Text ▎ Tianyi View Of History
Edited ▎ Tianyi GuanShi
How did the ancients survive the winter? In the winter when we are shivering in the cold tide and can't open our legs, we have down jacket protectors when we go out, and we have floor heating and air conditioning at home.
But before the Song Dynasty, how did the ancients who did not even have a quilt spend the winter, you don't think that the ancient people without air conditioning and electric blankets all relied on trembling, and the wisdom of the ancestors you did not obey.
First, clothes
Let's first talk about the aspect of clothing, in ancient times, people liked to hunt, and the fur left by animals was used by the ancients to make warm clothing, and later there was a special fur coat.
Most of us think that the nobles light fur plus body, the poor basically rely on trembling, in fact, the fur is not the patent of the ancient nobles, it is according to the different materials, rich and poor, is the most common winter clothes in ancient times.
Among them, fox fur and mink fur are the most precious, light and thin to keep warm, and are the first choice for rich people to keep warm.
Rich people wear fur coats made of foxes, minks, raccoons and leopards, while ordinary people can only choose deer fur, sheep fur or dog fur for heating.
After the Ming Dynasty, there was such a high-grade product as the snow cloak, which was fur inside, and it was common in the three seasons of spring, autumn and winter, and Lin Daiyu in the old version of the Dream of the Red Chamber was wearing this all day.
Although there are ordinary clothes, they are still unaffordable for ordinary and even poor families. In addition to fur coats, ordinary people also use kudzu, willow silk and even paper as the main raw material for making bedding and winter clothes, and winter clothes made of kudzu are called "robes" and "cocoons".
Poor peasant households in the family will wear "cloth clothes" or "brown" in winter, of which brown is a kind of coarse clothing woven with animal hair or coarse linen, similar to sack pieces worn on the body, everyone can imagine it freely.
Ge's clothes are very uncomfortable to wear on the body and not warm, and the poor people's sack-like clothes can withstand the cold of winter, and if they want to survive the waxing moon day, it is estimated that they can only rely on shaking.
In ancient times, the gap between the poor and the rich was very obvious, the royal family and the rich family, in the winter, can wear a variety of natural fur coats, thick cotton coats, the emperor every winter to the concubines and high-ranking officials to reward silk wool or cotton.
Han Mawangdui unearthed gloves
The ancients would also sew strips of filler with silk or cotton inside into various styles of protective foreheads to keep warm, and even the hats and gloves we commonly use now are very popular among the nobles, and it is a luxury for the poor to have a cold clothing.
Second, food
After saying that, let's talk about eating, as the saying goes, the people take food as the sky.
We Chinese as senior foodies, and we are quite particular about eating. In the winter, what is everyone's favorite food, I think the first place in many people's hearts will be hot pot.
On a cold winter night, three or five friends sit around together, eating fresh food that is just hot and steaming, thinking about it is beautiful, what and so on.
However, eating hot pot is not the patent of our modern people, and our ancestors have long eaten it. In November 2010, at an archaeological site in Xianyang, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, archaeologists found a bronze ding with a lid in an ancient tomb from the Warring States period dating back more than 2,400 years.
The most surprising thing is that there are still some dog bones in this ding, and many netizens at that time quipped that this may be the earliest dog meat hot pot in China.
In fact, eating hot pot has been more popular in the Warring States period, and similar findings have been made in many tombs.
This thing is called Wending, which is a popular single small hot pot at that time, the top layer is the place where the soup meat is stored, and the bottom layer is used to place charcoal fuel.
In the Han and Wei dynasties, hot pot became more popular, and various hot pots such as bronze pots, iron hot pots, pottery hot pots and so on appeared. In addition to these, there is also a hot pot with different soups and different flavors, and some people call him a five-cooked kettle.
The most special thing about it is that the whole cooker is divided into five different cooking spaces, which is probably the ancestor of our current Mandarin Duck Pot and the Nine Palace Grid.
Later, due to the opening of the Silk Road in the Han Dynasty, the exchanges between Chang'an and the Western Regions were driven, and foreign coriander and green onions (passed down as shallots) became a condiment and appeared on the tables of the princes and nobles, so the Han Dynasty had already appeared in the hot pot dipping method.
You may have to ask, this pot has, the seasoning has, then the ancients eat hot pot love to shabu what? That's rich.
According to the literature and archaeological findings in recent years, some experts speculate that the hot pot ingredients were more popular at that time in the Han Dynasty. These meats are not only nourishing but also perfect for hot pot, just ask if you are hungry.
In the Qing Dynasty, all kinds of shabu-shabu hot pot has developed into a winter delicacy of the court, and has become a famous imperial court meal, and almost every emperor of the Qing Dynasty is a die-hard fan of hot pot.
In particular, the Qianlong Emperor, who ate hot pot at almost every meal, not only ate it himself, but also liked to invite others to eat it. It is said that once the Qianlong Emperor was engaged in team building in the Qianqing Palace, and 530 tables of hot pot were placed at one time.
His son, the Jiaqing Emperor, was even more than that, and put up 1550 tables of hot pot feast at his enthronement ceremony, and more than 5,000 people were invited to taste it, setting a record for hot pot in history, but unfortunately no one gave him a Guinness World Record or anything at that time.
The most popular in the folk is the beef and mutton hot pot, around the hot pot with a pot of small wine, after the wine and rice are full, and then chat with one or two friends, not to mention how comfortable.
3. Use
After eating, let's take a look at the ancient people's brain-opening cold protection.
The mainland is the first country to use coal, the use of coal to make fire for heating is the most common way in ancient times, the original period of the ancients drilled wood for fire, the Flintstone clan leaned on the cave to roast the fire for heating, after experiencing the taste of the fire, our wise ancestors gradually mastered a new skill - burning charcoal.
Compared with different firewood, charcoal smoke is less, there is no open fire safe and comfortable, coupled with its long burning time and practicality, charcoal has gradually become the most important item for heating in the ancients.
However, the ancients also divided heating into three, six, nine and so on, and the coal used by different classes of people was also different.
In ancient times, ordinary people could have charcoal burning, so generally the unused firewood in the pot was used for warmth, they would put these burned firewood in a brazier, and then close the door, you can make the house a little warmer.
Although the firewood smoke is very large and choking, and the warm time is also very short, it is already very good for the people, after all.
Unlike the situation of the people's tight babies, when it comes to the homes of officials and eunuchs, or even the homes of emperors, the requirements for carbon are different.
Charcoal can neither be too broken nor too loose, and the royal family has more specialized charcoal, known as red charcoal.
Friends who like to chase dramas should be familiar with this word, and the bridge section of what concubines borrow from red Luo Charcoal to play and set up palace fights has appeared in many popular dramas.
In addition to the difference in carbon, the heating equipment of the ancients is also gradually upgrading, the most common is the brazier. Making a fire in a charcoal basin is convenient for controlling the size of the fire and for cleaning up the dust generated by combustion.
The ancients also had a heating artifact called Tang Pozi. Similar to a warm water bag made of metal, when used, pour hot water into it, and then screw it to death, this soup woman is simply a childhood memory.
Fourth, live
So in ancient times, was there a large-scale heating device like air conditioning? In fact, as early as the Qin Dynasty Palace, there were fireplaces, and the design was quite scientific. The design of the upper narrow and lower width facilitates the rapid discharge of smoke, neither choking nor the risk of poisoning.
In addition to the fireplace, there was also a wall of fire in the emperor's palace, and the wall of fire was a kind of hollow wall.
The walls of the palace are built into a hollow "sandwich wall", there is a fire tunnel dug under the wall, and the charcoal mouth that adds the fire is set under the eaves of the porch outside the temple, and after the ignition, the hot air rises along the pipe, and the heat is warmed along the wall to the entire hall.
In addition, there are many halls in the palace that will use earth dragons for heating, to put it bluntly, it is similar to our current floor heating, that is, to lay a special passage under the floor tiles, and in these passages, charcoal fires are lit to create heat.
Unlike us though, it's.
Fifth, the ancient simple heating method that does not cost money
In fact, having said so many heating methods, most of them are supported by money, so is there any heating method that does not cost money?
There are some, but everyone still chooses rationally and chooses to try according to their specific situation.
First of all, we have to say that the ancients were very good at sports, and the body was not as afraid of the cold as modern people. After all, most people are not needed for work now, and basically the four bodies are not diligent and grainless.
And the ancients should be diligent in farming, sometimes because of the war to hike more than ten kilometers, long-term labor so that the physical fitness of the ancients is very good, the resistance to the cold is much better than modern people, so more exercise is also a very good way to resist the cold.
The second method is to bask in the sun. Sunbathing is one of the most economical and practical ways of heating, ancient farming society in winter is no agricultural work, the old and young masters in the winter, as long as there is the sun, are crouched in the south wall root sunbathing. It can not only heat but also does not cost money, killing two birds with one stone.
The third method, the spiritual victory method. Among the many methods of winter cold removal, the most interesting is this spiritual victory method called "Nine-Nine Cold Elimination Map".
Since in the ancient calendar, from the winter solstice, there were 9981 days of winter, so the Ming Dynasty appeared "99 cold map".
On the winter solstice day, a branch of plain plum is painted, and the nine plum blossoms on the branches each have nine petals, a total of eighty-one petals, and then dye one petal every day after that, and when all are painted, it is the day when winter goes to spring. This spiritual method of cold protection, although it is a pleasure in suffering, is also very poetic.
After reading it, do you think that worrying about how to spend the winter for the ancients is superfluous, and I feel that what I need to worry about more is how to spend this winter.
You have also seen what interesting ancient heating artifacts, welcome to the comment area to leave a message to share.