Chapter 11: Making money is so hard (Part 2)
According to the habitual thinking of most modern people, commerce and currency should complement each other, and all civilized countries should have coins.
——Have you not seen in those novels with fantasy backgrounds, which brave man who conquers the world with a sword does not carry a purse full of gold, silver and copper coins in his arms? Who would drive a group of goats or piglets out of a novice village and drop off a goat at a hotel in exchange for wine and information?
But the reality is very cruel. Things like currency actually appeared quite late in human history. Before that, merchants either really had to drive a large group of cattle and sheep to do business instead of coins, or they could use shells, spices, jewelry, and metals as general equivalents. For example, the ancient Egyptians never invented their own metal coins. It was not until the end of the ancient Egyptian civilization that Greek merchants brought coins to Egypt.
As for the oldest metal coinage in human history, it was born in the Kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor, about the seventh century BC, which is equivalent to the early Spring and Autumn Period in China (a little later, the Qi State in the East also invented the knife coins, so the Eastern and Western world entered the monetary age at about the same time), and then these oldest gold and silver coins were quickly brought to the entire Mediterranean world by merchants, making them widely circulated.
Prior to this, in the Middle East, from the Sumerian civilization to the Assyrian Empire, there was no concept of currency - I remember there was a passage in the Bible that specifically boasted about the luxury and wealth of the Jewish King Solomon, but only talked about his How much gold, how much silver, how much spices and spices are in the treasury? Cattle and sheep, but he did not mention how much his annual financial income was, which made future generations very confused... But this was not because the author of the Bible deliberately showed off his writing or was mysterious, but because in the time of King Solomon , mankind has not invented such a thing as "money" at all!
Therefore, in the world of "Daughter of the Nile", although ancient Egypt already had quite prosperous domestic and international trade, it exported a large amount of grain, beer, flax, alabaster, and Egyptian specialty papyrus every year. Import wood and metal that the country lacks. And a series of prosperous trade markets were formed in Egypt's capital and border cities, especially in the upper reaches of the Nile River and its outlet.
However, because money had not yet been invented, in ancient Egypt, if you wanted to buy things on the street, you could only barter. At that time, only food was the real hard currency, so the Egyptians established a currency called "Sati". " unit refers to a certain amount of grain, and then the prices of commodities on the market are converted into "sati". For example, according to a preserved bill, a bed at that time was worth approximately 4 satis.
But the problem is that as a heavy material, farmers use small carts to push grain when going to the market. It may be okay to trade at home, but under the miserable transportation conditions of the ancient world, it is difficult for merchants who need to sell goods over long distances. Said, bulky grains really cannot replace the use of coins. As a result, some merchants began to use shells and gold and silver nuggets as general equivalents. However, the "face value" of seashells is too small, and they are generally rejected at the beach. The original gold and silver objects are not real currency, and cannot be directly exchanged for things. Every transaction must be done with gold nuggets, silver nuggets, or gold rings, etc. The silver ring is carefully weighed, and there is also a A pair of fiery golden eyes that can distinguish the color of gold and silver - fake gold made of lead blocks wrapped in gold foil was already available at that time... Therefore, gold and silver were actually used in commercial trade these days. Not particularly widespread.
In addition, the ancient Egyptians also used many other various circulation intermediaries, such as animal skins, feathers and various rare stones. However, the conversion trouble has not been improved, and there is no official exchange rate. In this way, doing business in ancient Egypt would be a headache - someone came back from doing business and found that he had received a pile of stones, feathers and shells. What's more terrible is that every stone and every shell was due to The shapes and colors are different, and the "face value" is different, so I don't know how to calculate the accounts, and I can't even figure out whether I have lost or gained. Because the exchange ratio between various materials has been fluctuating, but there is no clear currency to measure it.
Although ancient Egypt had a rough "grain standard" system, grain prices fluctuated greatly in the ancient world. Food prices in famine years and good years could even differ dozens of times. Even in different seasons of the same year, food prices can often fluctuate several times. Merchant ships and camel caravans often took several months to a year or two on the road... Therefore, when the ancient Egyptian merchants returned home from doing business, they still couldn't figure out whether they had lost or gained. Therefore, at that time, there were not many professional businessmen who relied exclusively on trade. Except for a few commercial ethnic groups, the general agricultural ethnic groups would only temporarily organize a caravan when they had surplus grain to go to distant places to exchange for some food that they did not produce. strange things, without considering the issue of profit at all. If the harvest is not good and there is no surplus grain, everyone can continue to farm at home with peace of mind and wait until there is surplus grain.
The above-mentioned worries are still for the merchants of this time and space. For all the time-travelers who are bent on making money, it is even more frustrating - God! You throw away a few shells, a few colorful stones, and a few dirty bird feathers, and you want to use these worthless things in exchange for our swords, wine, porcelain, candies, and silk? ! Is this a joke? Think we are doing charity! !
Therefore, under the strong protests of the travelers, the Egyptian buyers had no choice but to put away the shells, stones and bird feathers (except for some jade and precious stones), and instead used cattle, sheep, gold and silver, grain and various rare birds and animals. Pay the bill - Thanks to the [automatic pawn machine] provided by Doraemon, you can cash out the goods at any time, otherwise I really don’t know how to do this kind of business. However, the small amount of transactions finally reached still made the time travelers deeply dissatisfied:
"...This is the group of people with the most purchasing power in Egypt at present. They worked noisily all day long, and in the end, they didn't even get enough transaction volume of 3 billion yen! How can we pay off Doraemon? Eighteen billion yen in debt?" Senior Sister Ma Tong muttered with some dissatisfaction.
"...Be patient! Senior Sister Ma Tong! In Egypt, a place where there is nothing but sand, it is already very good to be able to do this kind of business."
Looking at the pitiful figure finally calculated on the account book, Wang Qiu couldn't help but shake his head and sigh, "...Alas, those ancient Western history books always described Egypt as being so rich, but now it seems that it is clearly It’s just a poor place that lacks purchasing power..."
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Ancient Egypt should be considered a prosperous place? Or poor?
Well, strictly speaking, this seems to be a very complex question. You must know that the concept of "wealth" has completely different standards in different eras and different countries. Just like the British colonists in the 19th century, they regarded India, which would be extremely poor in the future, as the most dazzling jewel in the crown, but regarded the Arab countries in the Gulf region, which would become extremely rich in the future, as barren and useless. The place is the same - due to changes in technological levels and cognitive abilities, the evaluation criteria for what ancient people saw as "wealth" are completely different from those of modern people.
First of all, in the eyes of the ancients, Egypt must have been a prosperous land because it was rich in food, and food has always been the strongest hard currency in the ancient world. Moistened by the Nile River that flooded regularly, the ancient Egyptians had The most fertile arable land and the most abundant crop harvests in the Mediterranean region can produce a large amount of surplus grain for export, feeding most of the Mediterranean world civilization.
Therefore, the ancient Romans called Egypt the "bread basket of the Mediterranean." During the time of the ancient Roman Empire, Egypt transported more than 100,000 tons of wheat to Italy every year to feed those Roman citizens who were indolent and spent all day watching gladiators instead of working.
The problem is, Egypt's grains may have been priceless in the ancient world, related to the life and death of an empire, but in the modern world, they are nothing more than the carrying capacity of a container ship. The seemingly astonishing amount of 100,000 tons of wheat can be sold around the world for more than 200 million yuan, or more than 3 billion yen, which is not enough to cost a private jet - this is the work of all evil. Agricultural scissors are bad!
And if you want to extract so much wheat from the bones and marrow of ancient Egypt, you don’t know how many farmers will starve to death and how many riots will be caused... Not to mention that in recent years, due to King Memphis’s military expeditions for the Daughter of the Nile, the Egyptian treasury has The grain reserves have been greatly depleted. Just in case, it would be good if the Egyptians could spend dozens of tons of grain to buy these "luxury goods" before the new grain of the next harvest season is put into storage.
As for the handmade linens stored in large quantities in the warehouses of Thebes, they look really rough and leaky. In the modern world, they are only qualified to be used as rags. The price given by the [automatic pawn machine] is extremely low, so that you The time traveler doesn’t want it at all.
Obviously, since there is no way to divert food, we can only use our brains on other products. But the problem is that Egypt is ultimately just a narrow oasis in the Sahara Desert. It is actually quite lacking in various natural resources. There are not only no gold and silver veins, but also few decent trees. In addition to papyrus, the bulk goods that were abundantly produced locally on the banks of the Nile were only grain.
As for many other important commodities necessary for human society, they are often not produced in the sandy Egypt, or the products that can be found locally are of low quality and high cost, and are not as cost-effective as importing goods from abroad - for example, Egypt Copper ore for human use must be imported from the Sinai Peninsula, wood must be imported from Lebanon, olive oil must be imported from Greece, gold and iron must be obtained from the black people in Nubia (roughly equivalent to modern Ethiopia) in the south, frankincense, Medicines and other spices come from the Arabian Peninsula, while pepper comes from the more distant eastern seas.
When these things were resold by many merchants and finally transported all the way to the Egyptians, not only were the quantities of the goods that finally arrived extremely rare, but the cost also became very high... What's worse, due to the gold Silver has not yet been regarded as a hard currency, so although the Egyptians will build huge granaries and stockpile enough food for the people of the country to eat for several years, they do not have the habit of hoarding large amounts of gold and silver, and they cannot produce too much gold and silver in a hurry. to purchase goods. In this way, even if the time travelers want to collect only gold and silver, it is impossible.
It can be seen that although Egypt was considered wealthy in the ancient Mediterranean world, it was still very poor for modern people.
So, after a lively buying frenzy, the originally delighted travelers received more than 20 tons of wheat, more than 30 tons of barley, more than 40 horses, and two horses. More than a hundred cattle, more than 900 goats, more than a thousand chickens and ducks, many dates and dried fish, about five kilograms of gold jewelry and small gold nuggets of poor purity, and twenty kilograms Very rough silver ornaments, more than a hundred ivory pieces, plus some pearls, lapis lazuli, carnelian, malachite, topaz, jasper, agate, alabaster and other ornaments, and more than 600 pictures eaten by insects and rats. Bitten, old animal hides with severe hair loss, a large box of frankincense and myrrh from the Arabian Peninsula... and many, many other miscellaneous things.
Especially when King Memphis of Egypt, in order to replace the palace guards with modern steel swords, ordered the black slaves in the palace to drag out the six Nile crocodiles that had just feasted on human flesh in the morning in the royal garden to pay off the debt, and pawned them for a good price. , rich and expensive The tribe was in an uproar for a while, and they all brought over the peacocks, lions, hippopotamuses, elephants, and even cats and dogs that were raised in their homes, and all the rare birds and animals that were usually used for entertainment and entertainment. The flying dog jumped and it became a zoo. What is even more ridiculous is that someone has brought a large group of slaves, intending to use them to pay bills, and stuffing living people into the [automatic pawn machine] while talking to themselves... In the end, they were decisively rejected.
All in all, through this day of lively transactions, Doraemon and the others sold about 1.8 billion yen in goods—or in other words, obtained 1.8 billion yen worth of property from the ancient Egyptians. As for the cost, the silks, cloths, candies, porcelain, glassware, cans of drinks, knives, axes, etc. that were sold to the ancient Egyptians were all sold by Wang Qiu, Ma Tong, and four primary school students including Nobi Nobita. Purchased from both China and Japan (from Doraemon) You can buy cheaper products in the magical prop [era vending machine], but it is annoyingly stipulated that you can only use it for yourself. If you resell it, you will be punished). The total cost is about 800 million yen. , so the final gross profit was approximately one billion yen. In addition, there are goods worth 100 million yen in stock, which cannot be sold at the moment, so we can only put them aside for later.
However, after completing this business, the potential purchasing power near Thebes and even half of Egypt has been exhausted. Even if the stall continues to be set up, it is estimated that there will not be more customers coming to send money for a while... While Wang Qiu, Ma Tong and Doraemon, etc., are frowning and struggling about how to raise more money. While they were thinking about it, a handsome black eunuch came and invited them to the banquet with a bright smile. “…To celebrate the safe return of the daughter of the Nile and welcome all distinguished guests to our country, my king and princess are preparing to hold a banquet in the palace tonight to celebrate, so that the people of our country can share the joy with foreign visitors, and we also invite all distinguished guests to enjoy the banquet! ”