What’s the true worth behind Chinese phrase ‘carrying 10,000 strings of cash around the waist’

Chinese people use the phrase “yao chan wan guan,” or “carrying ten thousand strings of cash around the waist,” to describe wealth. But how much was a string of cash, and what could one buy in ancient China? Guan was a traditional Chinese unit of account. Literally referring to the string used to thread coins together, it emerged alongside the round coin with a square hole, which first appeared during the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC). A guan generally equalled a string of 1,000 individual copper or...