After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, it was Prime Minister Li Si who was responsible for formulating the standards of weights and measures. Reese set standards for coins, lengths, etc. It went well, but he had no idea about weight. He really couldn't figure out how much should be set as a catty, so he asked Qin Shihuang for instructions.
Qin Shihuang wrote a four-word instruction: "The world is public" (Xiao Zhuan was used after Qin Shihuang's reunification), which is a standard, but there is no exact figure. In order to avoid being accused of problems in practice in the future, Reese decided to take the number of strokes of the word "tianxiagong" as the standard, so he decided that one catty was equal to sixteen taels.
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brief introduction
Legend has it that the wooden scale was invented by Lu Ban using the lever principle, and then 13 stars were carved on the scale according to the six stars of Beidou and Nandou, and it was designated as 13 Jin. After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, he added "Fu Lushou" Samsung and changed it to 16 jinliang.
The real historical reason is that the inconsistency of weights and measures among the six countries has seriously interfered with economic development and social order. Li Si played the role of emperor. Starting from the chaotic situation, he suggested abolishing the old system of six countries and defining unified measurement, which was recognized by Qin Shihuang.
Li Si began to investigate and practice at people's discretion, and the balance system was based on baht, two pounds, jun and stone. Twenty-four baht is one liang, sixteen liang is one jin, thirty jin is one jun, and four jun is one stone.
Twenty-four baht is one or two: some items are very precious, such as medicinal materials, and their owners will weigh them accurately. For the convenience of use, they are 24 respectively, which can be called half-two, one-third two, one-quarter two, one-sixth two and so on.
Sixteen taels is a catty: a scale can divide things into two parts. Productivity was low at that time. Because the people use simple and fair scales, the Jin commonly used by the people is 2 to the fourth power.
30 kg for an army: it is the soldier's food for one week (in ancient times, there were weeks, around January), and it was set at 30 kg for the convenience of calculation and transportation.
The same is true of four kings setting one stone, that is, a month's rations.
At that time, the 16-Liang scale was called the 16-Liang scale, which consisted of the Big Dipper, the Southern Dou Six Stars and the Fu Lushou Three Stars. It warns businessmen to be honest and trustworthy and not to deceive others. Otherwise, it is not a blessing to lose one or two, and you will lose your life if you lose two or two.
Baidu Encyclopedia-16 A Liang is tricky