Due to the difficulty in mining gold and its small quantity, it has always been a very valuable precious metal and has always been regarded as a symbol of wealth.
Huang Yue is decorated with gold, which was used by ancient emperors. During the war, the emperor lent it to ministers who took part in the war. Fake Huang Yue means personal expedition on behalf of the emperor. Fu Hao, the wife of King Wu Ding of Shang Dynasty (around 12 BC, when Wu Ding rectified Shang Dynasty), was the first heroine, warrior and politician in China history. In Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, when emperors or ministers went to war, they all took Huang Yue as their aides, and women were good at fighting. Every time they go out, they use Huang Yue as their staff.
1976 the tomb of the rich was discovered in the yin ruins of Anyang city, Henan province. There are nearly 2,000 funerary objects in the tomb, including 468 bronzes, 755 jades, 564 bones and 6,800 seashells. Huang Yue was found in Fu Hao's mausoleum. It is not made of gold, but cast in bronze. How did Huang Yue become bronze?
During the Xia and Shang Dynasties, the emergence and development of bronze ware gradually reached its peak, and bronze ware was the symbol of Xia, Shang and Zhou culture. At that time, copper was regarded as a precious metal, so it was used as currency. It was not until the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty that bronzes withdrew from the political arena.
Bronzes were called "gold" or "auspicious gold" in ancient times. Because the color of bronze was golden yellow when it was first cast and turned green after oxidation, people called bronze gold at that time, and the value of bronze was not higher than that of second-class silver.
So ancient gold is different from what we understand now. In our opinion, gold refers to gold, but in ancient times, copper and tin can also be called gold. Ancient hardware refers to gold, silver, copper, iron and tin. Sanhuang refers to realgar, orpiment and sulfur. Most of the time, when they say gold, they mean copper.
According to historical data and archaeological excavations, it is proved that the Western Han Dynasty can collect about 400 kilograms of gold every year. According to the 200,000 Jin given to Wei Qing by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, it is impossible to get so much gold.
How much is gold 12 thousand worth?
According to Ding Bangyou's Study on Rice Price in Qin and Han Dynasties, it can be roughly judged that the average rice price at that time was about RMB 0/00 per stone, so in the absence of drought or flood, one or two = 10 money 1 stone rice = 60 kg rice = 100 money =/kloc-. According to the present situation, one kilogram of rice in 5 yuan is only a few hundred thousand yuan. According to this algorithm, Wei Qing got a reward of 200,000 Jin of copper coins from Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, which is almost equivalent to millions of RMB now.
This is only rough mathematics, and we need to calculate the purchasing power at that time. In the Han Dynasty, an ordinary civil servant earned about 1 100 yuan a month, so twenty-two thousand gold (two thousand copper coins) was almost an ordinary civil servant's salary for eight years.
Later, the mining technology of gold was improved, although the quantity was still very small, but it was much more than before, and according to my above calculation, there was actually no two thousand gold. Because the conversion standards in ancient times were constantly changing, although the weights and measures were unified after Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, it was only in China that the gold exchange ratio of each dynasty was different.
In the Han Dynasty, the modern measurement was about 25 grams, while 250,000 grams was 12000 grams, which was quite different from our imagination. Moreover, the emperor did not directly give the minister gold, but usually used food and jewelry instead. So the ancient emperor gave twenty-two thousand gold, mostly twenty-two thousand copper coins.