For example, there was such a person in the Ming Dynasty. He is the famous Shen Wansan in history. When I was a child, I still remember one of his TV plays called "The cornucopia", which portrayed Shen Wansan in an artistic way.
Of course, art is only art after all. In real history, Shen Wansan can be said to have a tragic end. In the end, he was not only robbed of his property, but also exiled to the border and died in exile. He was exiled only because his wealth was so great that even Zhu Yuanzhang was not at ease.
So how much money did Shen Wansan have at that time? How much is his wealth hypothesis now? Compared with the richest man in the world now, how big is the gap?
How rich is Shen Wansan? According to the records in Ming History, we can know that Shen Wansan is a super rich man. There is an idiom in China called "as rich as an enemy", but how many people can be "as rich as an enemy"? It can be said that that's what Shen Wansan did at that time, and then it was very miserable. There are two things that can explain Shen Wansan's wealth:
The first thing is the Nanjing fortification incident. At that time, the Ming Dynasty had been established, but not long after the establishment of New Wang Chaogang, there was much to be done in the troubled times at the end of Shang Dynasty. Besides, the southwest and north of Daming were not settled at that time, so the military expenditure was extremely huge.
However, the new capital represents a new atmosphere. If the capital can't be repaired, how can we show the royal style? Faced with such a difficult problem, Shen Wansan volunteered to contract a project with Zhu Yuanzhang.
Finally, Shen Wansan successfully cast the wall from Jubaomen to Shuiximen with1.200 million silver. But by the end of the project, Shen Wansan was better than Zhu Yuanzhang himself in both quality and specifications, and the construction period was three days earlier than Zhu Yuanzhang, which was simply nine Niu Yi hairs.
Another thing is that Zhu Yuanzhang wanted an army to go to Yunnan. At this moment, Shen Wansan came out again. This time he volunteered to replace Zhu Yuanzhang's three armies, which is why Zhu Yuanzhang finally killed Shen Wansan. In the end, Shen Wansan's property was copied and exiled to Yunnan.
How much money does Shen Wansan have? When Zhu Yuanzhang copied Shen Wansan's house, even Zhu Yuanzhang himself was shocked. The silver seized is about 2 billion. Many people don't know what 2 billion is. Let's put it this way: RMB income in the Ming Dynasty was 20 million taels a year, and Shen Wansan's property was equivalent to the capital income of Daming 100? How can this not make Zhu Yuanzhang jealous?
So how much wealth does Shen Wansan have now? Let's try to change it:
In ancient times, one or two pieces of silver were converted in different ways because of different times and different prices. For example, during the period of Zhu Yuanzhang, the price of rice was about 377.6 Jin, and now the price of rice is about 3 yuan, so the price of one or two pieces of silver at that time was 1 100, while during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, it was about 300 yuan due to rising prices.
Of course, let's take 300 yuan as the lowest price. At that time, Shen Wansan's wealth was nearly 600 billion, but now the personal assets of the richest man in China are 200 billion, which can be said to be far behind him. If we use the price of Hongwu period to convert, it will be nearly 3 trillion, while the wealth of the richest man in the world today is 1 trillion. It can be said that Shen Wansan's wealth is
And to be clear, there was no virtual economy in ancient times, and Shen Wansan's money was real. If there had been a stock market at that time, Shen Wansan's wealth would have been incalculable. That is to say, Shen Wansan's wealth at that time was equivalent to the three richest people in the world today.
And this is only part of Shen Wansan's wealth. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang had not counted Shen Wansan's manor, estate and antique calligraphy and painting. If you convert these wealth again, I'm afraid it's another astronomical figure.
However, Shen Wansan was too rich and arrogant, which even aroused Zhu Yuanzhang's antipathy. In the end, all his wealth went up in smoke, and he forgot what the old man said, "wealth is not exposed." It is because of forgetting this that Shen Wansan finally ended up like this.