How did the ancients spend the summer without air conditioning fans?

The ancient summer vacation not only fully embodies wisdom, but also is very low-carbon, environmentally friendly and interesting.

Live-"Liangtang" is comparable to an air-conditioned room.

"I don't want to go anywhere in such hot weather. I just want to stay at home and watch my TV and blow the air conditioner. " Jacky Cheung's song "It's Hot" sings the dependence of modern people on air-conditioned rooms. However, what did people do in ancient times without air conditioning? Like modern people, the first thing that the ancients thought of during the summer vacation was to transform the living environment.

Viewers who have seen the TV series "The Legend of Zhen Huan in the Forbidden City" may still remember the plot-on a hot summer day, the servant put ice cubes in a big porcelain jar, and then put the porcelain jar in the young master's and queen's room to cool the room.

This method of cooling with ice cubes actually existed as early as the pre-Qin period. At that time, the place where the ice was stored was called the "cave". This cave is an elegant basement. Every hot summer night, the nobles drink and have fun in the grottoes all night, which is very similar to today's people drinking two cups in air-conditioned nightclubs after work.

In the Han Dynasty, there was an air-conditioned room in the palace in winter and summer. The room used in winter is called "temperature control hall", and the room used in summer is called "Liang Qing hall". There are various cooling devices in the cool hall-a stone bed, a jade crystal plate filled with ice, and a servant standing on one side facing a fan. According to ancient books, the cool hall is still cool in midsummer, just like frost. And the red people around Liu Che, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, can get the honor of "living in Yanqing forever".

In the Tang Dynasty, ministers with high positions in Chang 'an City also built "air-conditioned rooms"-"cool halls". There is a kind of "fan car" in the pavilion, which is equivalent to today's air conditioning fan, but it relies not on electric energy, but on water energy. When the fan blades rotate with the water, the fan can blow against the cold water to form an air conditioner. According to scholars' research, this mechanical principle of "air-conditioned room" was introduced from Fuxi (the Eastern Roman Empire). If the research is true, this device can be said to be the earliest "imported air conditioner" in China.

Air-conditioned rooms in the Song Dynasty have begun to consider the means of air purification. There are hundreds of pots of flowers in the hall, and the drums are blowing against the wind wheel, which is not only cool, but also has the effect of "full house fragrance".

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was a movable cold source in the rooms of the palace, that is, the cabinet for storing ice cubes. The cabinet was hollowed out as a hole for cold air, and the central space could also store food, such as watermelon and cold drinks. This kind of "freezer" was later used by the people, and there were also imported products, called "foreign barrels", which was definitely "high-grade household appliances" at that time.

Living in a cool house was also one of the ways for the ancients to escape the summer. Cool houses are usually built by the water. It uses the mechanical principle to send water to the roof, and then the water flows down the eaves, which is very artificial "water curtain cave". Cold water flows through the roof, and the cooling effect is naturally excellent. In the Ming Dynasty, some people skillfully used the geographical situation to dig wells to enjoy the cool. Gao Lian, a scholar, recorded in Eight Chapters of Respect for Life that "Huo Dou Villa has seven wells in one hall, all carved and covered, and sat on them in summer. Seven wells are cold and don't know the heat. "

Food-Cold drinks shops in the Southern Song Dynasty were sold until midnight.

Drinking ice in summer is not a unique summer welfare for modern talents. The ancients who loved cold drinks invented all kinds of cold drinks and cold foods long ago.

However, how can ancient people make cold drinks without refrigerators?

It turns out that as early as the Zhou Dynasty, people began to use ice rooms to store ice cubes in winter for use in summer. Both The Book of Songs and Zuo Zhuan recorded the storage of ice in winter months. In the imperial court, there are special officials who are responsible for cutting and storing the ice in the "ice room" or "ice well" every winter, and then taking it out in midsummer. The person who is in charge of ice storage is called "Lingren". Because ice cubes will melt when stored, the ancients often need to store more than three times of ice cubes for summer use.

At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, ice was more widely used, and dignitaries liked to drink iced rice wine at banquets. By the Tang Dynasty, people could already make popsicles for public sale. Put the ice in a big barrel, sprinkle salt to reduce the melting point of the ice, then arrange small iron boxes filled with sucrose water in the barrel, insert small sticks, and it will freeze into popsicles after a while.

Cold drinks in the Song Dynasty were very rich. In summer, besides drinking iced wine, you can also eat all kinds of cold drinks, including shaved ice.

Bianjing, the capital of the Song Dynasty, was filled with cold drink stalls on both sides of the street in June of the lunar calendar. What cold drinks were sold at that time? In the ice shop of Kaifeng Prefecture in the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a smash hit "Ice and Snow Cold Zi Yuan" for sale. "Zi Yuan with cold snow and ice" is made of soybeans and sugar. Soybean is fried, shelled, mixed with sugar or honey, made into small dumplings with water, and finally soaked in ice water, which becomes a sweet and delicious cold dessert.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, the cold drinks in the market were even more dazzling, and the cold drinks shops in the night market even sold until midnight. At that time, the popular cold drinks in Hangzhou were "ice and snow licorice soup", "snow soaking and water fighting" and "cold water litchi paste". Just listening to the name is enough to make you greedy.

In the Yuan Dynasty, there was a new breakthrough in cold drinks. It is said that Kublai Khan in Yuan Shizu likes to drink milk, but milk is not easy to preserve in summer. So Kublai Khan thought of a way-adding ice cubes to milk, so that the storage time of milk was prolonged. Kublai Khan soon found that this kind of "milk ice" tasted good, so he added candied fruit and jam to become the earliest prototype of ice cream.

It is said that in order to protect the production process and formula of ice cream, Kublai Khan also issued an imperial edict prohibiting people other than the royal family from making ice cream. It was not until the13rd century that the Italian traveler Kyle Poirot was received by Kublai Khan and tasted the "milk ice" that was only available to princes and nobles at that time, which made the production method return to the west. After processing and transformation, it gradually became the ice cream we see today.

By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the cold diet had flooded ordinary alleys. In the midsummer, many vendors carried the burden to sell "cold water" along the street. Some also added bayberry and peach, commonly known as "iced bayberry" and "iced peach". In the folk, it is still popular to eat lotus seed soup during the day, which is said to nourish the heart and benefit the spleen.

It seems that the ancients who were good at inventing and innovating had a good time in the hot summer.

Wear-the "half-arm skirt" in Tang Dynasty is both damp and cool.

Short-sleeved shorts seem to have become the standard of modern people's ever-changing summer clothes, but how can the ancient people with "three layers inside and three layers outside" stand it in summer? Some scholars have found that the ancients were not all wrapped up in summer.

According to research, before Wei and Jin Dynasties, men were as shirtless as modern people, while women liked to wear "open-backed pants". These "open-backed pants" are not worn alone. It turns out that the ancients wore deep clothes (that is, clothes with one-piece tops), and most of them wore shin clothes, which can be regarded as the embryonic form of pants, but they only had trouser legs and no crotch. Because such clothes are easy to run out, the ancients would not easily lift off their clothes unless they crossed the river.

In the Tang Dynasty, thin, transparent and strapless "half-arm skirts" and "topless skirts" were more favored by women. Half-arm dress can be regarded as an ancient short-sleeved shirt, which was quite avant-garde at that time. Bolder than half an arm, it is naked. The so-called "bursting breasts" in Zhang Yimou's "Golden Flower in the City" has been criticized by many netizens as too bold, but its design inspiration actually comes from the topless clothes in the Tang Dynasty.

In fact, in ancient times, "the rich criticized silk and the poor wore hemp", and the material of clothes was cooler than cotton and chemical fiber products that modern people often wear. Some studies have said that when the outside temperature is higher than the skin temperature, the skin will unconsciously absorb heat. In this way, the gauze robes and trousers worn by the ancients can not only cover the skin, but also have a wide shape and are very breathable, forming a "small convection", similar to the robes used by Arabs today.

Use-hand fan headrest wind.

Fans are probably the most exquisite and interesting things that can best reflect the ancient people's summer vacation. Fans, known as "rocking friends" and "cooling friends", were not only a tool to create wind and enjoy the cool in ancient times, but also a work of art-although the area of fans was limited, it opened up a small world for painters to write poems and paint.

According to Records of Ancient and Modern Times, the earliest fan appeared in Shang Dynasty, made of colorful male pheasant tail feathers, so it was called "vegetarian fan". But at this time, the fan is not used to cool down and drive heat, but to shade the sun and wind. It is also a ceremony to plug it in the car. According to archaeological findings, fans open and close left and right like doors when used for ceremonial purposes, which is why the word "fan" comes from the side of "feather" and "household".

In the Han Dynasty, round fans made of silk appeared, also known as Fan Luo and Wanfan. Most of the round fans are "round like a full moon", but there are also plum blossom shapes, square circles and other styles.

By the Tang Dynasty, calligraphy and painting fans had become quite popular. Both men and women use round fans. In hot summer, almost everyone has a fan, and wealthy families have more fans. Fans are often beautifully decorated and have famous landscape calligraphy works.

1 1 century, folding fans were introduced to China via Japan and became popular rapidly. Men change to use folding fans in formal occasions, and round fans become women's special objects. Wu's Dream in the Southern Song Dynasty said that there was a "Zhou Jia folding fan shop" specializing in selling fans in Lin 'an, the capital at that time, indicating that the Song Dynasty was able to make folding fans by itself.

Folding fans prevailed in Ming and Qing Dynasties. There are many kinds of folding fans, such as bamboo fans, silk fans, feather fans and sunflower fans. Later, folding fans spread to Europe and became the favorite plaything of western ladies.

In addition to fans, porcelain pillows with different shapes are also necessary artifacts for the ancients to escape the heat. The length of the pillow surface of porcelain pillow is generally less than 20 cm, with hollow inside and holes at the lower end, which is convenient for ventilation and air around it. Because of the cold glaze on the surface of porcelain, it soon became the first choice of bedding for ancient people in summer.

It is said that porcelain pillows first appeared in the Sui Dynasty. At first, they were not used to cool down in summer, but later they were mostly used to cool down. Li Qingzhao, a poetess in the Song Dynasty, wrote in Drunk Flowers that "the jade pillow in the cupboard is cool at midnight, and the jade pillow is a blue-and-white glass pillow, which also proves that the porcelain pillow is an excellent bedding for enjoying the cool in summer. Until the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the appearance of other materials, porcelain pillows gradually withdrew from the historical stage.

It seems that "bitter summer" is not as difficult as the ancients thought. The wise ancients not only knew how to cool off the summer heat, but also knew how to adjust their mentality of "cultivating self-cultivation and keeping warm by quietness". Bai Juyi said in his poem, "Cooling is quiet, cool is empty." This detached mentality of "worrying about summer is like enjoying summer" may really be what we should study hard.