Take the prices of rice, pork, sugar, vegetable oil and cotton cloth in Shanghai market as an example:
1872, the white rice is 2.7 silver dollars per old stone (sound load), and the meter capacity is calculated as 1 old stone = 10 bucket = 160 old Jin = 177.7 Jin (many people often mistake it for/kloc-0.
190 1 year rice price is 4 silver dollars per old stone, 2.2 cents per catty. 1 silver dollar in this period is equivalent to about RMB 70 yuan today.
1911919 rice price remains unchanged, which is 6 silver dollars per stone (178 kg), that is, 3.4 cents per catty of rice; 1 silver dollar can buy 30 kg of polished rice; Pork per catty 1.2 cents-1.3 cents, 1 silver dollar can buy 8 kilograms of pork; Cotton cloth per square foot 1 cent, 1 silver dollar can buy 10 foot cotton cloth; Sugar is 6 cents per catty and vegetable oil is 7-9 cents per catty; Salt per catty 1-2 cents. ..... During this period, "one dollar" is about equivalent to RMB 40-50 yuan today.
At 1920- 1925, the average price of rice in Shanghai is 9.5 silver dollars per kilo, 1 kilo = 160 kilo, that is to say, more than 50 cents per kilo of rice, and 1 silver dollar can buy 18 kilo of rice. An average of 1.4 cents per catty of pork-1.5 cents, 1 silver dollar can buy 7 kilograms of pork; Cotton cloth is about .2 cents per square foot 1 .4 cents.1silver dollar can buy 8 feet of cotton cloth. Sugar per catty 1 min, vegetable oil per catty 1 min, salt per catty 2-3 points. ..... During this period, "one dollar" is about equivalent to RMB 35-40 yuan today.
1926- 1936 The average price of rice in Shanghai is 10.2 silver dollar, that is, more than 6 cents per kilogram of rice; In other words, 1 silver dollar can buy 16 Jin of rice; Pork costs about 20 cents per catty. 1 silver dollar can buy 4-5 jins of pork. Cotton cloth is about .5 cents per square foot 1 .8 cents.1silver dollar can buy 6 feet of cotton cloth. Sugar 1.5 points per catty, vegetable oil 20 points per catty, salt 3-5 points per catty. ..... During this period, "one dollar" is about equivalent to RMB 30-35 yuan today.
At that time, the price in Shanghai was about 10-20% higher than that in Beijing (called Beiping after 1928). Generally speaking, the price in the south is higher than that in the north, and the price in cities is much higher than that in towns and villages.
In Peiping in the 1930s, a silver dollar (ocean) could buy a "instant-boiled mutton"; In Shanghai, one silver dollar (ocean dollar) can buy two western-style food packages. Visiting the park, one silver dollar can buy 20 tickets; A silver dollar can buy a ticket of 10 to watch a performance (drama or movie). As for spiritual food, a newspaper retails for 3 points, and a silver dollar can subscribe to the newspaper for a whole month; A "Scream" costs 70 cents, and a silver dollar can buy a thicker book or two thinner books.
From this, we can get a concrete concept of the value of silver dollar (or national currency) in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China.
[Note] Historical pork price comparison data
On September 8, 2002, Mr. Tao Shilong read my research articles "The Economic Life of Cultural People" and "How much did Lu Xun earn in his life", and provided the following supplementary information on the Internet:
According to the book Historical Situation of Working Class in China, 19 12- 1924 Beijing price. At that time, the price of pork in Beijing was 19 13, per 100 Jin 1 1.70 yuan. 19 16 increased, with 3 points per 100 kg 13 yuan;
At that time, 1 kg (old scale) was 596.82g, and now 1 kg (new scale) is 500g. Therefore, the old scale 1 kg is equivalent to the new scale 1 kg 2.
Beijing 19 13 pork per 100 Jin (old scale) 1 yuan 7 jiao, about per Jin1jiao Yin and Yang (new scale);
19 16 pork per 100 kg 13 yuan 3 jiao (old scale), that is, yin and yang per kg 1 jiao 1 min (new scale).
From this, we can calculate—
Lu Xun 19 13 1 220 silver dollars a month can buy pork 1 122 kilograms, which is 2244 kilograms today;
19 16 65438+ 300 silver dollars a month, you can buy 1346 Jin of pork, that is, today's scale is 2692 Jin.
In addition, Mr Tao quoted Li Siguang's explanation in response to Lu Xun's statement that he was the deputy director of Shi Jing Library. The curator's monthly salary is 500 silver dollars, but he only draws half and donates the other half to the library. Actually, it doesn't matter if you don't donate Therefore, the actual income of the professor at that time was more than 2,000 kilograms of pork per month. No wonder that during the 15 years when Mr. Lu Xun lived in Beijing, he was able to spend 26,000 Jin of pork on books, materials and a house.
Now (2002) the price of pork in Beijing is between 5 yuan and 7 yuan. Of course, the purchasing power of money should not be calculated only by the price of pork, but by the comprehensive price comparison of many daily necessities. It can be seen that the average purchasing power of 1 silver dollar (1912-1919) estimated by Chen Mingyuan in the early years of the Republic of China is roughly equivalent to that of RMB 50 yuan today, which is basically in line with the actual situation and even a conservative figure. Because the price in Beijing is about 10-20% lower than that in Shanghai.