Winter ice is used in summer, born in the late Qing Dynasty. What should I do if I want to run an ice room?

In hot summer, if you can drink a cup of iced sour plum soup, it is definitely a special refreshing thing. When there was no refrigerator in ancient times, the way to cool down in ancient summer was to collect ice cubes in winter and store them for use in the next summer.

The Book of Songs? Is it in July? Chisel ice? Records show that ice-chipping rooms have a very long history in China.

In the Qing Dynasty, the ice storage system used in winter and summer became more and more perfect and developed. At that time, a huge ice room system was built in Beijing, but most of the time, these ice rooms served the princes and nobles and belonged to the exclusive enjoyment of the privileged class. Even if you are a prince, if you want to open your own cellar to store ice, you must get the permission of the emperor.

It was not until the end of the Qing Dynasty that private ice houses for commercial purposes were allowed to open. So if you live in the late Qing Dynasty and have some spare money, what should you do if you want to build your own ice kiln in Beijing to make money?

Selected location

The first principle of ice house water source location is close to the water source.

In ancient times, there was no good way to make ice artificially. The only way to get the ice stored in the freezer is to wait until winter to collect the ice from the water source.

Therefore, the ice bank should be built as close as possible to the water source to reduce the transportation cost of ice cubes. Otherwise, all you have to do is transport a pot of ice back to the freezer and drink it.

The location of water quality ice house should also consider the water quality of water source.

The water quality of ice source is needed for ice harvesting, because only the ice produced by rivers with clean water quality is clean and hygienic.

The higher the water quality, the higher the quality of frozen ice, and it is easy to sell at a good price.

If you collect ice from the sewer, don't blame it for not selling an ice cube next year.

Ice Pickers in the Late Qing Dynasty

Market factors should also be considered in the site selection of market ice house. Beijing has always had it? Rich in the east and expensive in the west, poor in the south and cheap in the north? In short, there are more wealthy families in Dongcheng and Xicheng, and their spending power is stronger.

So the pit must be built as close as possible to these areas. If the cellar is built in the north and south cities, most of the people living around it are poor people struggling with food and clothing. Who are you going to sell ice to and who are you going to make money from?

Jiao Jian

When building a cellar, we must understand that our purpose is to make money, and we must not have any cross-border ideas. The Code for the Implementation of Engineering stipulates the specifications and shapes of all kinds of buildings in the whole country, so just follow them honestly.

Don't envy the magnificence of the yellow glazed tile roof of the imperial cellar, and don't envy the solemnity of the black tile roof of the official cellar. Ordinary people build an ice bank, as long as they follow one principle, it is affordable.

Most of the official pits are masonry, and the private commercial pits are basically dirt pits.

The structure of the cellar is simple. Grab a shovel, roll up your sleeves and dig in the selected place, and you can get your own cellar. To put it bluntly, the earth cellar is a big pit, and there is no need to cover the cellar top. Can be made in the open air, as long as the good luck ice ramp is left.

After the igloo is filled in winter, just build a simple shed with wooden boards or bamboo poles on the top of the cellar, then cover it with reed mats and thatch, and wipe mud on it.

Of course, this simple earth cellar is far superior to brick cellar in terms of heat preservation effect and sanitation, but its advantages are low cost and convenient construction.

Pick up ice

Is there a record of Ji Sheng when Jingdi was 18? On the eighth day of Laba, the Yu He River began to store ice? , "Yanjing years old"? Is the winter solstice 39 hard? . It seems that there is a dispute between Laba and the winter solstice when picking ice, but Sanjiu is determined by solar terms and Laba is determined by the lunar calendar. In essence, there is nothing wrong with these two times. As long as the ice is frozen hard, just wait for work.

Why wait? Of course, wait for the official pit before mining.

Before the ice harvest, the official cellar will hold a ceremony to worship the river god before the ice harvest.

If you rush to pick ice before the sacrifice, don't blame the court for accusing you of raiding the river god, it will not pay off.

Once the official cellar begins, we must act quickly and catch the ice.

This is because ice harvesting is a seasonal activity, and ice harvesting can only be carried out in the coldest time of the year. In order to make full use of this time, we must act efficiently.

In this way, the iced water surface can be collected again after it freezes again. You can harvest three, four or even five seasons of ice in one winter. How many crops can you pick? One is to see how cold it is this winter, and the other is to see your efficiency in picking up ice.

Among them, two or three crops of ice are frozen at the coldest temperature in winter, thick and solid, clean and crystal clear, and can even be eaten directly if the water quality is good. After four or five crops, the ice gradually turns from cold to hot, and the ice is brittle and bubbly, which is easy to melt.

It must be remembered that ice harvesting is best done at night. This is because the ice frozen at night is not exposed to the sun, so it is not easy to melt and is easier to preserve.

If the thickness of the ice can't meet the requirements in warm winter, we should try to pump the water under the ice to cover the ice to increase the thickness of the ice.

The tool for picking up ice is an ice shovel, which is very heavy. When using it, it seems simple to hold the handle tightly and lift it vertically according to the ice line. In fact, it is a job that tests both physical strength and technology.

The ice cubes cooked by skilled people are square, uniform in size and without broken edges, while the ice cubes cooked by unskilled people will be broken.

So you'd better recruit a group of ice collectors and establish a long-term and stable cooperative relationship. After all, talent is hard to find.

In the skating rink, the order of burning ice is generally from a distance, with a row of ice burned out and a row of ice burned out, and then people slide on the ice with square ice cubes and transport the ice to the cellar.

After the ice cubes are transported into the freezer, they are packed neatly from the inside out, and each floor is separated by straw curtains.

Every day of the twelfth lunar month is to collect ice and fill the cellar, and closing the door can be realized.

It is particularly important to note that the size of ice is also very particular. The Ministry of Industry stipulates that the official ice is one foot and five inches square, but this is the standard of the official cellar. As a private cellar, it's better to play bigger. This is because the insulation effect of private pits is worse than that of official pits. If the ice is smaller, it is likely to melt, which is a loss.

operate

After hard work to collect and store ice, it will be long summer in April next year, so it's time to open a pit to sell ice.

It was really the harvest season. In order to keep food fresh, food markets, fish shops, butcher shops, chicken and duck shops and restaurants all over the country have a great demand for ice cubes.

Taking the behavior of fish as an example, the fresh fish in Beijing in Qing Dynasty mainly came from Tianjin. In order to prevent fresh fish from rotting after long-distance transportation, fish dealers need ice cubes for frozen transportation, which is in great demand.

In addition, in the hot summer, ordinary people also have a soft spot for ice cubes. Summer of beijing sells ice? Two copper lamps are stacked and sound like ice lamps. The ice water they sell is undoubtedly the most popular drink in summer.

Faced with such a strong demand for ice, you don't have to worry about the sales of ice cubes at all.

As the weather gets hotter, your ice will be less and less, and there will be more and more free space in the freezer.

Congratulations, a new way of making money has come again. Because the freezer is frozen all the year round and the temperature is extremely low, it is a natural cold storage, which is very suitable for storing perishable food.

Fruit sellers in Beijing often use the freezer to store fruits, and rent the freezer to them to earn more income.

label

Ice in winter and use in summer fully embodies the extraordinary wisdom of the ancients.

A simple igloo made the life of the ancients more colorful.

Although the traditional igloo has disappeared in modern society, it is definitely a sure thing to open an igloo in the Qing Dynasty. The method has been told to you. As for how to cross the past, I'm sorry there's nothing I can do.