The author | our author Zhang Lan
"Asahisha" (formerly "We Love History") is the headline number signed group media
Word count: 2728, Reading time: 7 minutes
History asks questions
In winter, the cellar temperature is higher, why didn't the poor in ancient times dig the cellar to avoid the cold, and be frozen to death outdoors?
Answer: One of the hardships of the poor in ancient times was "wintering."
Where is the suffering? Today, we are familiar with winter life such as "wearing cotton clothes and covering quilts" and "making fires for heating", which is almost a luxury for the poor in ancient times. As far as the "cotton cloth cotton quilt" and other warm clothing are concerned, until the Southern Song Dynasty, the quilt was only a luxury funerary product for the rich, and the cotton clothes "white stack" in the Tang Dynasty were also exclusive to the nobility. Before the Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang popularized cotton cultivation on a large scale, ordinary people basically could not reach it. Even paper has become the "winter need" of the ancients. Paper quilts made of paper were also extremely favored in ancient times, and were often used to help the poor in the Song Dynasty.
As for "making a fire for heating"? In ancient times, the price of charcoal, coal and firewood was sky-high for ordinary people's homes. Charcoal was also part of the salary of officials during the Tang Dynasty, and the price of charcoal per scale in the Song Dynasty often reached 200 yuan. Coal became popular in the Ming Dynasty, but the price of one hundred catties of coal, as high as one dollar and three silver in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, was absolute hard currency, and burning up was burning money. The Song Dynasty poet Zhao Kuo lacked fuel in winter, so he had to chop the car as firewood, which was considered a "rich man". There is a more famous sentence in the yuan song: "Poor families do not have enough firewood, and can only be urged by cold rain and cold wind."
Coupled with the houses of the ancients, they are not as strong as many of our descendants imagined. Even in the Ming and Qing dynasties, when the construction technology was relatively advanced, the houses in Shaanxi and other places were still commonly "wood bark daiwa", and the houses in rural Shandong were "Dormautz Soil Steps", which were basically thatched houses. Such a house is placed in the cold wind and snow in the ancient north, which basically makes people think it is cold. This was still the case during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and other dynasties can be imagined. Du Fu's scene of "frozen bones on the road" is by no means an artistic process, but it is a common scene in the winter of the poor in ancient times.
Of course, on this issue, many modern "historical fans" often have "clever ideas": don't look at the cold winter in ancient times, but the cellar is warm. The poor in ancient times could have lived in the cellar, so why bother in the cold wind?
In fact, if you want to look at the picture of the life of individual ancient civilians, this "clever idea" is also reasonable. For example, in the individual mountainous areas of the Northwest Loess Plateau, there are "cellar courtyards" with local characteristics, that is, digging a large pit more than ten meters deep on the flat ground, and then punching out several caves on the four walls of the pit to form a habitable courtyard, that is, "cellar courtyard". These "cellar courtyards" are often more than three meters deep, warm in winter and cool in summer, and look very livable. But in most of northern China, it is not suitable. Not everywhere has the geomorphological conditions of the Northwest Loess Plateau.
And this is precisely the first reason why the ancient poor "do not live in the cellar", placed in the ancient scientific and technological conditions, in addition to some areas with special landforms, for the poor in most areas, "digging the cellar" is an almost impossible task, first of all, the amount of engineering is extremely large, in the lack of modern excavation equipment in ancient times, the construction difficulty is also extremely high. Even construction tools are extremely expensive. Taking the Song Dynasty, where "civilian officials had high salaries", as an example, the cost of iron farm tools such as hoes, sickles, hammers, and rakes in an ordinary self-employed peasant family in the Song Dynasty was more than 30 yuan, which was equivalent to three months of Feng Lu in Qipinzhi County.
Therefore, for most poor people in ancient times, the matter of "digging the cellar" was a matter that could neither be dug nor could be dug. The ancient cellar was basically a major project that required a lot of manpower and material resources, and whether it was a warehouse for storage or an ice warehouse, it was basically exclusive to the nobles and rich people or the government. Poor families really can't afford it.
And taking ten thousand steps back, even if the poor in ancient times did not lack strength or money, they could really dig out the cellar. "Hiding in the cellar for the winter" is also an absolutely high risk. Familiar with the relevant science knowledge, you know that the air circulation in the ancient cellar is poor, people stay in it for a long time, poisoning is a common thing. In the medical classics of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, "Xiao Pin Fang", it is said that there is often "fu qi" in the cellar, which can "depress and kill people". The Sui Dynasty's "Treatise on the Origin of Diseases" also believes that the cellar is "poisonous gas". Therefore, when the ancients entered the cellar, they often lit a candle first, and if the candle was extinguished, they should first ventilate the cellar to prevent poisoning.
Entering a cellar must be so cautious, let alone "living in the cellar for the winter"?
Even if the cellar is well ventilated and there is no danger to life in it, the cellar is not as good as imagined. Take the "cellar yard" just mentioned as an example, these "cellar yards" with good ventilation, although there is no "poisonous gas", are dark and damp, and at the beginning of living in it, it is warm in winter and cool in summer, and it will be harmful to health if you live for a long time. During the new China period, many farmers who finally moved out of the "cellar yard" also recalled that the older generation of people living in the cellar yard were "walking hunched over their backs and saying that their joints hurt all day long." In ancient history, those northwestern regions where "cellar yards" are everywhere are actually "rich people live in houses, and farmers live underground."
Therefore, regardless of ancient and modern times, this cellar that looks "warm in winter and cool in summer" is really easy to live in.
Therefore, even in ancient history, when the technical conditions were limited, the main role of the cellar was not to live in people, but to serve as a warehouse. Taking grain storage as an example, China's underground grain storage technology, which developed since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, was a crucial "money bag" for successive dynasties, and for successive dynasties, the hidden and large storage of "underground granaries" was a crucial "money bag".
For example, the Sui Dynasty's Hanjia warehouse, is a typical ancient Chinese underground granary, its total area of 42,000 square meters, there are more than 400 warehouses, its design is also very scientific, the rammed layer of the entire cellar bottom is seven centimeters thick, the cellar is low and there is a moisture-proof layer with tung oil as the binder, and the moisture-proof layer is also paved with wooden planks and hay, which is specially used to prevent moisture. Although the Sui Dynasty was a short-lived dynasty, this advanced cellar design technology was passed down, so that a large amount of grain could be maintained for a long time, which played an important role in the stability of successive dynasties.
With the development of cellar technology, the technology of cellaring vegetables and fruits in ancient China has also evolved from generation to generation. From the Wei and Jin Dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties, grapes, pears, leeks, and vines could be stored in the cellar one after another, and the ancients could eat "anti-seasonal vegetables and fruits" in winter. In the ming and qing dynasties, in Beijing and other large cities in the north, ordinary people with more money in their pockets were able to eat chinese cabbage in the winter. Rich people can use the advanced "cellar fire" technology to grow vegetables in their own cellars, such as cabbage, cucumbers, bean sprouts, leeks and other fresh vegetables, can be grown, especially cucumbers, known as "king melons" in Beijing during the Ming and Qing dynasties, you can know how expensive.
Therefore, in ancient China, the meaning of "there is a cellar at home" is similar to today's "there is a mine at home". Being able to sit in the cellar and chew cucumbers in the winter was the "standard of local tycoons" of that era.
Moreover, with the progress of cellar construction technology during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the sense of existence of "cellars" in the field of war at that time became stronger and stronger. Before the Ming and Qing dynasties, due to technical limitations, it was extremely difficult to build underground fortifications in a short period of time. Therefore, in addition to the relatively simple tunnel excavation, there are actually very few "cellars" on the ancient battlefield. However, since the Ming Dynasty, artillery has been widely used on the battlefield, and the traditional city wall fortifications have become increasingly unable to withstand the bombardment of heavy artillery. A new type of "underground fortification" has finally emerged.
The famous general who used the "cellar technology" to the pure fire was the first to promote Zheng Chenggong, the great hero of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. As early as the Battle of Haicheng against the Qing army, he sacrificed a novel "cellar tactic". In the face of the dense heavy artillery bombardment of the Qing army, Zheng Chenggong ordered people to quickly excavate a large number of cellars, each of which could hide multiple soldiers. Then, when the Qing army shelling ended, the soldiers of Zheng Chenggong's army hiding in the cellar jumped out and quickly crushed the stunned Qing army and fought a beautiful victory in the Southern Ming Anti-Qing War.
The earthwork industry in modern warfare is also indispensable (image from the Internet)
In the campaign to retake Taiwan in 1661, in the face of the Dutch colonists who occupied Anping Castle, Zheng Chenggong once again adopted the "cellar tactic" in the case of the setback of the strong attack: the Southern Ming army dug a wide trench outside the Anping Fort, enough to place all kinds of offensive equipment, while thousands of soldiers hid in the trenches and approached the Anping Castle step by step. This strong pressure finally made the Dutch colonists obediently surrender, and Taiwan, a treasure island that had fallen for 38 years, finally returned to the embrace of the motherland. This "cellar tactic" with the color of modern warfare is also an important step in ancient Chinese warfare.
The cellar that seems to be able to "protect against cold", although "cold protection" is of little significance, it has important significance in many fields such as the life and war of the ancients.
References: "Military Engineering in Chinese Dynasties", "The Ancients Mainly Relied on Boiling for Winter, Burning Charcoal, Burning Coal and Burning Firewood Are Delusional", "Research on Underground Grain Storage in Ancient China"
Good book recommendation