The great history behind the daily lives of the ancients

When I got the book, I briefly flipped through the cover and table of contents, thinking that it might be more appropriate to call it "the daily life of the ancients."

This book focuses on many vivid and interesting small problems, which involve all aspects of the ancient common people's food, clothing, living, customs and etiquette.

Such as the origin of cuisine, the differences between the north and the south, cooking techniques, the work, entertainment, marriage of the ancients, and the evolution of some traditional customs that have been passed down to the present day.

From the historical inheritance of these daily customs and rituals, we can see how a living China was slowly formed, exploring the great history behind the daily life of the ancients.

The so-called "where did China come from?" is like this.

Overall, the book is still good to read, and it will combine some of the historical figures we are familiar with, as well as popular TV series.

For example, when talking about the hairstyles of ancient people, it is combined with the ancient costume martial arts drama "Sword Dynasty", the history of planting trees is prolonged, and the famous Jin Yong wuxia "Divine Eagle Hero" is combined, which makes us feel familiar to read.

The discussion of each small problem is relatively comprehensive, and after reading this article, you can basically have a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of the problem.

Let's say the question of the ancients cooling off.

We are now in the hot summer, which is absolutely inseparable from the air conditioner and refrigerator. But in ancient times, there was no electricity, so how did the ancients spend the hot summer? I believe that many people when watching TV dramas have noticed that the ancients would also use a lot of ice cubes in the summer, how did their ice cubes come from?

The description of this section in the book is very detailed and very interesting.

From the beginning of the Xia Shang Zhou, the custom of using ice in China continued until the Republic of China, especially in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the scale of ice used was the most spectacular. The ancients took ice as a big project, and how to meet the royal ice demand has become a test that requires both technology and national strength.

The book explains from how ancient people collected ice, how to use physical refrigeration technology to store ice in ice cellars, how to use ice and other aspects, telling many interesting stories, from which we can also feel the wisdom of the ancients.

Let's say about the divorce of the ancients.

We modern people want to divorce, not a difficult thing, and in ancient society, heavy etiquette, reverence for husbands, when it comes to divorce, many people first think of words such as "divorce" and "abandonment". So in ancient times, a couple wanted to divorce voluntarily by agreement, how to achieve it?

The book first introduces the other two forms of divorce in ancient times, namely "seven outs" and "righteous abstinence", "seven outs" are actually the seven reasons for men to divorce their wives in ancient times, and "righteous abstinence" is a means of forced intervention in marriage by the government. In addition to these two, there is also a kind of "peace and separation", somewhat similar to the agreed divorce of modern marriage law.

Subsequently, the book traces the historical origins of the "heli" system, which was officially written into law in the Tang Dynasty, but the earliest mention of helio is traced back to the Zhou Li. The system of peace and separation in the Tang Dynasty and subsequent dynasties is also described in detail.

Finally, it also focuses on the ancient "peace and separation", whether it is difficult or not.

Through such an introduction, the marriage system of ancient society is basically strung together, so that we have a framework understanding of it.

Here, I'll just give you two brief examples to give you a general idea of the book's content and narrative form, and there are many interesting little questions in the book:

For example, we modern people have a rich nightlife, maybe they stay at home to watch TV, play mobile phones, maybe they meet friends to eat a delicious supper, and so on, and so on, so how did the ancient people spend long nights?

For example, we are now looking for a house, or buying a house, we have to find a real estate agent, so was there a profession of real estate agent in ancient times? When did it exist? And how does it work?

For example, the college entrance examination is also a problem that everyone is more concerned about, so what are the ancient college entrance examination essays? How did they take the college entrance examination? We now have star chasers, there are fan groups, in fact, there were also some in ancient times, what was it like at that time?

When I saw these questions, I still thought it was quite interesting and wanted to know.

Of course, for each problem, the book is only introduced with an article, we only understand a framework, understand a general, if you are particularly interested in which problem, which details, you can also according to the historical materials mentioned in the book, the clues provided, to do further exploration.