What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
As the "hard currency" of the Republic of China period, the purchasing power of "Ocean" also varied in different years and months of the Republic of China. If we talk about the "early republic of China", it is worth talking about the Beiyang era (1912-1927).
How valuable is the "ocean" of the "Beiyang Era"? In the classic Republic of China drama "The Gate of the Big Mansion", there is a vivid presentation: as the male protagonist of the old Beijing local tycoon, Bai Qiye", "indulged in donkey murder", allowing his own donkey to eat eight cages of bun shops, and the owner of the steamed bun shop cried loudly. Bai Qiye, whose face did not change color, said easily, "Open your eyes, boy, my cattle love to eat stuffing", and then threw out a piece of the ocean, and sure enough, the owner of the bun shop broke his nose and laughed: "That grandfather, when your cattle are hungry, come to me." ”
According to the scholar Li Kaizhou, in Shanghai in 1914, a piece of ocean could buy 44 kilograms of rice. Comparing the price of modern rice, the conversion is about 145 yuan. In terms of its purchasing power, it was even more abundant at that time: in Shanghai in 1914, take a piece of the ocean under the ocean restaurant, you can eat four or five courses of the set menu, all beef steak, roast chicken, ham and other "hard dishes". In 1917, the newly hired young professors of Peking University, even if they ate a fine meal of "two dishes and a bowl of soup" every meal, they did not spend nine oceans a month. Even in Beijing during the Beiyang period, six people went to the east to shun shabu hot pot, and it took a piece of ocean.
Therefore, you can understand why, in "The Gate of the Great Mansion", the owner of the bun shop who received a piece of the ocean of Bai Qiye, why did he immediately blossom with happiness: eight cages of buns sold a "boutique package" of money, who is not happy?
Such purchasing power has also created a happy life related to the "ocean" in the writings of many celebrities of the Republic of China. In the words of Gu Jiegang, a historian of the Republic of China, "The cost of living in Beijing at that time (in the Beiyang era) was really cheap." The "masters" and "literary heroes" of the Beiyang era also often wrote brilliantly and exquisitely portrayed the taste of life at that time, so that readers a hundred years later would read it, which was full of the elegant style of the Republic of China.
With a reference to their salaries, we can better appreciate how "happy" it was to use the ocean in the early days of the Republic of China: the full professor of the Republic of China has a monthly salary of three hundred to four hundred oceans, and the average professor has a monthly salary of one hundred and eight to two hundred and eight oceans. The famous writers of the newspaper library also have a monthly salary of about 200 oceans, and In 1918, Mao Dun, who was a fledgling man, published a best-selling book with a manuscript fee of 400 yuan. Hu Shi, who joined the company in 1917, took the two hundred and eighty yuan of ocean per month in his hand and excitedly wrote to his family to announce the good news: "It is not too much to get this number when you first enter the university. ”
And what about daily consumption? In addition to eating, in 1918, he rented a courtyard with seventeen rooms in Beijing and a prime location, and the rent was only twenty yuan. Even if it is to buy a house, in 1925, I bought a mansion with forty rooms on Xizhimen Avenue in Beijing, and "with electric lights, telephones, flower houses, cars and horses", the full amount is 5,500 oceans, which is equivalent to the salary of a university full professor for up to eighteen months. For the elites of the Beiyang era, even if they do not earn extra money and only eat "dead wages", this ocean cannot be spent lying down.
Such a happy life of "lying down and spending endlessly" has also become the wind and snow in how many "Republic of China dramas", and how many ticket holders enthusiastically look forward to it: This customs life of the Republic of China is really so "high wages and low prices"? Don't be busy, look at the gains of the other classes.
For example, as fellow teachers, compared with high-paid university teachers, how "rich" are the primary school teachers who account for 90% of the number of Beiyang teachers? Scholar Pei Yiran has verified that in Hebei Province, where education was developed in the Beiyang era, the "legal minimum monthly salary" for primary school teachers was sixteen oceans, and most of them actually had four or five oceans. In the economically developed southeastern provinces such as Zhejiang, the monthly salary of primary school teachers is a common thing for seven or eight oceans, and it is often owed by the government. This stark contrast has also caused an aggressive and strange thing: on the one hand, there are "masters" gathered, on the other hand, illiteracy is everywhere, and China's illiteracy rate has remained at a "high level" of 80% for a long time.
Teachers' incomes are so disparate, so what about other professions? A marshal with great achievements in the war of New China once wrote a poignant scene in his memoirs: In 1917, at the age of 16, he worked as an apprentice for a year in a small shop in Fuping County, Hebei Province. At the end of the year, I got three oceans. He was very happy because "I've never gotten any money." A year of hard work in elementary school can earn ten days' worth of food for young professors.
What about the workers? As far as the "high-income" Beijing railway workers in the Beiyang era are concerned, according to the statistics of the Republic of China's "Traffic History and Road Administration", the average annual wage of Beijing railway workers in the Beiyang era is about 127 oceans. In 1918, Tsinghua teacher DidenMai surveyed: At that time, the minimum annual living expenses for a family of five in Beijing was 100 yuan of ocean. This "annual salary" is really not rich.
And what about Shanghai, which was placed in the Beiyang era as an "adventurer's paradise"? For Shanghai workers, this "not rich" is probably a luxury: according to the statistics of the "Shanghai Municipal Government Gazette", the wages of Shanghai workers are mostly around 10 to 25 oceans, but the expenses are much larger, and the expenses such as renting are variously expensive. For example, the "upper-class housing" rented by workers is a set of four or five families, four or five people are crowded into a house, and the sanitary conditions are "sewage and dirt ... It's a mess." It's still "superior".
How can such an environment not be riddled with diseases? It costs one ocean to see an outpatient clinic, and ten oceans to visit an emergency department. Most of the time when they are sick, the workers are their shoulders. According to the survey of the "Social Bureau" at that time: two-thirds of the recognized families in Shanghai at that time could not make ends meet. Each worker's family spends less than two oceans a year on medicine. A piece of ocean can sometimes be a lifesaver for them.
Even more difficult is the peasants, who were the majority of the population at that time.
In the case of the tenant farmers in Henan, in Henan in the Beiyang era, the rent per mu of land was between three oceans and twelve oceans. In the "college salary", this money is nothing. But for the sharecroppers, this is a heavy burden. And at that time, Henan was popular for "dead collection", that is, no matter how the harvest was, the rent had to be paid in advance. The bitter sharecroppers worked hard for a year, and basically there was no money left. Then go out and do odd jobs? At that time, the salaries of rural workers in various places were at most a dime of the ocean every day, which was a huge gap compared with urban industrial workers.
Of course, for all those in power in the Beiyang era, those "marshals" who were often "enlightened" and "patriotic" in literary works. A piece of ocean is certainly not much money. According to Cao Rulin's "Memories of The Diplomacy of the Early Ming Dynasty", the Beiyang government spent 20 million yuan per month at that time, but the monthly income was only 12 million yuan. In addition to the famine, it also desperately expanded military spending: in 1919, the military expenditure of the Republic of China was as high as 2.17 billion oceans - mainly paid by ordinary people.
Therefore, even in the Beiyang era, which is known as the "short spring of national industry", the "marshals" never stopped collecting and tyrannical expropriation: Jiangsu's land endowment doubled in seven years, and the additional tax increased fivefold. Henan's taxation is as high as fifty-four kinds, and the field endowment has been "pre-levied" since 1920, and the field endowment for the next few years has been levied every year. Wu Peifu also forcibly planted opium in Henan, collecting a tax of eight oceans per acre. What about the national industry and commerce that is in the "spring"? Tianjin's once developed flour industry alone collapsed for the most part under the heavy taxes of Beiyang. The Shanghai Tobacco and Liquor Association also made a calculation: a pot of shochu transported from Shanghai to Beijing would be subject to a three-fold additional tax. A carton of tobacco transported from Fujian to Zhejiang will be squeezed into more than thirty yuan for taxation. How prosperous is this "spring"? You can think of it.
Of course, in this "spring", the "celebrities" of the Republic of China also made a lot of money, and in the drought of 1920, the warlord Cao Kun personally took away 3 million yuan of disaster relief funds. The warlord Zhao Qian plagued Henan for eight years, and the money he took away was more than 40 million oceans. For them, although a piece of ocean is not much money, it will never be easily spent on the people - the Beiyang era is known for urban filth, to improve the urban environment, the average annual cost of each ordinary person is fifty cents of the ocean. But in fact, such a "small amount of money", the Beiyang government is holding the pocket - the public health expenditure of the cities of the Republic of China, at most accounting for only seven percent of the government expenditure, is evenly distributed to each citizen, evenly less than one yuan.
The tragic situation of the Republic of China's "no year and no epidemic" comes from this frugality.
In this sense, the warlords are not able to see the eyes, and the "masters" are "small money" a piece of ocean, which is really an incomparably important amount of money for the vast majority of ordinary people in the Republic of China. To understand the value of this money, we can also understand how much of the people's livelihood under prosperity and suffering in that backward and beaten era is worth pondering.