Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 386: Wedding Expenses Are So High? It Seems There Will Be Big Trouble in the Future [Please Subscribe]

Seeing that the Zhu family was a little confused, Liu Kuan paused the video and took the initiative to ask, "Your Majesty, do you have any questions?"

Zhu Yuanzhang asked, "The monthly income of 10,000 mentioned in the video refers to the currency of later times, right? Its value is probably equivalent to how many treasure notes of today?"

Liu Kuan said, "Your Majesty, you have probably forgotten what I said before: money in later times cannot be compared with money in the present. Of course, if we must compare, we can barely use grain as an exchange."

"The current price of ordinary rice and flour in the Ming Dynasty is about one guan (a liter of money) per dan. If we calculate one dan of rice and flour as 188 jin (approximately 5.3 qian) per jin (approximately qian)."

"In later times, the general price of rice and flour was about two or three yuan per catty, so we calculated it at 2.5 yuan per catty."

"So, in later times, 4000 yuan could buy about 21200 kilograms of rice, equivalent to coins, or a little over strings of cash. It can also be roughly understood that one yuan in later times was equivalent to two coins in the Ming Dynasty at that time."

After hearing Liu Kuan's final calculation results, Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao and other men of the Zhu family, as well as Empress Ma and other women, recalled what was said at the beginning of the video and were all surprised.

In later generations, someone with a monthly income of more than 20 strings of cash is not worthy of getting married?
And the old man at the blind date corner said, earning 20 strings of cash a month is not as good as begging?
In addition to being surprised, Zhu Yuanzhang, Empress Ma and others all looked puzzled, wondering: What happened in the future?
Zhu Chong was deeply impressed by the phrase "earn a thousand yuan a day by carrying goods on the back of the building."

I thought, aren’t those people carrying goods on the stairs in the video porters? They earn a thousand yuan a day, which is equivalent to two guan, right?

A porter could earn two strings of cash a day. That would mean sixty strings of cash a month, or six or seven hundred strings of cash a year.

Even if we exclude some rest time, 500 strings of cash is still higher than the annual salary of many officials in the Ming Dynasty.

If I had worked as a laborer for two years in the later world, wouldn't I have earned thousands of strings of cash?!

After everyone came to their senses, Zhu Biao was the first to ask, "Brother-in-law, how could people in later generations earn so much? Even with a monthly income of 20 guan (approximately 20 strings of cash), you can't marry a wife. Wouldn't a normal monthly income be 50 guan (approximately 20 strings of cash) or more?"

Liu Kuan smiled bitterly after hearing this, "Your Highness, there is a huge misunderstanding here."

"Oh, what's the misunderstanding?"

"First of all, the things this old lady mentioned in the video are not describing normal things in the future, but satirizing certain people... Your Highness, don't you miss this?" (Part of the content at the end of the previous chapter was eaten by crabs)
Zhu Biao was slightly embarrassed. He didn't notice it at all and ignored it.

Liu Kuan continued, "Secondly, as I said before, using rice as an intermediary to compare the value of later-era money and Ming Dynasty money is just a forced conversion and is not actually reasonable."

"How much is ten thousand yuan worth in the future? I will give you a few more examples, and Your Highness should be able to understand roughly."

"In later generations, with advanced technology and industrial development, supplies like those needed to ensure basic food and clothing are mostly very cheap."

"Not to mention rice and flour, pork is only a dozen yuan a pound, regular mutton is 20 to 30 yuan, regular beef is only 30 to 40 yuan a pound, and salt can buy about half a pound for two or three yuan."

"The cheapest clothes cost a dozen or even dozens of yuan each, while the most common ones cost only a hundred or a few hundred yuan each. Ordinary shoes also cost tens, hundreds, or even several thousand yuan each."

"But there are also some things that are both necessary and expensive. For example, houses and cars – in modern times, every marriage basically requires the man to have a new house and a car."

"Before I came to Daming, although housing prices were declining, even in ordinary county towns, a house would cost 500,000 to 800,000 yuan."

"If you're in a big city like Beijing, Hangzhou, or Guangzhou, an apartment would cost at least several million yuan, and a slightly better one would cost tens of millions."

"As for cars, although the cheapest ones can cost tens of thousands of yuan, if it's for a wedding, it usually costs at least 100,000 or 200,000 yuan, or even 200,000 or 300,000 yuan or more."

"If we add the betrothal gift—in later times, betrothal gifts varied across the country, but in some places the lowest amount was around 100,000 yuan, while in other places it was over 300,000 yuan. And this was only the lower limit for that area, not the upper limit. In reality, there was no upper limit for betrothal gifts."

"Adding in other wedding expenses, even if a man is marrying an ordinary woman in a small county town, the total cost of the house, car, betrothal gifts, etc. will be 700,000 to 800,000 yuan."

"If the man earns 10,000 yuan a month and doesn't eat, drink, or spend anything after work, it will take him about seven years to save enough money for marriage."

Zhu Yuanzhang, Empress Ma, Zhu Biao and a few others who were more familiar with the situation among the people were quite surprised when they heard what Liu Kuan said. They did not expect that the cost of marriage in later generations would be so high.

Normally, for an ordinary family in the Ming Dynasty to get married, it would cost only a dozen strings of cash.

However, some people increasingly do not understand the satire that Apozhu made about certain phenomena at the beginning of the video, and do not understand what Liu Kuan said.

Zhu Tan couldn't help but say, "If you earn 10,000 yuan a month, you have to save money for seven years without eating or drinking to save enough for the minimum expenses of getting married. If you include food and drink, it will probably take ten years, right?"

"In that case, the statement at the beginning of the video that someone earning 10,000 yuan a month is not worthy of marriage isn't so much of an exaggeration."

Many princes, princesses, and concubines nodded subconsciously after hearing Zhu Tan's words.

Indeed, according to the concept at that time, a person had to work for ten years to save enough money for marriage, so his monthly salary of 10,000 yuan was indeed a bit low - in reality, how could a girl wait for a man for ten years before getting married?
Even if we count from the age of thirteen, the girl will be twenty-three in ten years, which means she is an old maid.

By the way, in later generations, it seems that people are considered adults at the age of eighteen, and many jobs require adults to do them. Doesn’t that mean girls have to wait until they are twenty-eight?
Based on this speculation, if men in later generations do not have financial help from their parents, they can only marry girls who are several years younger than themselves, or even ten years younger, right?

Only a few people like Lao Zhu and Zhu Biao shook their heads after hearing Zhu Tan's words.

Zhu Biao said, "Tenth brother, your monthly income is over 20 strings of cash, which is already a very high salary. But even so, you still need to save up your salary for ten years to save up the minimum expenses for the wedding. This is obviously too expensive and unreasonable."

Zhu Tan still couldn't understand it for a moment, so he simply asked Liu Kuan: "Teacher, are there few people in the future who earn 10,000 yuan a month?"

Liu Kuan smiled bitterly and said, "Your Highness Prince Lu will know the answer if you continue watching the video."

After saying that, Liu Kuan touched the screen to continue playing the video.

"When we step away from the internet, we discover a completely different world." "The difference between a hard seat and a sleeper berth on a train is only 100 yuan, yet many people still choose the hard seat. It's a shame that half of families in my country still don't have the freedom to buy train tickets."

"In 2023, the average monthly salary of Qinghua University graduates will be 13321 yuan, which is more than 2019 yuan less than in 1, almost halved."

At this point, Liu Kuan had to interrupt and say, "Qinghua University is the top university in the future Xin Dynasty, roughly equivalent to the Imperial University we are building today."

After hearing this, Zhu Tan and the others finally had some idea of ​​what a monthly salary of 10,000 meant - Qinghua University must have gathered the top scholars of later generations, but even for these people, the average monthly salary was only 13,000, so the monthly salary of ordinary people was probably quite far from 10,000.

"A post on Weibo titled 'Resigned bloggers collectively returned to work' attracted 6000 million views and discussions."

"It's been proven that in recent years, for ordinary people, just finding a stable job and living a good life has been very difficult..."

After listening to the old lady talk about the difficulties faced by workers after 2020, Lao Zhu, Zhu Biao and others were quite surprised.

In their view, it is really hard to understand that even though technology is so advanced in later generations, ordinary people would still face a "survival crisis".

"Recently, bizarre personnel reports have appeared on major recruitment platforms: monthly salaries of 60 yuan, the age limit relaxed to , and still no employees can be found."

"On the other hand, the number of college graduates nationwide in 2024 will reach 1179 million, setting another record high."

"The current talent market is facing a predicament of collapsing supply and demand. The biggest problem is an overabundance of university graduates and the operational difficulties faced by small and medium-sized enterprises..."

Although Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao learned the number of college students in the future from Liu Kuan last year, they still felt tremendous pressure for the new dynasty when they heard that nearly 1200 million college students would graduate in a year.

That’s nearly 1200 million scholars who have studied for to years!

If we count back in time, there are about 10 million such scholars every year on average. Doesn't that mean there are hundreds of millions of such scholars?
How can we give all these scholars a decent and respectable job?
Even if only one-tenth of them are unemployed, that would be a huge hidden danger for the court, right?

While Lao Zhu, Zhu Biao and others were thinking about these issues, the video gave an in-depth explanation of the situation faced by workers in later generations.

"For example, the number of university graduates choosing to continue their studies after graduation continues to grow, by 32.6%; the proportion of fresh graduates who are self-employed or slow to find employment continues to rise compared to 2023."

"The reason for continuing to study is ostensibly due to the increased demand for self-education among this generation of young people, but in reality, they find that with the same level of education, they can no longer find jobs with the same salary as graduates from five years ago."

“Education is devaluing, you need to be more inward-looking…”

This passage contains some words that are difficult for Lao Zhu and others to understand, such as freelance and slow employment.

But later on, several words emerged that were difficult for them to understand at first, but intriguing when they thought about them carefully, such as: study abroad, indirect employment, full-time children, etc.

Afterwards, the topic of the video smoothly shifted from college students' employment to a profession called "delivery rider", indicating that many college students become delivery riders after graduation.

Seeing this, some members of the Zhu family couldn't help but wonder: What kind of job is a food delivery driver? Why would such a large number of scholars after 10 or 20 years of education flock to it?
Especially when they saw a large group of people wearing yellow clothes and yellow hats in the video, this speculation became even more outrageous: yellow clothes can only be worn by the royal family. Could it be that in later generations these scholars who could not find jobs were all supported as members of the royal family?

However, as the video continued, almost everyone showed expressions of astonishment, realizing that the facts were far from what they had guessed, and even exceeded their imagination.

The job of these delivery riders in yellow robes is to deliver food and other goods from restaurants and other places to customers' homes!

"Haha, isn't this the waiter?" Zhu Chong couldn't help but laughed out loud.

His laughter stopped abruptly when Zhu Yuanzhang glared at him.

But Zhu Yuanzhang also frowned. He didn't expect that many scholars in later generations would do jobs similar to waiters.

Although any job is acceptable for making money, he felt it was a pity when he thought that those people had only studied for 10 or 20 years.

Then came something that surprised the Zhu family even more.

"The report shows that there will be 2023 million food delivery drivers nationwide in 745, of which 17 will be undergraduates and nearly 6 will be postgraduates."

"By 2024, the number of registered riders on the platform alone will have reached 1300 million, nearly doubling!"

"The median salary is only 7096 yuan, a 2023% decrease from 9400 yuan in 25."

"Let's not discuss for now how much of a rip-off this publicly available data is, but it at least illustrates one point: even if you take off Kong Yiji's long gown, you still can't straighten your back."

"For ordinary people, the jobs with the lowest threshold are already saturated. And those who are trapped by the employment dilemma are not only young people, but also middle-aged people who face unemployment after the age of 35..."

Seeing this, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly had an idea in his mind, and came up with a bold idea, or inference: it seems that future generations will be in big trouble.

But then he became confused again: From what he learned from Liu Kuan, the Xin Dynasty had done well enough in all aspects, so how come such a big trouble still occurred?

Is this only true for the Xin Dynasty, or is it true for all countries in later generations?

　Second update.

　　good night!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)