). Therefore, a stone of rice has 59,200 grams, or 59.2 kilograms. If special famine years or bumper harvest years are not considered, the rice price is about 300-600 Wen per stone in the early Northern Song Dynasty, 600-700 Wen in the middle period (Renzong period) and 2.5 in the early Southern Song Dynasty. Therefore, it should be reasonable that the penetration of each stone is about 1 in Song Huizong in the late Northern Song Dynasty. According to the current rice price per kilogram of 2.5 yuan, a stone of rice in the Song Dynasty is 59.2 kilograms, which is 148 yuan, which is 1 copper coin, which is 148 yuan.
So far, we have three prices, gold 465 yuan, silver 70 yuan 148 yuan and food price 148 yuan. Because China is not a big country producing silver, the cost of refining silver after industrialization is greatly reduced, and the value of ancient silver is bound to be much higher than the present value. Obviously, it is unreasonable to take today's silver price as a reference. This can be seen from today's silver price of $6 and gold price of $400 per ounce. Today, one or two ounces of gold can be exchanged for 66 ounces of silver, while the exchange rate of ancient gold and silver we assumed was 1: 10. Gold production is stable, and it is still regarded as an important hard currency reserve by all countries in the world today. So it is more reasonable to use gold as a benchmark.
In addition, although the rapid development of modern science and technology and Mr. Yuan Longping's hybrid rice have greatly increased the grain output, the population consuming grain has also greatly increased today. According to the historical geography of the Song Dynasty, the population of the Northern Song Dynasty was less than 50 million, while the population of China today is 654.38+03 billion. Food is the most important thing for people, and food price should still be an important benchmark.
Therefore, the owner of Wuzhai took a gold price benchmark of 465 yuan and a rice price benchmark of 148 yuan's average of 306.5 yuan, rounded to the decimal point, and set 1 copper coin as 300 yuan RMB. Therefore, we have the following basic transformations:
1 two gold =3000 yuan.
1 two silver = 1 copper coin =300 yuan RMB.
1 copper coin =0.3 yuan RMB.
Look at the salary of Song officials at this exchange rate. According to the official records of Song history, the salary of a prime minister in Song Dynasty is 300 yuan per month, which is 90,000 yuan, with an annual salary of 1.08 million. A county magistrate with an average grade of 8, with a monthly salary of 1.5 yuan, totaling 4,500 yuan and an annual salary of 54,000 yuan. Considering that a county magistrate in the Song Dynasty didn't manage thousands of households, it was not bad. In the Song Dynasty, besides salary, there was also job money. Lu Su, sip an aluminum boat? , kitchen materials, firewood and other things, increase, public funds, vouchers, professional fields and other subsidies. No wonder people say that the Song Dynasty was extremely kind to officials. No wonder Song Jiang sharpened his head and wanted to be an official.
Judging from the concrete examples in the Water Margin, this exchange rate is also reasonable. Back to the fifteenth time, when Wu Yong persuaded SanRuan to join in and grab the birthday program, Wu Yong asked Ruan to buy an urn of wine, 20 Jin of raw and cooked beef and a pair of big chickens with one or two silver. It's almost one or two pieces of silver for 300 RMB. In addition, I went back to the Tenth Forest Temple in the Snow Mountain, and took out one or two pieces of silver when entertaining the battalion chief and the poor dispatcher in Li Xiaoer's shop, ordered three or four bottles of good wine and served a few dishes casually. Similarly, when Dai Zhong Yang Lin invited Shi Xiu to dinner on the 44th occasion, Yang Lin also casually threw out one or two pieces of silver for the store to serve. Generally speaking, in an ordinary small restaurant, three people with 300 yuan can really order at will.
Let's take a look at other examples in the Water Margin. When Yang Zhi was selling knives in Tokyo, Niu Er once said, "What a bird knife, it's worth a lot of money! I bought one for thirty pence and cut the meat and tofu. " A kitchen knife costs 30p, that is, RMB 9 yuan, which is very reasonable. When Lu was wandering in Wutai Mountain, he made a 62kg water mill mord and a Buddhist monk's knife with five taels of silver, which were made of fine iron. Considering that this weapon is superior and specially made, 1500 yuan is not too much. However, when Yum outsmarted Yang Zhi and his gang, the village wine brewed by Yum sold for 5 yuan. 1500 yuan was a bit too dirty. Perhaps it was because the liquor on Huangnigang was a scarce commodity at that time, Parkson was in a monopoly position, and at the same time, some classical gangs were competing to raise prices, so this barrel of wine was fried to a sky-high price.