西汉巨额黄金消失问题研究

Study on the Disappearance of Huge Amount of Gold in the Western Han Dynasty

中国利用黄金的历史源远流长,但黄金一直是极为稀有和珍贵的。中国古代,仅仅在西汉时期,从政府到民间都大量拥有和使用黄金。此后直到清朝,对黄金的占有和使用再也没有达到西汉时期的水平。尤为令人费解的是,从王莽末年到东汉初年,短短数年间,黄金似乎消失殆尽。对此,学界提出了种种解释。其中绝大部分都存在明显缺陷,目前唯有"地下埋藏说"尚能自圆其说,但仍缺乏文字尤其是实物证据。

China has a long history of using gold which are always rare and valuable. In the Western Han Dynasty, both the government and the people owned and used much gold. Thereafter, it seemed that huge amount of gold disappeared. It is even more incomprehensible that the disappearance of so much gold occurred in only several years just from the last year of the Emperor Wangmang to the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty. There are kinds of opinions trying to explain the loss. Among which, the spelulation that the gold was buried seems more reasonable, though it still lacks circumstantial or physical evidence.