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Chapter 11, It's hard to make money (II)

According to the habitual thinking of most modern people, commerce and money should complement each other, and every civilized country should have money.

――Don't you see in those fantasy novels, which brave man who fights the world with a sword does not carry a money bag full of gold, silver and copper coins in his arms? Who would drive a herd of goats or piglets out of a novice village on the road, and drop a sheep at a hotel to exchange for drinks and buy information?

But the reality is very cruel, money is such a thing, in fact, it appeared quite late in human history. Before that, merchants were either really able to trade with a large herd of cattle and sheep instead of coins, or they used shells, spices, jewelry, and metals as their general equivalents. For example, the ancient Egyptians never made their metal coins known, and it was not until the eve of the end of ancient Egyptian civilization that Greek merchants brought coins to Egypt.

As for the oldest metal coinage in human history, it was born in the Lydian Kingdom in Asia Minor, about the seventh century BC, which is equivalent to the early Spring and Autumn period in China (a little later, the Qi Kingdom in the East also understood the sword coin, so the time for the Eastern and Western worlds to enter the monetary age is about the same), and then, these oldest gold and silver coins were soon brought by merchants to the entire Mediterranean world, making them widely circulated.

Before that, in the Middle East, from the Sumerian civilization to the Assyrian Empire, there was no concept of money - I remember that there was a passage in the Bible that boasted of the luxury and wealth of the Jewish king Solomon, but only said how much gold, how much silver, how much spices, and how many cattle and sheep he had in his treasury, but did not mention how much his annual financial income was, which made future generations very confused...... But this is not because the biblical writers were deliberately playing with their writing, but because in King Solomon's day, there was no such thing as "money."

Therefore, in the world of "Daughters of the Nile", although ancient Egypt already had a fairly prosperous domestic and international trade, it exported a large amount of grain, beer, flax, alabaster, and papyrus produced by Egypt every year, and imported a large number of wood and metal that the country lacked. And in Egypt's capital and border cities, especially in the upper reaches of the Nile and at the mouth of the sea, a series of thriving trade markets were formed.

However, because the currency was not yet known, in ancient Egypt if you wanted to buy things on the street, you had to barter - at that time, only grain was the real hard currency, so the Egyptians prescribed a unit called "saty", which referred to a certain amount of grain, and then converted the price of goods in the market into "satyr". For example, according to a surviving bill, a bed at that time was worth about 4 "saties"

But the problem is that, as a heavy material, farmers may be able to make do with the carts pushing grain in small carts when rushing to the market, and trading at the doorstep, but under the miserable transportation conditions of the ancient world, for merchants who need to sell goods over long distances, bulky grain grains really cannot replace the use of coins. As a result, some merchants began to use shells, gold and silver nuggets as general equivalents. However, the "face value" of the shells was too small, and it was generally rejected on the seaside, and the original gold and silver were not real money, so it was impossible to exchange things directly, and every transaction had to be carefully weighed for gold and silver nuggets, or gold and silver rings, and a pair of fiery eyes that could distinguish the fineness of gold and silver - fake gold made of lead wrapped in gold leaf, which was already in existence at that time...... Therefore, gold and silver were not particularly widely used in the commercial trade in these years.

In addition, the ancient Egyptians used many other circulation mediators, such as animal skins, feathers, and various rare stones, but the problem of conversion has not been improved, and there is no official rate of exchange. In this way, doing business in ancient Egypt can be a headache - someone comes back from doing business and sees a pile of stones, feathers and shells, and what is worse is that each stone and shell has a different "face value" due to its different shape and color, so they don't know how to calculate the accounts, and they don't even know whether they have lost or earned. This is because the ratio of goods to huàn is constantly fluctuating, but there is no clear currency to measure it.

Although ancient Egypt had a crude "grain standard" system, grain prices fluctuated greatly in the ancient world, and the difference between grain prices in famine years and good years could even be dozens of times. Even in different seasons of the same year, food prices can often fluctuate several times over. Merchant ships and camel caravans often travel from a few months to a year or two on the road...... As a result, when the ancient Egyptian merchants returned home after doing business, they still did not know whether they had lost or earned. Therefore, at that time, there were not many professional merchants who relied exclusively on trade to eat, except for a few commercial peoples, the general agricultural people would temporarily organize a caravan when they had surplus grain, and go to distant places to exchange for some rare things that they did not produce, without considering the problem of profit at all. If the harvest is not good and there is no surplus grain, everyone can continue to farm at home with peace of mind, and wait until there is surplus grain.

These troubles mentioned above are still for the merchants of this time and space. It's even more devastating for you travelers who are bent on wealth - God, you throw away a few shells, a few colored stones, a few dirty bird feathers, and want to exchange these worthless things for our swords, wine, porcelain, candy, and silk? Is this a joke? We're here to do charity

So, under the strong protest of the travelers, the Egyptian buyers had to put away the shells, stones, and bird feathers (except for certain jade and precious stones), and instead paid the bills with cattle and sheep, gold and silver, grain, and all kinds of rare birds and beasts - thanks to the [automatic pawn machine] provided by Doraemon, the goods could be cashed in at any time, otherwise such a business would not know what to do. But in the end, the small number of transactions reached still made the traversers deeply dissatisfied:

“… This is the group of people with the most purchasing power in the whole of Egypt at the moment? After a whole day of noisy tossing and turning to the end, we didn't even have enough trading volume in the three billion, how can we pay off Doraemon's debt of 18 billion? Senior Sister Ma Tong muttered with some dissatisfaction.

“…… Be patient, Senior Sister Ma Tong is in Egypt, a place where sand is still sand, and it is already very good to be able to do this business. ”

Looking at the poor number finally calculated on the ledger, Wang Qiu couldn't help but shake his head and sigh, "...... Alas, in the ancient Western history books, Egypt was always described as how rich it was, but now it seems that it is clearly a poor place with no purchasing power......

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Ancient Egypt should be considered rich? Or is it poor?

Well, strictly speaking, it seems like a very complex issue. You know, the concept of "abundance" has had completely different standards in different times and in different countries. Just as the British colonizers in the 19th century regarded the impoverished India as the most dazzling jewel in the crown, but regarded the rich Arab countries of the Gulf region as a barren and useless land worth a few dollars, the so-called "wealth" in the eyes of the ancients was completely different from the modern people's view due to changes in technology and cognitive ability.

First of all, in the eyes of the ancients, Egypt must have been a rich land, because it was rich in grain, and grain has always been the strongest hard currency in the ancient world - under the water of the Nile River, which flooded regularly, the ancient Egyptians had the most fertile arable land around the Mediterranean, as well as the most abundant crops, and could take out a large amount of surplus grain for export to feed most of the Mediterranean world civilization.

For this reason, the ancient Romans called Egypt the "bread basket of the Mediterranean". During the Roman Empire, Egypt shipped 100,000 tons of wheat to Italy every year to feed Roman citizens who were too tired to watch gladiatorial fights all day long.

The problem is that Egyptian grain may have been invaluable in the ancient world, vital to the survival of an empire, but in the modern world, it is nothing more than the capacity of a container ship. It seems that the staggering quantity of 100,000 tons of wheat can be sold for more than 200 million yuan, or more than 3 billion yen, in the world, which is not enough for the price of a private jet -- this is the evil industrial and agricultural scissors difference

And if you want to scavenge so much wheat from ancient Egypt, you don't know how many farmers will starve to death and how many riots will be caused...... Not to mention that in recent years, due to the fact that King Memphis has been on expeditions for the Nile Daughters for many years, the grain stocks in the Egyptian treasury have been very depleted, just in case, before the new grain of the next harvest season, the Egyptians can take out dozens of tons of grain to buy these "luxuries".

As for the handmade linen stored in large quantities in the storehouses of Thebes, it seems to be really rough and leaky, and in the modern world it is only qualified to be used as a rag, and the price offered by the [automatic pawn machine] is so low that the travelers are not willing to ask for it at all.

Obviously, since the way of pouring food does not work, then we can only use our brains on other products. But the problem is that Egypt is just a narrow oasis in the Sahara Desert, and all kinds of natural resources are actually quite scarce, not only are there no gold and silver veins, but there are not even a few decent trees. The bulk goods that are abundant on the banks of the Nile are, apart from papyrus, only grain.

As for many other important commodities necessary for human society, they were often not produced in Egypt, or the quality and cost of the products that could be found locally were inferior and costly, and were not as cost-effective as importing goods from foreign countries - for example, the Egyptians imported copper ore from the Sinai Peninsula, timber from Lebanon, olive oil from Greece, gold and iron from the blacks of Nubia in the south (roughly equivalent to modern-day Ethiopia), and spices such as myrrh came from the Arabian Peninsula. Pepper comes from the farther eastern seas.

When these items were resold by many merchants and finally transported to the Egyptians all the way, not only did the goods arrive in extremely small quantities, but also became very costly...... To make matters worse, since gold and silver were not yet considered hard currency, the Egyptians were not in the habit of hoarding large quantities of gold and silver because they had built huge granaries and hoarded enough food for the whole country for several years. In this way, even if the traversers wanted to collect only gold and silver, they would not be able to do so.

It can be seen that although Egypt was rich in the ancient Mediterranean world, it was still very poor for modern people.

So, after a lively rush of purchases, the traversers, who had been overjoyed, received more than 20 tons of wheat, more than 30 tons of barley, more than 40 horses, more than 200 cattle, more than 900 goats, more than 1,000 chickens and ducks, many dates and fish, about five kilograms of gold ornaments and small gold nuggets of poor purity, twenty kilograms of coarse silver ornaments, more than 100 ivory tusks, plus pearls, lapis lazuli, carnelian, malachite, topaz, jasper, agate, alabaster, and other ornaments. There are also more than 600 old animal skins that have been bitten by insects and rats and have shed their hair, and a large box of ** and myrrh from the Arabian Peninsula...... And so on and so forth, and so on.

Especially when the Egyptian king Memphis ordered the black slaves in the palace to drag the six Nile crocodiles in the royal garden that had just been feasted on human flesh in the morning to settle the account, and pawned them for a good price, the wealthy nobles were in an uproar for a while, and they all took the peacocks, lions, hippos, elephants, and even cats and dogs raised in their respective homes, and all the rare birds and beasts that were usually used for entertainment and boredom were all brought over, making the hall jump for a while, and it became a zoo. What's even more ridiculous is that there are people who bring a large group of slaves, who are ready to pay the bills with them, and stuff the living into the [automatic pawn machine] with their own talk...... In the end, it was naturally rejected decisively.

In short, through the bustling day of trading, Doraemon sold about 1.8 billion in goods - or in other words, they received 1.8 billion worth of goods from the ancient Egyptians. As for the cost, these silks, cloths, candies, porcelain, glassware, canned drinks, knives, axes, etc., sold to the ancient Egyptians, are Wang Qiu and Ma Tong, as well as Nobita and other four primary school students, who purchased Laemon's magical props [chronological vending machines] in China and Japan separately, you can buy cheaper goods, but it is very painful to stipulate that you can only use it yourself, if you take it to resell, it will start the punishment procedure), a total of about 800 million yuan was spent, so the final gross profit, It's about a billion. In addition, there are goods worth 100 million in his hands, which he can't sell for a while, so he can only talk about it later

However, with the completion of this deal, the potential purchasing power of the vicinity of Thebes, and even half of Egypt, has been exhausted. Even if the stall continues, it is estimated that there will not be more customers coming to deliver money for a while...... Just as Wang Qiu, Ma Tong and Doraemon were frowning and thinking about how to raise more money, a black eunuch with clear eyebrows came and invited them to the banquet with a smile.

“…… In order to celebrate the safe return of the Nile Daughter and to welcome all the distinguished guests to our country, our King and the Princess are ready to hold a banquet in the palace tonight to celebrate, so that our people can share the joy with foreign guests, and I invite you to enjoy the feast."