Why do southern minorities like to wear silver ornaments?

In fact, from the phenomenon that southern minorities like to wear silver ornaments, it can be seen that almost 500 years ago was the era of great navigation. The first thing to be clear is where the materials come from-there are not many silver mines in China, and there are even fewer super-large silver mines, and there are many associated mines. In other words, there were very few silver mines that could be mined on a large scale in ancient times. The development level of southern minority areas is low, the mining industry is underdeveloped, the living standard is still not high, and there is no surplus wealth. Where the silver for jewelry comes from is actually very background. The money comes from far away overseas; One is from Japan, and the other is from the silver mines in Mexico and Peru on the other side of the globe. How did this kind of silver cross the ocean to China, and then flowed into the hands of Baiyue people in the south, and evolved into today's complex and exquisite silver ornaments? It is said that the Ming and Qing dynasties closed their doors to the outside world, and there was a time in the Ming Dynasty. Although Zheng He made seven voyages to the Western Ocean, trade declined since then, and even Japanese invaders frequently invaded the border in the middle and late period. Qi Jiguang became a hero against Japanese invaders only after he was born. Everyone has heard of the dangers of the enemy; You all think that most Japanese ronin came to the coast of China, burning and looting. Why don't the guards care? The Ming army is too corrupt. What pills! (In fact, the composition of the enemy is very complicated, and there are more maritime merchants, merchant thieves with multiple identities, and some even have legal official identities)-The fortresses are all broken from the inside. Military households in Ming dynasty health clinics also had to make a living. At the beginning, the harmonious society built by Mao Zhu Yuanzhang was that all kinds of people had their own places. Dragon begets dragon, phoenix begets phoenix, and mouse's son goes to make a hole-the military family will be a soldier for Lao Tzu all his life. Under this kind of construction, the state has no local finance. Anyway, all the expenses of local officials at all levels are solved by themselves. Some military households in the frontier defense station cultivated land and some off-duty soldiers to maintain the operation of the health station system. After such a long time, the soldiers and brothers in the health center also want to get married, have children and expand their families. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the question came-how did these extra people make a living? We all know that what makes the most money from the sea is not fishing, but doing business. It happened that when Mao arrived in China, the water forces of rivals such as Chen Youliang and others were actually very strong, especially Fang Guozhen, which started with maritime trade. Those sailors who used to be soldiers for Zhu Yuanzhang's enemies made Zhu very uneasy-who knows how these technical arms will undermine social stability and unity? What should I do? Then they were not allowed to go to sea. One is to cut off their financial resources, and the other is to cut off their technology. Isn't this a happy thing, stability and unity? However, the ultra-high profits of maritime trade have led to the fact that maritime commerce cannot be really banned. In the early and middle Ming Dynasty, only the official maritime trade was legal, and the biggest maritime trade was Zheng He's voyage to the Western Ocean-although this was not only a commercial act, but more importantly, diplomacy, in order to maintain the image of a responsible big country in the Ming Dynasty (China went to the country), but other than that, only the tribute trade was legal. Speaking of it, it's also because we Daming don't like small Japan, so we decided to make this tribute rule, thinking that Japan is not very close to us, so we decided to pay tribute once every ten years. This can be bitter for Japan, which has been closely related to China since the Tang and Song Dynasties-"Where can I buy our silk clothes and porcelain?" And make people consume luxury goods unpleasantly? Therefore, smuggling has become an underground way to maintain trade, and people engaged in these smuggling have become the so-called "maritime merchants" in the Ming Dynasty. The most famous is Wang Zhi, the upright man played by Hu Zongxian. Moreover, the military families of hospitals can also benefit from it and subsidize their families. These are not private maritime trade accommodated by the government, and have become a gray area. Those ronins from Japan, who have business, do business, and if they have no business, they kill people and rob money, which has become the scourge of the coastal border. It seems too far from the point ... back to the point: what is the most important thing in doing business? There is money to be made. What is the most profitable business between Ming and Japan? Buy money. At this time, a big silver mine-Shi Jian Yinshan was discovered. This is a very rare and easy-to-mine large-scale and large-scale silver mine. How big is it? At the peak, mining accounts for almost half of global production at the same time. Now the Japanese can be developed, buy buy buys them, and we have plenty of money-as a result, things are expensive and silver is cheap. Businessmen all over the world know that silver in Japan is cheap, and you can make a lot of money by changing goods into silver in Japan and then returning to other places to exchange money for goods. It happened that the Ming Dynasty at this time was experiencing the pain of no local finance: everything had to be solved by the local government itself, which was really annoying. So some flexible places began to pay all kinds of chores with silver; When this practice became famous in the world, it was the "one whip method" in the late Ming Dynasty. Yes, at this time, the currency supporting China's economic tribute system is no longer copper coins. At this time, the copper mines in the southwest are still underdeveloped, and the copper mines in other places are almost exhausted. Copper coins were welcomed by Southeast Asia and exported in large quantities during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. In the Ming dynasty, it was used less and less. Taxation has largely degenerated to the level of real tax, and silver has gradually replaced copper coins and become the core of this system. People in the Ming Dynasty gradually realized that silver was a good thing. As a result, in foreign trade, Daming became a silver black hole, constantly absorbing silver from the surrounding areas in exchange for porcelain, silk and copper coins. At this time of Europe, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and other countries have also intervened in the maritime trade in Southeast Asia since da Gama discovered the new route to India, Columbus discovered the new American continent, and even Magellan's global voyage. The discovery of silver mines in America, Peru and Mexico under the Spanish conquest also gave them enough hard currency to trade spices with Southeast Asia and silk porcelain with China. There is demand on both sides, so the silver on the other side of the earth is made into Spanish silver coins by people in distant Europe, and then it is continuously transported to Daming. The Ming Dynasty and even the Qing Dynasty have always been monsters that suck gold, no, suck silver! However, as we all know, the abnormal growth of the total amount of money leads to currency depreciation, inflation and economic collapse, which is different from the reality in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Many people are also troubled by this, especially western historians. In fact, this reason is because the silver that came to China did not fully enter the circulation field; There are several destinations for these new silver, some of which have entered the tribute system-that is, they have become tributes and belong to the state finance; Part of it is stored-that is, landlords and rich people melt silver into silver balls and hide them in the cellar; Some of them entered the circulation market, which really led to a small-scale inflation phenomenon. A very important part is that due to the high degree of development in the south of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty, wood, a basic resource, has been almost exploited, and houses and ships have to be built every year (especially water transport ships, it is stipulated that a batch should be changed every ten years, and one tenth of them should be changed every year). What if it is not enough? Buy buy buys! Who did you buy it from? Whoever has wood has bought it! The undeveloped virgin forest in southwest China has become a big fat. With what? Silver, I have plenty of money! As a result, the money that came across the sea also flowed to the people of the southern minorities. Speaking of it, the former compatriots of ethnic minorities had a hard life and didn't have much wealth. They finally made money by selling wood, but the underdeveloped local economy made it impossible to spend the money-it was no joke that there was only money left. As a result, girls who still love beauty, no matter how hard life is, should also love beauty-glistening silver has become the best material for jewelry. Therefore, the silver ornaments of southern ethnic minorities have a history of hundreds of years, which is not bragging at all-they really have such a long history, but not everyone knows that silver came from the prosperous trade era hundreds of years ago and came from overseas at that time. —— The above sources generally come from some knowledge points in recent classes. The specific historical materials and quotations are not clear. You are welcome to continue to enrich and supplement, but the background is no problem. I remember an article by Chen Chunsheng and Liu Zhiwei, "Tribute, Market and Material Life —— On the Relationship between American Silver Import and Social Changes in China in the 8th Century", Journal of Tsinghua University No.5, 20 10. But I haven't had time to read it ... In fact, the most interesting history is the context hidden under historical materials, customs and people's feelings. These lines are hidden in the dust, waiting for you to find them. How's it going? Is it magnificent? I didn't expect such a wonderful history to be drawn from the silver ornaments of southern minorities, did I? Show all