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In today's TV dramas, the ancients can easily use dozens of taels, or even hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of taels of silver. What's more, they are often able to take out hundreds of taels of silver tickets from their pockets.

There are two misconceptions here. One is that one or two pieces of silver in ancient times were equal to one yuan today. The second is that they think that the ancient silver bills are today's banknotes or checks.

In fact, silver was scarce in ancient China, and the value of silver was very high. One tael of silver is equal to more than 1,200 wen (before the beginning of the Qing Dynasty) to more than 3,000 wen (after Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty). Until the end of the Qing Dynasty, a catty (equivalent to 1.2 city catties) of pork only cost 20 yuan, and an acre of fertile land only cost 7 to 8 taels of silver or 12 or 3 silver dollars. A few taels of silver, dozens of taels of silver is a big deal, and a hundred taels of silver is a big deal today, and you can buy more than a dozen acres of fertile land. In the Ming Dynasty, a civilian's life was only one or two halves of silver a year, so Qi Jiguang's soldiers' military salary was only three cents of silver a day, less than one tael a month.