40,000 taels (silver) is roughly a million dollars, he was vastly overpaid for killing some countryside bandits. The artist depicted his pay as gold taels, which would be more like 100 million dollars so I can only assume it was an error. Either way, the Chinese like big numbers in fiction.

https://gearlandia.haus/media/2f9d935796f0a243188a1815f5f2b60b2ac22296eb64c1634cb4a9db8ec94982.png

https://gearlandia.haus/media/481c02f2f2e1e54cdefab8dd267b567fa800b07f8f1dcc6bcbc39a784afd9e7e.jpeg