A few days ago, Mr. Xi Sishao published an article ** Jia Lian's "three or two million wealth" This ancient Red Mansion unsolved case, citing the example in "Three Words and Two Beats" to show that the three or two million here actually refers to "three or two million dollars", in fact, there are only two or three thousand taels of silver.
I have some different opinions on this, and I dare to write an article to **.
Due to the wide variety of ancient currencies and the complexity of measurement, generally speaking, the amount of money mentioned in ancient literature does have quantifiers to avoid misunderstandings, such as "one hundred gold", "ten thousand taels (silver)", "three hundred yuan", etc., and like here in Dream of Red Mansions, the unrestricted "three or two million wealth" is indeed an uncommon usage, and is generally used in contexts that are certainly not ambiguous.
For example, when Jia Huan lost money in the first month, he said that he "lost one or two hundred", and the unit of measurement of "money" was omitted here, because it was a small gamble, he would definitely not lose "one or two hundred taels" or "one or two hundred hangs", and both the speaker and the listener were very clear about this omitted unit.
For another example, when Jia's mother was angry that Jia Yu was forced to marry a mandarin duck, she once said to Mrs. Xing: "I have money here, ask him to buy it for 18,000", the ** of the senior concubine here is the common sense that everyone knows, and what Jia Mu said here is naturally angry, and the amount must be exaggerated, so everyone knows that the 18,000 here refers to 10,000 taels and 8,000 taels ("Guan" is also possible for units of similar magnitude, but after contacting, Jia pardon married the concubine Yan Honghua is 800 taels of silver, and here I agree more with the unit"two"), and it cannot be "eighteen thousand dollars" and other units.
In addition, when describing the Xue family's wealth, the description in the book is "the family is millions rich", and the "million" here does not add a quantifier, here the author is describing the degree to which the Xue family is rich, and the shabby unit of "money" cannot reflect this. The unit here can only be "two", or "guan" (take the similar term "Wanguan family wealth").
The above three examples are all used in the text of Dream of Red Mansions when money is not measured, one of which implies the unit "money", and the other two times are "two" or "through".
Another possibility to leave out the quantifier when encountering such a unitless amount is that if the speaker has just mentioned the sum or the quantifier in its entirety above, it can also be omitted later.
There are also several such examples in "Three Words and Two Beats", and there is such a sentence in the chapter "Du Zichun Enters Chang'an Three Times": "And don't say that the old man has such compassion, he has sent 30,000 yuan, and he has to send him 100,000 ......."Looking at this sentence alone, you probably don't know whether the 30,000 and 100,000 are money or silver, but the whole short story of this chapter is talking about the old man who first gave Du Zichun 30,000 taels of silver, and then gave him 100,000 taels of silver, and the "30,000 taels" and "100,000 taels" were mentioned many times, so in this sentence, for the sake of concise language, the "two" was naturally omitted.
In addition, there is another short story in "Three Words and Two Beats" that shows us a special situation. In the chapter "Zhang Gu Grows Melons and Marries a Literary Girl", when Zhang Gong gives Wei Yifang money, he says: "I will pay you 100,000 yuan, and I will pay for everything with you." It seems to be very clear here that 100,000 yuan should mean 100,000 yuan (because the usual money is 1,000 yuan). But then you will find that it is not the case, because Zhang Gong then took an old hat as a token, "Teach (Wei Yifang) to go to Yangzhou under the Kaiming Bridge, find Shen Gong, a crude medicine shop, and take 100,000 yuan with this as a photo." Therefore, the "100,000 yuan" mentioned above actually means "100,000 yuan".
From this, we can clearly see that whether it is in the description of the world of folk life such as "Three Words and Two Beats", or in the text describing the life of the aristocracy such as "Dream of Red Mansions", the meaning of the amount without quantifiers is not fixed, and it changes with the context of the author or speaker (in the last example, even if the quantifier is added, the meaning is still not fixed).
Specific to Jia Lian's sentence that triggered the unsolved case of the Red Mansion, we must not be able to conclude out of thin air, saying that the "three or two million" is "three or two million money".
So, what exactly does this "three or two million" mean?In terms of text and context, I still agree more with the mainstream view, that is, I think Jia Lian is talking about "three two million taels".
First of all, from the context, the context of this "three or two million" is "Yesterday, the eunuch Zhou came, and he opened his mouth for a thousand taels." I should have slowed down a little, and he was uncomfortable. There will be many things that will offend people in the future. It would be nice to make another three or two million fortunes. ”
Here, Lian Feng and the two were originally discussing silver, and Jia Lian's sentence first mentioned the clear amount of "one thousand taels", and if the unit of measurement suddenly changes in the future, it will definitely not conform to people's speech and thinking Xi. Even if Jia Lian insists on changing the unit of the statement, he will definitely explain it additionally, and will not directly omit the quantifier of this amount.
In addition, in terms of the amount itself, the "three or two thousand taels" of silver converted from "three or two million yuan" is definitely not in line with the actual situation in Jiafu.
It is true that at this time, there have been serious problems in the economy of Jiafu, and Lian Feng and his wife are even angry for two hundred taels of silver, if Jia Lian does not give in time, they may have a big quarrel. But even so, three or two thousand taels of silver must not let Jia Lian be called "rich", let alone make Jia Lian feel "good".
In terms of Jiafu's cash, although it has been left and right, now the "big copper and tin guy who doesn't matter upstairs" can free up three hundred taels of silver, Sister Feng's two gold collars can still be used as four hundred taels, and Jia Lian estimates that Sister Feng's cash can still have three or five thousand. Two or three thousand taels of silver can never be called "making a fortune."
And for all kinds of "outsiders" in Jiafu, two or three thousand taels of silver is by no means a lot of money. The little eunuch mentioned in the book asked for money for "Grandpa Xia", and there were more than 1,000 taels of silver, and the Zhou eunuch mentioned by Jia Lian even opened his mouth to ask for 1,000 taels at one time, and the frequency of these eunuchs knocking on bamboo is so high that they have already come twice in a few days, I am afraid that if Jia Lian sends a "fortune of three or two thousand taels" once, he will lose it in one or two months.
This is just a way out for eunuchs to extort this money, the daily operation of Jiafu is already beyond their means, and there are many places to spend money on daily gifts, favors, daily affairs, etc., if these three or two thousand taels are to deal with these, I am afraid it will be even more of a drop in the bucket.
And looking at Jia Lian's tone, the reason why he wants to make this "three or two million wealth" is because "there will be a lot of offends in the future", and to deal with internal and external troubles for a long time "in the future", I am afraid that this money cannot be too little.
In fact, there is controversy about this money in many manuscripts of Dream of Red Mansions. Among the many manuscripts, the three versions, the Mengfu version, the Qi preface version, and the Liezang version, are actually written here as "320,000 silver", and the other versions are "32 million". Regarding the difference in this manuscript, some people agree with "three or two million" because it seems that Jiafu is wealthy, and some people agree with "three or two thousand silver" and think that it is more in line with the context.
For these two versions, although both the popular version and the current lipid version agree with the statement "three or two million", from the perspective of the text itself, I personally think that the ** of "three or twenty thousand silver" seems to be more reasonable, because its amount is low, and it is more suitable for Jia Lian's casual tone, and it is still a small fortune for Jia Fu.
If Jia Lian is a visionary person like Keqing who has considered the family for a hundred years, I am afraid that he will really want to make a million-level windfall, after all, if it is 30,000 taels of silver, although it looks like a lot, it will probably be spent in a few years, and to completely improve the economy of Jiafu, it really takes a lot of wealth to do it.
It's a pity that Jia Lian, as a descendant of the Jia family who has a little vision but not much, cannot have this ambition and ambition to fundamentally reverse the decline of the family. By this time in the book, he and Wang Xifeng were already exhausted and could deal with the mentality of one day at a time.
In such a state of mind, Jia Lian is indeed unlikely to consider the long-term goal of "three or two million". His current dream is at most that one day Eunuch Xia, Eunuch Zhou and others will not come to blackmail again, or "320,000 silver" can fall from the sky, so that he does not have to move around in money in the short term.
Author: Mud Doll, this article is an original work of Reading Red Mansions.