Winter in ancient China was very cold. Before cotton was introduced, what clothes did the ancients use to keep out the cold?

There were four cold periods in the history of China, during which the climate was extremely cold. If the first three cold periods were very far away, so contemporary people lacked concrete feelings, then the last cold period was in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and it didn't end until 19. Many elderly people in contemporary times listened to their grandparents' stories about the cold at that time.

It seldom snows in East China nowadays, but in Qing Dynasty, it often snowed for several days. In the tenth year of Shunzhi (1653), heavy snow fell for more than 4 days in Yongzhou, Hunan Province, which was located in the south. In the ninth year of Kangxi (167), the heavy snow lasted for 6 days, and the Longmen section of the Yellow River was frozen, and the Huaihe River was frozen for more than two months. At that time, there were many records of severe cold in local chronicles, such as: Daye, Hubei Province, and other places, "there were many people who died of freezing and starvation"; Kaifeng, Henan province, "well ice, roads freeze to death"; In Nanchang, Jiangxi and other places, "pedestrians freeze to death"; In Huaining and other places in Anhui, "there are many dead people in the frozen area"; Jiangsu Xuyi and other places, "people freeze to death, birds and animals enter the room to eat"; In Linyi and other places in Shandong, "many people freeze to death", and in Weihai, "there are no pedestrians who die, and there are also people who freeze to death in the house".

Earlier in the Ming Dynasty, in the winter of Jingtai four years (1453), heavy snow fell all over the country. In some areas, the port of Suzhou was frozen for more than a month, and the navigation of Taihu Lake was suspended. "Thousands of people and animals froze to death." In fact, in 1329 at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there was an extremely cold weather in which "Taihu Lake was frozen to several feet thick and oranges were frozen to death."

in the sixth year of Hongzhi (1493), heavy snow fell in the Huaihe river basin, from September of that year to February of the following year. Dongting Lake has become an "ice land", and chariots and horses pass by.

Even today, hundreds of years later, you can feel the biting cold just by reading the words in these records. At that time, the weather was so cold, but there were no down jackets, thermal underwear, air-conditioned floor heating and steam heating. What did people use to keep out the cold? In fact, the cold protection conditions in the Ming and Qing Dynasties were much better than before, because cotton had been introduced to a large area at that time, and the price of cotton was relatively low. Even the poor could wear a cotton-padded jacket in winter, which greatly increased the ability of ordinary people to resist the cold. Before that, the bitter and cold winter was very difficult for the broad masses of people at the bottom.

Before the Yuan Dynasty, there was no cotton in China. The rich people were dressed in silk and satin, while ordinary people could only cover themselves with linen, kudzu and other fabrics. That kind of clothes looked like sacks and was called "brown". Tao Yuanming said in the Biography of Mr. Wuliu that he was "short and brown, and his ladybugs were empty." "Brown" has long been regarded as a symbol of the common people. If an ordinary person becomes an official and leaves the bottom, it is called "removing brown". During the reign of Chunxi in the Southern Song Dynasty, when Zhao Gou, Song Gaozong, crossed the broken bridge in a royal boat, he saw the inscription

Wind into Pine on the screen of the wine shop on the shore. Gao Zong read it and praised it for a long time. He asked why it was done. When he learned that the author was Yu Guobao, a great scholar, he smiled and said, "It is rather shabby to carry the residual wine tomorrow, so it should be changed to help the residual drunk tomorrow." Song Gaozong, because of his great appreciation for the author of Ci, decided to promote him and make him an official. When the emperor said "release brown", it meant "remove brown", which meant that he could take off civilian clothes and wear official clothes.

People wear short brown, rough and hard clothes, which are far less delicate and soft than cotton cloth. They can cope with it at ordinary times, but it is absolutely impossible to use it to keep warm in winter. We must find another way.

In ancient China, although there was no cotton, there was silk. Rich people beat the silk into wadding and made it into silk cotton, and then filled it into clothes or quilts, which became silk cotton robes or quilts. Silk cotton is soft, warm and moisture-proof, so it is an ideal warm-keeping material in winter. However, it consumes a lot of silk and is expensive, which is beyond the reach of ordinary people. Rich people can also wear animal fur in winter, such as mink and fox fur, which are excellent things to keep out the cold, but these clothes are extremely expensive, and a fox fur is worth a thousand dollars, which is beyond the expectation of ordinary people. However, the poor also have their own ways. They collect catkins in spring and collect reed flowers in autumn. In winter, they fill these reed catkins into clothes. Because these materials are soft and soft, they can also keep out the cold to a certain extent. In addition, straw is also a cold-proof item. Some grasses, such as Ursula grass in the northeast, have a good warm-keeping effect by crushing them and filling them into clothes and shoes. The hemp fiber made of straw is also a common thing for people to resist cold, rain and snow.

in addition to these, the ancients also had some cold quilts that seem incredible now, such as paper quilts made of paper. This is a kind of quilt made of rattan fiber, which is very popular with the ancients. Many famous poets once recited this kind of warm clothes.

It can be seen that this paper quilt is white, which is as warm as drinking wine and even better than silk floss. The poet did not hesitate to praise this kind of quilt, calling it "warmer than cotton". But this is only the poet's artistic exaggeration. In fact, the paper quilt is not as good as he described, because he was laughed at by the rich. "The red-browed hawkers laughed at everyone, but asked the Confucian scholars how much?" It can be seen that paper quilt was a kind of clothing worn by the poor in the Tang Dynasty. It should be pointed out that the paper quilt is not a quilt that modern people think, but a cloak-like coat, which was used to cover the body when the ancients took a nap. The modern quilt was called "quilt" in ancient times.

Although the paper quilt is not noble, it needs a series of processing before it can be made, and it also has quite good warm-keeping effect, which makes the poet appreciate it with pen and ink. But in addition to paper quilts, there were even more humble winter clothes in the Tang Dynasty, that is, paper clothes, which were directly stuffed into clothes to keep warm. Although it was unbearable, it could have some warmth. For people in extreme poverty, wearing this paper clothes might not freeze to death.

By the Song Dynasty, the materials and manufacturing techniques of paper quilts had developed and changed. Generally, they were sewn with paper, which was tough, durable, thick and warm. At this time, the paper quilt had been upgraded to "paper fur". Su Yijian, a scholar in the Song Dynasty, said in the Four Books of the Study: "Mountain dwellers often take paper as their clothes ... but they are very impressed." He thinks paper clothes are warm and suitable for wearing in cold mountainous areas.

Today's people can get a glimpse of the source of raw materials and the making process of paper quilts from this poem.

Lu You's good friend Zhu Xi once sent him a paper quilt. Lu You was very happy when he received it, and wrote a poem of thanks, "Thank Zhu Yuanhui for sending a paper quilt"

In the poem, Lu You praised the warm-keeping effect of paper quilt, and described the ethereal Zen of "lying and watching snow fall into the window lattice". It can be seen that the warm paper quilt, carrying Zhu Xi's friendship in the cold snowy day, brought a good mood to Lu You and attracted the poet's poetry. It seems that it was also an elegant thing to give paper quilts to scholars at that time.

Su Dongpo is also experienced in the use and maintenance of paper quilts. He wrote in "Things Feel the Same": "The paper that is worn out and hairy will be torn. If you use five or seven stems of Abelmoschus manihot, smash them and soak them in saliva, it will be as good as new. Or it's wonderful to brush with hibiscus needles. " So familiar with the characteristics of paper quilt, I think Mr. Dongpo is also a paper quilt lover.

If in the Tang Dynasty, paper quilts were still the exclusive cold clothes for the poor, then the Song Dynasty was not. The salaries of officials in the Song Dynasty were very rich, and their daily life was very comfortable and rich. Su Dongpo is an honest official, but when he was a prefect of Mizhou, he lived a luxurious life of "holding yellow on the left and pale on the right, wearing a sable hat and fur, and riding a thousand times to roll up Hiraoka". Paper quilt can enter his eyes, and it must be a good thing. From Liu Ziyi's poems, it can also be seen that the collection and production technology of raw materials for paper in Song Dynasty is relatively complicated, which should be expensive and beyond the ordinary people's ability to afford.