Twenty-four solar terms, Chinese spring, summer, autumn and winter

"The countryside is through the rain, and the countryside remembers mulberry farming." When the rain festival comes, the agricultural cycle of the whole year officially begins. From spring to rain, the two solar terms change, snowfall becomes rain, overwintering crops begin to return to green, grass and trees sprout, and the world is full of vitality.

The 24 solar terms of the lunar calendar are a complete knowledge system formed by ancient Chinese to recognize the changes in the seasons, climate, and phenology of the year. "The spring rain shocks the spring valley days, and the summer is full of mango and summer and summer are connected. Autumn dew autumn frost falls, winter snow snow winter small cold. "From this twenty-four solar terms song that almost all Chinese recite, we can see the remarkable observation and creativity of the ancients. While we now have a lot of scientific knowledge about climate and agriculture, the twenty-four solar terms have never gone out of style. It is not only an "agro-climate calendar" that is highly valued by farmers, but also profoundly affects our way of thinking and code of conduct.

The "twenty-four solar terms" are undoubtedly the product of agricultural civilization. China is one of the few agricultural civilizations in the world that originated. As early as the Neolithic Age, about 10,000 years ago, China domesticated crops such as rice and millet, planted mulberry silkworms, and domesticated animals. The main agricultural area is in the Yellow River Basin, which is in the middle latitude, the four seasons are distinct, and people can observe climate change and phenological characteristics at different times. But only the agrarian civilization was not enough to produce twenty-four solar terms, but also developed astronomy. Astronomy in ancient China was quite developed, and before the European Renaissance, China was one of the most accurate observers of astronomical phenomena in the world and one of the best record keepers. The oldest and simplest astronomical instrument in China is the Tugui, also known as the Gui table, which is used to measure the length of the sun's shadow, and with it, it is possible to establish the time of the winter solstice and the summer solstice. Then, through mathematical calculations, the sun is divided into twenty-four equal parts of the year, and the time of each solar term is established.

The twenty-four solar terms are divided into seventy-two weathers, five days for one weather, three weather for one gas, each of which has animals, plants, birds, weather and other cyclical natural phenomena that change with the seasons, which are called "phenology". For example, the rain is tempered, the ice and snow melt, the spring letter has been sent, one waits for the otter to sacrifice the fish, the second waits for the hong geese to come, and the third waits for the grass and trees to sprout. We can imagine that the otters began to fish, the geese began to fly back from the south back to the north, and in the "silent" spring rain, the grass and trees began to pull out young shoots. After the rain is the sting, a spring thunder awakens all things that are dormant, one waits for the peach Shihua, the second waits for the cang Gengming, and the third waits for the eagle to turn into a dove... These beautiful pictures nourish many wonderful psalms. The same animal, insect or weather phenomenon in the Seventy-Two Weather will show opposite or continuous changes with the seasons, such as "Xuan Bird To" and "Xuan Bird Return", "Sting Worm First Vibration" and "Sting Worm Billet Household", "Thunder Sound" and "Thunder Beginning to Close", etc.

Of course, there are still many factors in the inheritance of the twenty-four solar terms. On the occasion of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the sons and sons competed with each other, and various ideas influenced each other. The farmhouse became one of the important schools, and in the process of the controversy of the sons, a unique idea of the unity of heaven and man was formed. At that time, Lao Zhuang's philosophy had a far-reaching influence, Lao Tzu emphasized "Taoist nature", Zhuangzi advocated nature, and advocated the spiritual realm of "heaven and earth and me, and all things are one with me", which naturally affected the later peasant school. The peasant thought embodied in the four articles of "Lü's Spring and Autumn", which represents the peasant family, such as "Shangnong", "Rendi", "Discerning the Soil", and "Judging the Hour", emphasizes living in harmony with nature, which is the direct embodiment of Lao Zhuang's thought. Among them, the "Trial of Time" uses the close relationship between heaven, earth and people to explain the agricultural production process and the principle of certainty, which has contributed to the emergence of a technical system of intensive cultivation containing twenty-four solar terms with rich connotations and the purpose of mastering agricultural time.

The county system in the Qin and Han dynasties gave birth to the far-reaching idea of heavy agriculture and suppression of commerce, and provided policy support for the generation of the twenty-four solar terms. Agriculture became the main body of the entire national economy during the Qin and Han dynasties, planting became the top priority, breeding, business and other industries were not encouraged, and the qin law of cultivating cattle was specially protected, and the arbitrary slaughter of cultivated cattle was sentenced to death. Without the ideological tradition of heavy peasantry, the twenty-four solar terms could not penetrate into all aspects of the production and life of the Chinese nation.

The development of agricultural civilization, advanced agronomic ideas, a long tradition of heavy agriculture, and the cultural concept of living in harmony with nature, the interaction of various factors has given birth to the twenty-four solar terms.

Today, the twenty-four solar terms are still closely related to agriculture, and when to cultivate the land, sow, weed, and harvest, we must follow the rules of solar terms. For example, the southern part of Shanxi is the main production area of winter wheat, and there is a solar proverb that says: "Wheat is long in the spring, and there is a drought in the spring of ten years", "The spring is still cold, and the wheat field watering does not stop", "The small full sesame mango seed grain". Even in areas where the characteristics of the four seasons are not obvious, there are a series of agricultural proverbs generated by the solar axis, which provide a reference for agricultural production. For example, the Northeast agricultural proverb: "After the mango seed, do not force the seed", the Anhui agricultural proverb "Plant under the Qingming Dynasty, plant the seedlings in the rain of the valley"; the Fujian agricultural proverb "Sting the plough head moves, and the spring equinox is ventilated"...

Contemporary Chinese agriculture has added many elements of industrialization, such as fertilizers, pesticides and machinery, of which fertilizers and pesticides have contributed while also leading to prominent problems such as the decline in the quality of cultivated land, the thinning of the black soil layer, the acidification of the soil, and the decline in river water quality. The solution of these problems requires us to make full use of science and technology, while inheriting the concept behind the twenty-four solar terms, making more use of the traditional wisdom of farming, adapting to the conditions of the time, adapting to local conditions, combining planting and breeding, recycling, and establishing an ecological civilization that lives in harmony with nature. These are all things that need to be seriously considered in order to achieve agricultural modernization.

The idea of the twenty-four solar terms can be popularly understood as people's pursuit of "heaven, time, place, and people". Successive generations of literati and inkers have used various forms to continuously enrich the connotation of solar terms, and grass, trees, fishes, insects, heaven and earth and all things are contained in the framework of solar terms, so that today we can have a poetic romance that is related to heaven and earth. This is perhaps the reason why the twenty-four solar terms never go out of style.

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