There are often such scenes in film and television dramas: someone is eating in a restaurant, and after eating a piece of silver, it doesn’t matter if it is enough, you need to find change in the second one, just go. Some arrogant people may also reward Xiao Er with an ingot-shaped piece of silver, or ask Xiao Er for news.
shots like this are often seen in CCTV Water Margin, New Water Margin and other movies. In fact, this is also described in the novel.
For example, in order to take his mother to escape, Wang Jin gave Li Pai some silver and distracted him; Wang Si gave Shijin gifts to Shaohuashan Zhu Wu and others, and Zhu Wu rewarded him with a dozen silver when he was happy; In order to help the father and daughter Jin Cuilian, Lu Zhishen took out fifty taels of silver on the spot, and asked Shi Jin to borrow ten taels of silver; Chai Jin also took out twenty-five taels of silver to get Lin Chong to use his real skills; Wu used it. When Lasan Ruan of Shijie Village joined the group, he gave Ruan Xiaoqi one or two silvers, but he bought raw and cooked beef, chicken, and a large urn of wine. He paid back the money Ruan Xiaoqi owed.
In the previous article, I said that if based on history, it is basically impossible for people in the Water Margin to use silver, especially those at the bottom. Because there was not much silver in the Song Dynasty, and most of them were used as war reparations or rewards from the emperor. Even if a small amount of silver is scattered among the people, the court will take it back.
Therefore, strictly speaking, it is impossible for a figure in the Water Margin of the Song Dynasty to use silver. At that time, copper coins were still circulating on the market.
However, if people in the Water Margin can use silver, what does silver look like? Is it really in the shape of an ingot like in a movie? Take this question to talk about the shape of gold and silver in the Song Dynasty.
Silver shape before the Song Dynasty
Before the Tang Dynasty, there was no fixed shape for silver. Since the Tang Dynasty, the shape of silver has been fixed. Of course, the silver mentioned here is all official-made whole silver, silver ingots, and broken silver are not counted, because broken silver is cut for payment convenience and is not uniform.
There are three main types of silver ingots in Tang Dynasty, one is plate shape, one is pie shape, and the other is boat shape.
Tang Dynasty boat-shaped silver ingot
Plate-shaped silver ingots are mostly rectangular, some are slightly narrower in the middle and slightly wider at both ends, like the wat held by officials when they came to court, so they are also called wats Shaped silver ingot. Pie-shaped silver ingots, as the name suggests, are silver like round cakes. These two types of silver ingots have many inscriptions on them, with usage, names, etc. written on them.
Boat-shaped silver ingot, because the bottom of this silver ingot is flat but the four sides are high. The most important thing is that the two ends are high and raised. At first glance, it looks like a boat, so it has this name. There are basically no inscriptions on this silver ingot.
Why make the silver ingot into a boat shape? Because silver is easily adulterated and affects its composition, for experienced people, the better the color of silver, the whiter and brighter the color. The silver ingots that are raised up high at both ends make it easy to distinguish whether there are impurities. If impurities such as copper are added, the color will become darker.
Boat-shaped silver ingots in Tang Dynasty
When the Song Dynasty arrived, the shape of silver ingots changed.
Silver in the Song Dynasty
Silver ingots in the Song Dynasty, there are many kinds of shapes. In the Northern Song Dynasty, silver ingots were basically shaped like a waist plate with a thin middle and two wide ends, and the two ends were also very flat. Cocked high. However, there are also a few silver ingots with a slight depression in the middle or a slight upward rim at the periphery.
In the Southern Song Dynasty, this shape became more obvious, not only the silver ingots were shaped like a waisted plate, but the inscriptions on the silver ingots were unified. Compared with the Tang Dynasty, the silver inscriptions not only have the name of the gold and silver craftsman, but also the name of the gold and silver shop, the location of the gold and silver shop, the fine weight of the silver, and even the nature of the silver ingot, such as Jing pin (ingot) silver.
From September to November this year, the Zhejiang Provincial Museum held the "Gold and Silver Together-Southern Song Dynasty Gold, Silver and Currency Essence Exhibition". I personally went to see it.It can also be seen from these pictures that in the Southern Song Dynasty, the shapes of silver ingots were basically unified.
Although the shapes of silver ingots are the same, the units of silver ingots are abundant. In addition to fifty taels of silver ingots, there are also twenty-five taels, twelve halves, six taels and even smaller units of silver ingots.
Song Dynasty silver ingot
宋代银珠
Here, the fineness of silver is worth mentioning.
In the Water Margin, "flower silver" is often mentioned. For example, Lei Heng caught Liu Tang, Chao Gai pretended to admit his relatives, and saved Liu Tang. Afterwards, Chao Gai gave Lei Heng a dozen pennies.
Actually, the flower silver here refers to the fineness of the silver, that is, the purity.
According to the record of "Precious Goods Verification", the silver content of gold lacquer flower silver is 100%, thick flower silver is 99.9%, brown silver is 99.8%, large Huhua silver is 99.7%, and thin silver is 99.6%. The purity of thin silver, paper gray, fine silver, and coarse silver decreases successively. It is only 98.5% when there is no silver infiltration, and it is even lower at 97.5% without silver infiltration.
Therefore, flower silver is the highest-purity silver. Sending others flower silver represents sincerity, otherwise it would not be good to give away silver with low purity.
In addition, there are obvious honeycomb-shaped small holes or filamentous stripes on the silver ingots of the Song Dynasty, which are mainly used to facilitate the identification of authenticity or color.
The "honeycomb" on the silver ingot
Silver ingots in the Song Dynasty changed mainly because the boat-shaped silver ingots in the Tang Dynasty were not convenient to carry and transport, and it was more inconvenient to store, but the pie-shaped The plate-shaped silver ingots are too small, so they are unified into a flat waist plate.
On the whole, if people in the Water Margin could use silver, they would only use this kind of waist-shaped silver instead of ingot-shaped silver, which was only available in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.
Finally, let me talk about the gold of the Song Dynasty.
Gold in film and television dramas, like silver, is basically in the shape of gold ingots. However, this is not in line with history, and the gold in the Song Dynasty is not in the shape of ingots.
Water Margin also mentioned gold many times, such as garlic gold, gold, gold and silver. However, although there were many forms of gold in the Song Dynasty, there was no gold like garlic sticks.
Song Dynasty gold ingot
There is a kind of gold ingot, like silver ingot, it is a waist plate shape with a thin middle and wide ends, both ends are also flat, with a slight depression in the middle. This kind of gold ingot also has characters such as person's name, shop name, fineness, etc., and it is also divided into fifty-two, twenty-five, and twelve-half weights, but there are also twelve, eighty, and thirty-two gold ingots.
In addition to this shaped gold ingot, there are also block-shaped gold ingots, which are all rectangular. Among this kind of gold ingots, one is very thin, like flakes, with only one or two weights. There is also a rectangular gold ingot, which is only one-tenth of one or two. When converted into today's weight, it is only four grams. It is called a gold medal.
Song Dynasty gold ingot
In addition, there is also a kind of gold leaf, which is as thin as paper and folded into paper. There are several pages, so it has this name.
Song Dynasty golden pages (right)
Like silver, gold in the shape of ingots did not appear until the middle and late Ming dynasties. Therefore, even if the heroes of the Water Margin can afford gold, it will not be ingot-shaped gold, let alone brick-shaped gold, but corset-shaped gold, or rectangular gold bars, or gold pages.
Of course, although the time of the Water Margin was at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, it was written in the middle and late Ming dynasties, so there was a case of "Song Dynasty people using Ming Dynasty gold and silver" in the book. Because of this, ingot-shaped gold and silver appear in film and television dramas.
Reference materials: "Water Margin", "Precious Goods Verification", "Gold and Silver Together-Southern Song Dynasty Gold, Silver and Currency Essence Exhibition", etc.
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