In the modern history of our country, the most humiliating history is the history of the Qing Dynasty since the First Opium War, signed the " Treaty of Nanjing " with the then British Empire .
Since Opium War After the Qing Dynasty was defeated, the Western imperialist powers have thoroughly understood the strength of the Qing Dynasty. is nominally a big country, but in fact they are still very backward in all aspects.
In this way, these powerful people began to launch wars against the Qing Dynasty frantically, and forced the Qing government to sign a series of traitorous treaties that were humiliating. For a time, the Chinese people were extremely angry.
They not only set off a wave of dividing the Qing Dynasty politically, but also culturally attempted to subvert Chinese culture to accelerate invasion. In this way, the Boxer Movement completely broke out in 1900.
Boxer held the slogan of to help the Qing Dynasty and destroy foreigners in North China, killing foreigners and destroying foreigners' churches. This behavior of angered the great powers of the West at that time.
In the end, the eight countries, composed of Eight-Nation Alliance, consisting of Eight-Nation Alliance, , Tianjin Concession , , went to Beijing. At that time, Empress Dowager Cixi, the actual ruler of the Qing government, was killed by the Qing government. Forced to flee to Shaanxi.
In order to calm the anger of foreigners, Empress Dowager Cixi brought out her old method of begging foreigners to cease war. that is to sign a treaty that is powerless and humiliating, and cede land to foreign countries for compensation.
" Xin Chou Treaty " was signed in 1901 by Li Hongzhang and the Eight-Nation Alliance. This treaty that was powerless and humiliating made China completely become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society at that time. The most noticeable thing in this treaty is the Qing government's war reparations. The treaty stipulates that the Qing government should pay 450 million taels of silver as war reparations.
This is based on the population of China at that time, one tael of silver per person. Now many people only know that 4450 million taels of silver is a considerable amount.
But what is the value of these silvers? It is still the very curious . If converted into the current RMB, how much RMB can these silver be converted into? Was he really wronged when being called a prodigal son?
currency conversion
If you simply follow the weight of one tael of silver in the Qing Dynasty at that time, will be combined with the current silver price to calculate the value of 450 million taels of silver today.
At that time, according to the unified regulations of the Ministry of Revenue of the Qing Dynasty, one tael of silver in was about 37.3 grams, and the price of was about 4.15 yuan per gram, which means that one tael of silver is about 154.8 yuan.
Then .45 billion taels of silver is equivalent to 69.658 billion nearly 70 billion yuan. Many people may think that is correct, but in fact it is not.
If you only use this method to calculate how much RMB these silver is equivalent to, is obviously unreasonable, and this cannot accurately determine the value of these silvers.
This is because the value of the silver in the Qing Dynasty is different from the current silver. The current silver in has depreciated many times more than that in the Qing Dynasty.
Therefore, we can also change the method and convert the value of silver from another perspective. is converted based on copper coins widely used by ordinary people at that time.
Copper coins are based on text as units, and according to the unified regulations of the Ministry of Revenue, a copper coins of weigh about one or two cents, which is converted into grams, which is about four grams of pure copper .
The current copper price is about 0.05 yuan per gram, so a penny is equivalent to 0.2 yuan. You should know that the value of silver in the Qing Dynasty far exceeded that of copper coins.
At that time, one tael of silver was worth 1,600 copper coins. By this calculation, one tael of silver was about RMB 320, and 450 million taels of silver was equivalent to RMB 144 billion.
But in fact, if you think about it carefully, you can't calculate it according to the copper price. This is because the output of silver and the national storage volume of the Qing Dynasty were far inferior to that of modern times, so silver should be more precious.
Convert food supplies to
As a typical agricultural country, the salaries of officials are sometimes distributed in the form of combining grain and silver. In ancient times, the salaries of officials were also calculated by the number of stones in the grain.
Therefore, using the number of stones in grain to convert the price of silver in the Qing Dynasty is relatively standard. This first needs to understand how much a stone of grain is worth.
In the Qing Dynasty, according to the market price, one tael of silver could buy 0.8 stone of rice. According to the weights and measures stipulated by the state, one stone of rice weighs about 156 kilograms.
Then 0.8 stone rice is about 125 kilograms of rice. According to the current price of rice, costs about 2 yuan per pound of rice, which is equivalent to RMB 250 to convert one tael of silver.
Then 450 million taels of silver are about RMB 112.5 billion. This comparison is more reasonable. The transaction of is indeed a large amount.
Some people also suggested that the food prices at that time may be different from those now. This is because although the Qing Dynasty was also a major agricultural country at that time, its grain output and planting technology were far behind that of modern times.
So it is obviously not reasonable to use the price of grain to convert the price of silver in the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, many people also propose that house prices can be used to measure silver.
This is because, in ancient times or modern times, housing prices in Beijing have always been high. The closer they are to and the more they are, the higher the housing prices in the Forbidden City are.
There was a book called "Beijing Commercial Deeds Collection". This book records that had a monthly rent of 50 taels of silver outside Dong'anmen, Beijing at that time.
According to the current housing prices in Beijing, if you want to rent a house within , the second ring , it will cost about 6,200 yuan . In this way, one tael of silver is worth 124 yuan.
.45 billion taels of silver are RMB 55.8 billion. However, the result of this conversion is definitely unreasonable. is not as reasonable as using copper and grain conversion.
In the end, it has to be more reliable to use gold as a conversion medium. This is because among these heavy metals, only gold has the value of for a long time.
And whether in ancient times or today, the fluctuations in the value of gold are relatively small. If is used to convert the price of silver in the Qing Dynasty, it will undoubtedly be more accurate.
Under the unified regulations of the Ministry of Revenue in the Qing Dynasty, one tael of gold is worth 10 taels of silver, and . The price of gold is now about 383.06 yuan per gram, which is very precious.
According to the weights and measures stipulated by the Qing Dynasty, one pound is equal to sixteen taels, while one pound is now 500 grams, so the weight of one ounce of gold is about 31.25 grams.
After simple mathematical calculations, the price of one or two gold is more than 7,000 yuan. , then one tael of silver is about 700 yuan, which is a relatively accurate price.
Therefore, 450 million taels of silver can be converted into the current RMB 310 billion. For today's Chinese people,
is an astronomical figure.
can be seen that the war compensation given to the Western powers by the Qing government back then, is such a great deal, enough to completely make a country unable to recover.
Conclusion
This 450 million taels of silver, now it is more than 300 billion yuan. is enough to help our country solve more problems that require money. It would be no loss to be called a prodigal son in the late Qing Dynasty!
Although these compensations were not paid in full in the end, it has also been a brand of shame in the Chinese nation, and has been deeply imprinted in the bones of the Chinese people.
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