As for the question of how much RMB one tael of silver equals, there are different answers in various self-media platforms and AI Q&A. Some are directly calculated using silver to cash, some are compared with wages, and some are compared with consumption levels, but they do not seem to be very comprehensive.

It is actually not difficult to figure out this problem. As long as you consider it from various dimensions, you can roughly get the relative value. But no matter how you compare it, the annual income of 1,000 taels of silver has exceeded 99% of the people.

First from the perspective of annual income

The average salary issued by the country every year is well documented, but the censor believes that this number is of no reference significance. In real life, if an ordinary person earns 100,000 yuan a year, he can already live a well-off life.

Similarly, there are also many data on income in historical materials of the Qing Dynasty. Taking the Qianlong prosperous period as an example, the annual income of a labor force was roughly between 20 taels and 30 taels, and the intermediate value was 25 taels. In other words, one thousand taels of silver requires an adult and strong man to work for 40 years without eating it.

Take the current annual income of 100,000 yuan as an example, if multiplying by 40, the answer is 4 million yuan. Needless to think, if you have an income of 4 million yuan a year, whether in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, or the 18th-tier cities where the censors are located, they will definitely exceed 99%.

Of course, it is not very accurate to compare purely based on the income of ordinary people, because the income disparity between people in various social classes in the Qing Dynasty was huge. For example, taking the seventh-rank magistrate as an example, their guaranteed salary is 45 taels, plus the clean bank, the average value is exactly about 1,000 taels of silver. The current county party secretary's annual income should not exceed 200,000 yuan. From this perspective, one thousand taels of silver is equivalent to about 200,000 yuan.

It is somewhat far-fetched to measure the value of RMB 1,000 taels of white value based on annual income. The main reason is that the income gap between people at different levels in the Qing Dynasty was very huge. The above is just taking the magistrate as an example. If it is a governor or a minister, then the depreciation rate of 1,000 taels of silver may be very low.

From the hard consumption level

It is meaningless to just talk about income by putting aside consumption. In ancient society, the general public had a wide range of consumption. It was mainly about food, clothing, housing and transportation. In particular, the price of rice was a barometer that determined the purchasing power of silver.

Take the Qianlong period as an example, at that time, a stone of rice in the capital required 1.5 taels of silver, and the stone was a unit of measurement, equivalent to about 140 jin. According to the current market price, a pound of rice is about 3 yuan, and 140 pounds is 420 yuan. When converted, one tael of silver is about 280 yuan. Therefore, many scholars believe that one tael of 4 silver in the Qing Dynasty was approximately 200 yuan.

However, we found that, like annual income, there are also big problems with simply referring to rice. Because there is a big gap in daily necessities except rice in other things. The most typical one is salt. At that time, the price of salt was very expensive and was one of the biggest living expenses for ordinary people.

During the Qianlong period, the price of salt in remote provinces rose to 80 per catty, and one tael of silver could buy about 12 kilograms of salt. Nowadays, the salt is basically a national unified price, about 2 yuan per pound. If you count this way, one or two silver taels will be about 24 yuan.

When we are discussing other people's financial strength, we often use several houses as the standard. Real estate is obviously linked to family assets, but if the purchasing consumption power is compared, the 1,000 taels of silver from the Qing Dynasty will be a very considerable asset.

During the Qianlong period, the price of a private house in the outer city of the capital was about 30 taels to 40 taels, with the intermediate value of 35 taels. The area of ​​a private house was about 12 square meters, which was converted to about 3 taels. Nowadays, the housing prices in Beijing are often more than 100,000 yuan per square meter, which means that one tael of silver is reflected in real estate, which is about 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, and one thousand taels of silver is 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, which is simply astronomical.

After the comparison of the above two aspects, it is still difficult to get an accurate answer to how much RMB a thousand taels of silver is equivalent to. However, one thing is certain. For ordinary people, one thousand taels of silver is impossible to accumulate in their lifetime. In that society at that time, only officials and businessmen could reach this level.

Finally, from the perspective of the annual income of the state treasury, let’s talk about how rich Heshen was. Heshen was confiscated in the fourth year of Jiaqing. The censor did not specifically investigate the treasury income of that year, so he would take Qianlong's later years as the prevailing.

After the fifteenth year of Qianlong, the income of the treasury basically remained above 30 million taels, and after 30 years, it was above 40 million taels. It is said that Heshen was the most corrupt official in ancient China, and there is a saying that "Heshen fell and Jiaqing was full." Therefore, many people quoted classics and believed that Heshen's property was as much as 800 million taels of silver.

In fact, judging from the list of house searches, Heshen's cash silver and gold combined were only about 20 million taels, which was exactly half of the national treasury income. So how much RMB is the cash bank in Heshen’s family equivalent to today?

According to the data released in 2024, the annual economic income was 133,967.2 billion yuan. If divided by half, Heshen's cash bank would be 669,836 billion yuan, equivalent to a unit price of 1,000 taels would be 3.35 billion yuan.