Master Shen soon ushered in his first festival after going up the mountain.

On the eighth day of the fourth month, the Caterpillar Festival.

The complexity of the lineage of the people who wear green can be seen from their traditional festivals.

They not only celebrated the "Marrying Caterpillar Festival" with the Tujia and other ethnic groups, but also celebrated the "Dragon Boat Festival" with the Zhongjia and other ethnic groups, and also celebrated the "Double Ninth Festival" with the Han people. (Note: The Zhong family is the predecessor of the Zhuang and Buyi people, and the people who wear green rice dumplings call Zhongba, which is likely to be inherited from the Zhong family.) ）

It is even more interesting if you study the beliefs of the people who wear green.

The five gods believed in by the people who wore green belonged to the folk gods of Jiangnan in the Tang and Song dynasties. The names of the past dynasties were different, and it was not until the time of Huizong of the Song Dynasty that the emperor officially canonized the name of "Wuxian Gong".

How can a god in the Jiangnan region go to the southwest region to receive offerings?

At the same time, the five gods believed in by the people who wore green were different from the deities in Jiangnan, and they also absorbed the belief in Erlang God in Sichuan, and integrated into the rampant custom advocated by Zhu Yuanzhang.

It is very likely that some of the ancestors of the people who wore green were from Jiangnan, some were from Sichuan, and some were officers and soldiers in the early Ming Dynasty.

In addition, although the people who wear green do not believe in Buddhism very much, they are popular with the proverb of the Caterpillar Festival: "The Buddha was born on April 8, and the caterpillar is married today." Marry into the mountains and never return home! Later, the Taoists were also involved, and this proverb was written on yellow paper and pasted on the gate to repel insects.

The "Marrying Caterpillar Festival" is similar to the "Tiancang Festival" of the Han people, mainly to pray for a good harvest of grains.

The temperature in Guizhou is already low, and the people who wear green live in the mountains, so the spring ploughing is much later than in other areas. It is about the eighth day of the fourth month, which is the real spring season, drive the caterpillars away from gnawing the seedlings, and pray for a bumper grain harvest this year.

On the eighth day of the fourth month, every family changes into new clothes and takes out the treasured corn to cook "flower rice" - that is, it is boiled and filtered with yellow herbs to dye the rice golden yellow.

In the evening, all the residents of the village gather in the dam, and the shaman wears a mask and recites a spell, leading everyone to dance together, praying for the blessing of the five gods of the five grains this year.

"This is obscenity, and it is really a barbarian!"

Master Shen sat on the edge of the dam, looking at the villagers dancing and shaking his head again and again. In addition to disdain, he couldn't help but take a sip of sweet wine, and reveled in the aftertaste: "Obscenity is not enough, but the sweet wine brewed by the green people is really fragrant!" ”

Wang Yuan walked over, sat on the ground and compensated Shen Fuxuan for drinking, and said with a smile: "Why don't you go dancing together, sir?" ”

"Drinking wine is enough," Master Shen took another sip of fried pine nuts and praised, "Although there are no dried fruits and candied fruit to accompany the wine, this fried pine nuts also have a unique flavor." ”

In the early years of Zhengde, peanuts had not yet been introduced to China, and the drinking habits of the Ming people followed the Song people. Either use dried fruits to drink, or candied fruit to drink, if it is a few decades later, Master Shen will definitely use peanuts to talk about things.

Wang Yuan said: "I have discussed with the owner of Fang Zhai, and the money for buying pen, ink, paper, inkstone and books will be shared by the five of us. ”

"Five?" Master Shen didn't understand.

"Yes, five. The Wang family, the Fang family, the Yuan family, the Liu family, and the He family," Wang Yuan explained, pointing to the sorcerers dancing around the campfire, "The He family has always been in charge of the rituals, and they are also the doctors in the village. Old man He wants to send his two grandchildren to study, and he is willing to bear all kinds of daily expenses. ”

Master Shen didn't care about this: "Okay, it's not bad for those two anyway." ”

Wang Yuan said: "The owner of Fang Zhai asked me to ask, how much does it cost to buy those things?" ”

Master Shen had a headache and said, "I don't know the prices in Guizhou." ”

Wang Yuan asked: "What about the prices in Jiangnan?" ”

Master Shen calculated: "The Mengxue Readings and the Four Books and Five Classics, due to their extensive printing, belong to the cheapest type of engraved books. In the land south of the Yangtze River, about five or six chickens can be exchanged for a set of official engravings of the "Four Books Collection Notes". If it's a privately carved inferior book, one or two chickens can be exchanged for a set. Of course, this is the price of the early years of Hongji, and now I don't know very well. ”

Nima, the chicken can still be used as a unit of currency?

"If you use copper coins to calculate, how much money can buy a set of "Notes on the Four Books"?" Wang Yuan continued to ask.

Master Shen shook his head again and again: "How can copper coins be explained clearly, they can only be priced in silver." ”

Under Wang Yuan's questioning, Master Shen explained in detail, and he knew that the monetary system of the Ming Dynasty was extremely chaotic.

The official currency is the Daming treasure banknote, but this thing is like waste paper, and it was stopped printing as early as the Xuande period. Moreover, one of the reasons for the suspension of printing of treasure banknotes is that the printing cost is higher than the circulation value.

But the suspension of printing is the suspension of printing, it is always the official currency, and its legal status is always higher than that of silver and copper coins.

Until the Chongzhen period, the Ming treasure banknotes were still in use, mainly used for rewards and tax collection.

Fanbang tribute, the emperor has to give back. There are all kinds of reward items, but there must be the shadow of treasure money, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars are rewarded at a time - there are really a few small countries that bring back the Ming treasure money and once circulated it as a high-level currency, such as the Ryukyu Kingdom.

There is also the imperial examination, and every new scholar will receive a stack of reward money. I can't buy anything for this thing, so I can only take it home and press the bottom of the box, and I can't scramble to wipe my buttocks.

As for collecting taxes, that's the worst thing!

The court bigwigs often had convulsions, and suddenly ordered a certain type of tax, and they could only use treasure money to pay taxes.

Pay your sister's taxes!

Daming treasure banknotes have long been out of print, where to find treasure banknotes for a while and a half to be taxable?

As a result, a business was born: the house of banknotes.

These people hoarded treasure money at the price of straw paper, and then sold it to taxable people at the official price, with a thousand-fold profit. They even sell money to the imperial court, because the imperial court does not print money, where can they find treasure money to reward the vassal kingdom and the jinshi?

Wang Yuan was dumbfounded when he heard this, and his heart was full of wonder.

The cost of printing a country's official legal tender actually exceeds the circulating value.

That's paper money! Ma slip print.

That's it, the imperial court uses its own currency, and it has to buy back from the people at a high price, and let the banknotes be extorted?

it, how much cat is greasy in it, how much collusion is in it, you can understand it if you think about it with your heels.

Then, Master Shen talked about the copper coins again, which completely refreshed Wang Yuan's cognition of money.

The copper coins minted in Zhili are generally only circulated in the Zhili area. Each province had its own minted copper coins, and they varied in value, and in many cases merchants were difficult to convert.

Even copper coins minted in the same region have different values.

Take the gold-backed coins of Nanzhili as an example, because of the exquisite casting and full of materials, they are more pleasing than other local copper coins. As a result, a penny of gold is often worth two or three of other copper coins, or even five or ten of them!

Let's put it this way, a farmer in the mountainous area of Nanzhili, carrying agricultural and sideline products to Nanjing City to sell, just the value of copper coins can make him stunned, and it is strange not to be pitted to death.

And that's not even counting the fake money, as copper-clad iron and copper-clad lead are everywhere, and sometimes connoisseurs who specialize in currency identification will look away. There are also scraping copper to take advantage, that is, scraping the edge of the copper coin, and scraping the remaining copper coins instantly depreciates.

Seriously speaking, it is more reassuring to receive ancient money, because the people will not privately cast "Kaiyuan Tongbao", "Qingli Tongbao" and the like.

Well, the copper coins of the Tang and Song dynasties were also used in the Ming Dynasty, and they were also special hard currency.

"The outside world is so complicated!" Wang Yuan couldn't help but sigh.

In this broken place in Guizhou, there are not so many twists and turns.

The villagers went down the mountain to make trades, mainly in the form of bartering. Not to mention silver, even copper coins are rarely used, and there is no case of receiving fake money.

Master Shen smiled: "Speaking of coins, I think of an interesting anecdote. A few years ago, when I was feasting and drinking with the Lord of Grace, a Yunnan Jinshi said that they were still using seashells there. ”

"Shells?" Wang Yuan felt that his cognition was at the lower limit, and today he was afraid that he would be refreshed to the bottom.

In fact, don't talk about the dynasty, even in the Qing Dynasty, Yunnan still used shells as currency.

According to historical records, in the twenty-seventh year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, there was a military household named Dong Yiyan in Yunnan who sold his house to a military household named Zhong Dayong for 24 taels of silver. However, he was afraid of the adulteration of the silver, so he decided to trade shells instead, which was converted into 2,160 shells.

Can you imagine that shells are more worthy of faith than silver?

Wang Yuan was even more curious about the Ming Dynasty, and hurriedly asked about other common sense.

Master Shen recalled the wonderful first half of his life and said with emotion: "When it comes to the scenery of the south of the Yangtze River, the most memorable thing is shark fin. Its taste is very beautiful, and it can also nourish the qi and nourish the spirit, which is really a good nourishing product! ”

Damn, there were shark fins in the Ming Dynasty?

It's all the Ming Dynasty, and the difference between Jiangnan and Guizhou is too big.

One has become popular shark fin, the other is full of primitive tribes, and they simply belong to two different worlds.

Wang Yuan's spiritual world, which had been silent for many years, suddenly became active, he was unwilling to nest in Guizhou, and couldn't wait to go out and have a look!

(The heroine's role was added by Lao Wang, so it's just a matter of revealing it in advance.) ）