What tricks did the ancients in China have to hide money and save money?

The ancients in China liked to bury their money in pots and pans.

Influenced by the Confucian thought of "frugality and housekeeping", the ancients in China are rare people in the world who especially like to save money, and everyone likes to be slaves to financial management. The way of preservation and preservation used by the ancients in China is relatively simple, generally storage. But there are various means and methods of storage.

Storage is generally divided into cellar storage and tank storage.

When it comes to cellar storage, readers may think of the joke that "there is no silver here for 320", which stems from this way of saving, that is, the money is buried directly in the ground with pots and pans, and most of the funerary objects are gold and silver. This way was liked by all the rich and tycoons in ancient China. In today's archaeological excavations, hoarded cultural relics are often unearthed, which are left by ancient people's means of preserving and hiding treasures.

During the Cultural Revolution (1970 10), a large kiln site cultural relic was unearthed in Xi 'an, Shaanxi. At that time, workers dug up two "donkey mouth jars" and a big silver jar on the base of Anxinghua Square, the village head of Hejia in the southern suburbs of Xi. After opening it, I found that this jar contained more than a thousand precious items such as gold and silver, jade, gold coins, silver collars and silver cakes. Among them, as many as 265 gold and silver objects were buried in the Tang Dynasty.

Coincidentally, on the seventh day of the first month of 1982, there were 10,000 farmers in Mahudian Village, Xuyi, Jiangsu Province, and a number of treasures were also dug up when digging canals. At that time, the ditches dug by the production team were all piece by piece, and the land divided by the farmer surnamed Wan was the most difficult to dig, but it was this place where no one wanted to dig, but dozens of pounds of gold treasures were dug up. The most valuable thing is a golden retriever, weighing more than 18 Jin, which is the heaviest golden retriever found in China at present. Beneath the golden beast is a beautiful copper pot. Open the lid, it's full of treasures, there are 9 half-golden cakes, 15 horseshoe gold.

According to textual research, this treasure unearthed by a peasant with a surname of 10,000 belongs to the Western Han Dynasty, so it should not be a funerary object, because there are no tombs nearby. It should have been stored in the kiln of the people at that time, but later generations could not take out this treasure because of war or family changes.

The hidden treasure adopts the method of anti-robbery-good things are buried under the dunghill.

There was no modern anti-theft safe in ancient China, so when the ancients in China hid their savings in the kiln, they would try their best to make it impossible for outsiders to find it. Under common sense, everyone will think of burying the treasure in the corner and hiding it in the corner. In fact, this is the easiest for thieves to guess. So some wealthy families have come up with a trick to bury money and valuables in dirty places such as dung piles and latrines that ordinary people can't reach.

Wu Zetian Ding, a bronze heavyweight in Shang Dynasty, the treasure of the town hall of China National Museum, was also disposed of in the kiln as soon as it was dug out, and the chosen hiding place was under the cesspit of Wu family.

In order to prevent theft, cellar storage generally adopts the method of preventing tomb robbery and theft, which is true and false, so as to confuse thieves. Many times, hidden treasure pits will be dug deep and buried in jars full of treasures. We are very particular about placing treasures. We can't put them together. Instead, we put them in layers from top to bottom. Put one layer first, then bury it and put it again, up to three or four layers. Why dig deep and lay it layer by layer? There is another reason here, that is, ancient people have the habit of saving a little money, earning money and then burying the next layer. In this way, even if it is stolen, thieves often only find the upper level.

Slates and bricks are often stacked between layers, and the soil layers are tamped and sealed with juice and lime made of glutinous rice, sometimes mixed with gravel and tiles, which increases the difficulty of theft. Pits are generally selected in bedrooms and under kang (bed). Some people choose to stay in hospital. For example, in hospitals, they often do a series of disguises on the ground, such as building latrines, pigsty, toilet rooms and so on.

Chen Cunren, a famous Shanghai doctor in the Republic of China, once witnessed this kind of kiln collection at home. When the Chen family split up, it was recorded that twenty barrels of silver were hidden in the kiln, and only eight barrels were dug up at first. What the hell is going on here? Was it stolen? Expand the excavation area, dig around, and find nothing. Later, the experienced elders reminded me to dig deeper and try again, and sure enough, I dug up the 12 pot of silver buried in the lower layer.

Rich people like to bury gold and silver treasures-the ancients sometimes had to pay the seller to "dig for money" when buying a house.

Because of this habit of hoarding savings, future generations often "dig three feet" when they encounter demolition, and turn the underground in front of the house upside down. We can see the record of "digging for money" from the historical data of ancient real estate sales. This money is the extra money that the seller adds to the buyer as an estimated compensation for the future treasure.

Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bitan Strange Things" contains the article "No Expenditure, No Gain", which records a case of being asked to "dig for money" because of buying a house. At that time, many rich families in Luoyang had the habit of digging gold. Later generations will think of this when selling houses, and intend to find buyers to "dig for money". When Zhang Guan, a senior official of the imperial court, bought a house, the seller repeatedly asked for "digging for money". Finally, Zhang Guan paid 65,438+0,000 yuan before the seller delivered the house. At that time, people thought it was too bad for Zhang Guan to pay the money. Who would have thought that after Zhang Guan bought it, he dug up a large treasure. There are hundreds of taels of gold in a stone box dug out, which is exactly the full cost of buying a house in Zhang Guan.