The ancients, the inn, paid for the meal and shouted "keep the change"! The bartender grabbed the money and put it in the till. We can only see such a series of scenes in TV series. In fact, it would be very troublesome to pay for meals with broken silver in ancient times. In ancient times, shops that could do big business with broken silver would call it silver with a special prop called Deng, which is also called silver. For the sake of credibility, bosses must give customers more change.
If there is not enough broken silver around, use steel scissors to cut off large pieces of broken silver and give change. Moreover, some rich people can take out silver, because in ancient times, silver was also quite valuable. One or two ounces of silver in the Ming Dynasty = 200 yuan RMB = 1 000p = 1 penny (penetration), while1penny = 0.2 yuan. For example, in the Qing Dynasty, one or two ounces of silver was enough to buy 150 kilograms of high-grade rice. In the Song Dynasty, one or two ounces of silver could buy more than 200 kilograms of rice. Granny Liu in a Dream of Red Mansions said, "Twenty taels of silver is enough for a cultivator for a year", and one and a half pieces of silver in the Ming Dynasty are enough for a common people for a year.
So if two people eat with wine and meat, dozens of copper coins are enough, as some people say, "put down the money and leave" is unrealistic. If you see such deceptive scenes in TV series again, you will say: it's all lies!
On the other hand, it is too inconvenient to use broken silver as the currency for trading. Broken silver comes in different sizes and shapes. Calling it the past is a waste of time. Because silver is very valuable, it takes a few cents to be accurate to waste energy and wear. In addition, ancient people were very wise, but some people used their wisdom in the wrong place, which is called meanness! Some of them will mix tin and lead in silver to make fake silver. If the cashier finds out, they have to go to court and find a professional appraisal office. It's really big.
In addition, there are good and bad silver. Good silver is called tattoo silver, and bad silver needs to be identified. No matter how you use broken silver, it is very troublesome. In order to achieve the same purity of silver, it is necessary to use cast silver. It began in the Han Dynasty and prevailed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. There are small ingots, medium ingots and silver ingots, and there is a certain amount. Generally used for large transactions such as buying land.
The most common thing for ordinary people in ancient times was to pay with copper coins. In the Qing dynasty, one or two pieces of silver can probably be exchanged for 2000 copper coins. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Cixi brought disaster to the country and people, and a large amount of silver flowed out. One or two pieces of silver could be exchanged for 3,000 copper coins. To do big business, overseas trade uses silver tickets.