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We live in an era when agricultural production no longer dominates, but the wisdom of the ancients and the truths they summed up are what we should learn in the new era.
In ancient times, many "exhortations" and teachings were summarized into proverbs, many of which were about crops and farming.
"At the beginning of autumn in June, graves are everywhere; The beginning of autumn in July, the autumn valley is piled up", so which month is the beginning of autumn this year?
What is the number of the beginning of autumn and how to calculate it.
As one of the 24 solar terms, the beginning of autumn is the thirteenth of the solar terms.
Every seventh and twenty-second will have a solar term, at this time the sun will experience a certain angle, according to the experience summed up by the ancients, the temperature and climate at this time will have a certain law, often close to the solar term, people's clothing and life will change, so that you will know that this time the solar term is coming.
According to the lunar calendar, July is the mid-year festival, and on the fifteenth day of July, this solar term is also called the "mid-year festival".
In other words, the beginning of autumn will be the beginning of July.
However, in the 24 solar terms calendar on the mainland, the date of the beginning of autumn is actually on the 23rd day of July.
Why is this happening?
Since the number of days in the lunar calendar is not a regular 365, some adjustments need to be made to the time so that the year will not be disconnected from the cycle of the four seasons.
Therefore, at the beginning of the establishment of each year, the ancient astronomers of the mainland made appropriate adjustments to the number of days of more than 400 days, so that the number of days in the lunar calendar every year matched the actual time.
It sounds like as long as you follow this method, it is not very complicated to calculate, but it needs to be readjusted every once in a while, not only that, but sometimes this adjustment will have an extra day, such as in the Han Dynasty, when in order to emphasize the importance of solar terms, 25 solar terms were formulated, which also had a certain impact on agricultural production at that time.
But later, in order to adapt it to the laws of the sun's movement, it was adjusted again, so that the solar terms began to be inconsistent with the lunar date.
In the end, until now, the solar terms of the mainland have undergone such many adjustments in the history of solar terms, and what has finally been determined is the 24 solar terms calendar that we use now.
The customs of the ancients, the modern meal.
At the beginning of autumn, the ancients would hold a kind of sacrificial activity called "autumn festival", some people think that the beginning of autumn is the beginning of the solar term, in order to have a good harvest in the new year, it is necessary to thank the ancestors for their gifts, and then wait for the end of the sacrificial activities, everyone begins to sow seeds.
However, some people think that the time of sowing is not necessarily in autumn, and even in some places, when spring plowing and spring planting, the farmland is built and the cultivation begins, so why should the sacrifice of the beginning of autumn be at this time?
In fact, there are reasons for children to get married.
In ancient times, there was a type of marriage called "period".
The term of marriage is from October to March of the next year, that is to say, in the autumn, the family will begin to find the marriage of their children, and the old people in the family will be in the second day of the beginning of the autumn at this point in time, so as to find the right people at the right time and place, and after finding a good object, the day of the beginning of autumn is the day to meet the in-laws.
However, there is another custom in the Northeast, which is "chasing ducks".
At this time of year, people in the Northeast like to cook a duck, and this custom has been passed down for many years.
Speaking of the origin of this custom, it is because the weather begins to become cooler at the beginning of autumn in Northeast China, and the meat of ducks at this time is more tender and delicious, so people stew their ducks at this time, so that they can also save a little meat to eat for the winter.
Later, this custom became a kind of customs in the Northeast.
But now, the traditions of the beginning of autumn have changed, and the topic of the dinner is no longer to worship the church and worship the ancestors, but to eat enough, the whole family eats at the same table, the mobile phone camera is aimed at the duck on the table, and before you start, you need to quickly send a circle of friends, and when you brush friends, the ducks have already become piles.
Therefore, this sentence "June begins autumn, and graves are everywhere; The "autumn valley pile" in "Autumn Valley Heap" in July is the meaning left by the ancients.
The beginning of autumn is the month of modern agriculture.
In the context of modern meteorological measurement and the development of agricultural science and technology, people's work and lifestyle have long been far from those of the ancients.
Although the division of the 24 solar terms seems somewhat mysterious now, it was a good management method for the ancient society, and the ancients knew that there would be exactly the same solar terms almost every year, and understood their laws, so that agricultural production could have a certain degree of certainty.
The beginning of autumn is a good interpretation of the awe and perception of nature of the ancients living in a harsh climate environment, but it has to be said that today's climate change has also highlighted the wisdom of traditional Chinese culture.
However, this wisdom is also challenged all the time, as Liqiu said, the beginning of autumn in June will be "full of graves", which hints at the ancients' worries about the future.
The ancients had life experience, so they knew that if they were like this in June, when they first came into contact with autumn, the autumn crops in March would suffer a bigger blow.
Therefore, in June, the ancients began to visibly become anxious, eager to get through this time, and the loss of exposure to autumn was not great.
However, with the warming of the climate, it is not certain whether this experience and view can still be proven, and the current farmers can judge whether the autumn will encounter a serious blow according to the current situation.
In modern agricultural production, crops are relatively less affected by the seasons.
Crops such as rice grow in the summer, but the winter rice is not harvested until August or September of the following year.
The same is true for winter wheat today, where the autumn harvest is carried out in the early summer of the following year, so modern agricultural production is no longer so affected by the season, but more by human factors.
But in the context of global climate change, this may be different.
There have been stories of snow even in the summer, which our generation could not have imagined, but that doesn't mean that the temperature will only get higher in the future.
As we all know, not only in terms of temperature, but also in extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, floods, wind disasters, etc., will seriously affect agricultural production, cause crop failures, and may also pose a great threat to farmers' lives.
At this time, we can see that the experience of the ancients is reflected in modern life, because the influence of the season is not so strong, and now farmers need to prepare for extreme weather events to ensure food security.
epilogue
Nowadays, the development of the whole society is moving in one direction, and it is no longer the "four hours of hard work" in the past.
However, as a solar term like the beginning of autumn, the meaning it contains and people's reverence for it have not changed since then.
At this point in time, even if we no longer perform sa festivals as we did in ancient times, it is also very meaningful to take time to feel the changes of nature and shift our mood to a peaceful and leisurely state.