How much is a piece of "small yellow croaker" worth in the Republic of China?

During the Republic of China, many people risked their lives to go to Bo. Because in that era when warlords were fighting, only small yellow croaker could preserve its value. Just like in the TV series "New World", the whole north has been liberated, but Beiping has not yet been liberated, so many people want to take small yellow croaker to the south, and the three brothers Jin Hai are no exception, which has triggered a series of thrilling stories. So many people have questions, how much is this little yellow croaker worth? Why do so many people work so hard for it? This is about the currency in circulation at that time.

With the intensification of the warlords' melee, the national currency also appeared chaos. From the initial silver dollar (Yuan Datou), it has evolved into legal tender, gold certificate, and even each warlord regime has its own currency. However, the prohibition of silver dollar and legal tender made the RMB depreciate rapidly. In fact, the gold certificate is used to save the failure of legal tender, and it is also a means used by the Kuomintang to search for folk gold and silver. But I didn't expect it to trigger more serious inflation and lead to the complete collapse of the financial credit of the national government. After all, the currency in the Republic of China was a hodgepodge. Compared with this unstable and worthless paper money, gold is more valuable. This is why people often say: "White jade in prosperous times, gold in troubled times".

In fact, as early as the beginning of the 20th century, gold was listed as the standard currency by all countries in the world, and Shanghai became the third largest gold trading market in the world. Later, Japanese invaded China and plundered a lot of gold. Although the government of the Republic of China banned the circulation of gold and silver in 1935 and demanded that all of them be converted into legal tender, who didn't know that gold was a hard commodity in that era when tens of millions of banknotes could not buy a catty of rice? What's more, at that time, gold was only available to the rich, and ordinary people were generally silver dollars. But as long as there are conditions at home, I will save a few yellow croaker for a rainy day.

As for why it is called "small yellow croaker", the reason is even simpler, because the earliest gold was made of gold bricks, each of which was about 350g, which was a very complicated thing for trading and circulation, so it was directly changed into a flat cuboid. It looks like a fish, so it is commonly known as "yellow croaker". At that time, yellow croaker was divided into large yellow croaker and small yellow croaker, with twelve large yellow croaker and one small yellow croaker. However, it is worth noting that the unit of measurement in the Republic of China was not the same as it is now, that is, one or two was not equal to 50g, but was equivalent to 3 1.25g now. Similarly, Pseudosciaena crocea is about 312.5g..

At the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, a "small yellow croaker" could only be exchanged for thirty or forty oceans. The longer the war, the more valuable the gold is. Before liberation, three "small yellow croakers", that is, 100 yuan, could be exchanged for a small quadrangle in Beijing. Because of the high value of gold, many people want to store gold bars, but large yellow croaker is too expensive, so for ordinary people, small yellow croaker has become the most popular gold bar specification.