Great time travel

Chapter 11. Making money is hard work

According to the habitual thinking of most modern people, commerce and currency should complement each other, and every civilized country should have currency.

——Don’t you see that in those novels with fantasy backgrounds, which brave man with a sword in the world doesn’t have a money bag full of gold coins, silver coins and copper coins in his arms?Who would drive a group of goats or piglets out of Xinshou Village on the road, and drop a goat at a hotel in exchange for wine and intelligence?

But the reality is cruel. Money actually appeared quite late in human history.Prior to this, merchants either really could only drive a large herd of cattle and sheep instead of coins to do business, or used 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 coin 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 of China (a little later, the Eastern Qi State also invented the knife Coins, so the time when the Eastern and Western worlds entered the monetary age is about the same), and then, these oldest gold and silver coins were quickly brought to the entire Mediterranean world by merchants, making them widely circulated.

Before that, in the Middle East, from the Sumerian civilization to the Assyrian Empire, there was no concept of currency. I remember that there was a passage in the Bible that boasted of the luxury and wealth of the Jewish king Solomon, but only said his How much gold, how much silver, how much spices, cattle and sheep are in the treasury, but he just didn’t mention how much his annual financial income is, which is very confusing for future generations to see... But this is not because the author of the "Bible" deliberately showed off The writing style and mystification, but because in the era of King Solomon, human beings hadn't 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 papyrus, a special product of Egypt, at the same time. Import wood and metals that are not available in the country.And in the capital and border cities of Egypt, especially in the upper reaches of the Nile and at the mouth of the sea, a series of very prosperous trade markets were formed.

However, because the currency has not been invented yet, in ancient Egypt, if you want to buy things on the street, you can only barter - at that time, only food was the real hard currency, so the Egyptians stipulated a currency called "Sati". "The unit refers to a certain amount of grain, and then the prices of commodities on the market are converted with "Sati".For example, according to a preserved bill, a bed at that time was worth about 4 "sati".

But the problem is, as a kind of heavy material, farmers use small carts to push grain when they go to the market. It may be okay to trade at the door of the house, but under the sad transportation conditions of the ancient world, for merchants who need to sell goods long-distance It is said that bulky food grains really cannot replace the use of coins.As a result, some merchants began to use shells and gold and silver pieces as general equivalents.However, the "face value" of shells is too small, and they are generally rejected at the seaside. The original gold and silver objects are not real currency, so they cannot be exchanged for things directly. Weigh the silver rings carefully, and you also need a pair of golden eyes that can distinguish the fineness of gold and silver-the fake gold made of lead blocks wrapped in gold foil was already available at that time... Therefore, gold and silver are in this year. In commercial trade, it is actually not widely used.

In addition, the ancient Egyptians also used many other circulation intermediaries, such as animal skins, feathers, and various rare stones, but the trouble in conversion has not been improved, and there is no official exchange rate.In this way, doing business in ancient Egypt can be very troublesome-someone returns from business and finds that he has received a pile of stones, feathers and shells, and what is more terrible is that every stone and shell is due to Different shapes and colors have different "face value", so I don't know how to calculate the accounts, and I don't even know whether I have lost or won.Because the exchange rate between various materials has been fluctuating, but there is no clear currency to measure it.

Although ancient Egypt had a rough "grain standard" system, the price of grain fluctuated greatly in the ancient world, and the price of grain in a year of famine and a year of abundance can even vary by dozens of times.Even in different seasons of the same year, food prices can often fluctuate several times.However, merchant ships and camel caravans often have to travel for several months to one or two years on the road... Therefore, when the ancient Egyptian merchants returned home after finishing their business, they still couldn't figure out whether they had lost or made a profit.Therefore, at that time, there were not many professional businessmen who relied exclusively on trade for a living. Except for a few commercial peoples, the general agricultural peoples would temporarily organize a caravan when they had surplus food, and went to distant places to exchange for some that they did not produce. Rare things, do not consider the issue of profit.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 troubles are still for the merchants in this time and space.For all those time travelers who are only looking for money, it is even more nerve-wracking—God!You throw away a few shells, a few colorful stones, and a few dirty bird feathers, just to exchange these worthless things for our swords, wine, porcelain, candy, and silk? !Is this a joke?When we are here to do charity! !
Therefore, under the strong protest of the travelers, the Egyptian buyers had to put away the shells, stones and bird feathers (except some jade and gemstones), and use cattle, sheep, gold and silver, grain and various rare birds and animals to buy them. Paying bills - thanks to the [Automatic Pawn Machine] provided by Doraemon, you can cash out the goods at any time, otherwise you really don't know how to do this kind of business.However, the small amount of transactions concluded in the end still made the traversers deeply dissatisfied:

"...This is the group of people with the most purchasing power in Egypt right now? After a whole day of noisy tossing to the end, they didn't even make up the 30 billion yen transaction volume! How can we pay off Doraemon's 180 yuan?" Billion yen in debt?" Senior Ma Tong muttered with some dissatisfaction.

"...Be patient! Ma Tong-senpai! In Egypt, a place where nothing but sand is sand, it's pretty good to be able to do this kind of business."

Looking at the pitiful figure finally calculated on the ledger, Wang Qiu couldn't help shaking his head and sighing, "... Alas, in ancient Western history books, Egypt was always described as so rich, but now it seems that it is clear that It’s just a poor place with little purchasing power…”

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Should ancient Egypt be considered rich?Or poor?
Well, strictly speaking, this seems to be a very complicated problem.You must know that the concept of "richness" has completely different standards in different eras and different countries.Just like the British colonists in the [-]th century, they regarded India, which was poor in the future, as the most dazzling jewel in the crown, but regarded the Arab countries in the Gulf region, which would become very rich in the future, as barren and useless worthless It is the same as the land—due to the changes in technological level and cognitive ability, the so-called "richness" in the eyes of ancient people has completely different evaluation criteria from that of modern people.

First of all, in the eyes of the ancients, Egypt must be a rich land, because it is rich in food, and food has always been the strongest hard currency in the ancient world. Under the regular flooding of the Nile River, the ancient Egyptians owned The most fertile arable land and the richest crop harvest in the Mediterranean region can produce a large amount of surplus grain for export, feeding most of the civilization circle of the Mediterranean world.

Therefore, the ancient Romans called Egypt "the bread basket of the Mediterranean".In the era of the ancient Roman Empire, Egypt transported more than [-] tons of wheat to Italy every year to support those Roman citizens who were lazy, watched gladiators and did not work all day long.

But the problem is that these grains in Egypt may be considered invaluable in the ancient world, which is 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 2 tons of wheat can be sold in the world for more than 30 million yuan, or more than [-] billion yen, which is not enough for the price of a private jet—this is the evil industry and agriculture The scissors are bad!

And if you want to plunder so much wheat from ancient Egypt, you don’t know how many farmers you will starve to death and how many riots you will cause... Not to mention that in recent years, because King Memphis has sent troops to the Nile Daughter year after year. The stored grain has been consumed very badly. Just in case, before the new grain for the next harvest season enters the warehouse, it would be nice if the Egyptians could take out dozens of tons of grain to buy these "luxury goods".

As for the large amount of handmade linen stored in the warehouse of Thebes city, it looks really rough and leaky. In the modern world, it is only qualified to be used as a rag. The price given by the [Automatic Pawn Machine] is so low that everyone Travelers don't want it at all.

Obviously, since there is no way to waste food, then they can only use their brains on other products.But the problem is that Egypt is just a long and narrow oasis in the Sahara Desert in the final analysis. All kinds of natural resources are actually quite scarce. Not only are there no gold and silver veins, but even decent trees can not be found.Apart from papyrus, the bulk goods that are abundant locally on the banks of the Nile are just food.

As for many other important commodities necessary for human society, they are often not produced in Egypt, where the yellow sand covers the sky, or the products that can be found locally are of low quality and high cost, which are not more cost-effective than importing goods from foreign countries—for example, Egypt Copper ore for human use was imported from the Sinai Peninsula, timber from Lebanon, olive oil from Greece, gold and iron from blacks in southern Nubia (roughly equivalent to modern Ethiopia), frankincense, Spices such as medicine come from the Arabian Peninsula, and pepper comes from the more distant Eastern Ocean.

When these things were resold all the way by many merchants and finally transported to the Egyptians, not only the quantity of goods that finally arrived was extremely rare, but also the cost became very high... Worse, due to the Silver has not yet been regarded as a hard currency, so although the Egyptians will build huge granaries and hoard enough grain for the people of the whole country to eat for several years, they do not have the habit of hoarding a large amount 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 traversers want to only accept gold and silver, it is impossible.

It can be seen that although Egypt was considered rich in the ancient Mediterranean world, it is still very poor for modern people.

So, after a lively buying frenzy, all the travelers who were originally happy received more than 20 tons of wheat, more than 30 tons of barley, more than 40 horses, and more than 200 cows. More than 900 goats, more than 1000 chickens and ducks, many dates and dried fish, about 100 kilograms of gold jewelry and small gold nuggets of poor purity, 600 kilograms of very rough silver ornaments, more than [-] ivory, plus some pearls, blue Goldstone, carnelian, malachite, topaz, jasper, agate, alabaster and other decorations, as well as more than [-] old animal skins that were bitten by moths and rats and severely shed hair, and a large box of frankincense from the Arabian Peninsula And myrrh... and many, many, many other things like that.

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 the six Nile crocodiles from the imperial garden that had just eaten human flesh in the morning, and pawned them for a good price. The rich and nobles were in an uproar for a while, and all the rare birds and animals that were raised in their homes, such as peacocks, lions, hippopotamuses, elephants and even cats and dogs, were all used for entertainment and boredom. Time is flying like dogs and dogs, it has become a zoo.What's even more ridiculous is that someone brought a large group of slaves, prepared to use them to pay the bill, and stuffed the living people into the [automatic pawn machine]... Naturally, they were resolutely rejected in the end.

In short, through this day's bustling transactions, Doraemon and the others sold about 18 billion yen in goods-or obtained 18 billion yen worth of property from the ancient Egyptians.As for the cost, the silks, cloth, candy, porcelain, glassware, canned beverages, knives, axes, etc. sold to the ancient Egyptians were all sold to the ancient Egyptians by Wang Qiu, Ma Tong, and Nobi Nobita and other four elementary school students. Purchased from both China and Japan (you can buy cheaper products from Doraemon’s magical props [chronological vending machines], but it is very painful to stipulate that you can only use them yourself. If you resell them, Punishment procedures will be initiated), and the total cost is about [-] million yen, so the final gross profit is about one billion yen.In addition, there are goods worth [-] million yen hoarded in their hands, which cannot be sold for a while, so they can only be discussed later.

However, after the deal was completed, the potential purchasing power near Thebes city and even half of Egypt has been exhausted.Even if the stalls continue to open, it is estimated that there will be no more customers coming to give money for a while... Just as Wang Qiu, Ma Tong, Doraemon, etc., are frowning and struggling for how to raise more money. When they were thinking about it, a handsome black eunuch came and invited them to the banquet with a pleasant smile.

"...To celebrate the safe return of the Daughter of the Nile River and to welcome all distinguished guests to our country, my king and princess are planning to hold a banquet in the palace tonight to celebrate, so that our people and foreign guests can share the joy, and invite all distinguished guests to enjoy the banquet! "