During the Qing Dynasty, the winter in Beijing was very long and unusually cold, and the temperature often reached minus 20 or 30 degrees; how did the royal family in the Forbidden City, including the empresses, empresses, and concubines in the harem, survive this long winter? In fact, the royal family has a variety of methods of heating, not only material, but also spiritual, expressing people's expectations for spring; this method is used by all the concubines in the palace, and it is also a good way to live in the deep palace; what is it? Let's take a look!
Winter in the Forbidden City of the Qing Dynasty began on the day of the winter solstice; the special angle of the sun on this day brought sunlight from the ground to the "Zhengda Guangming" plaque of the Qianqing Palace; the plaque written by the emperor's imperial pen appeared golden and brilliant; this strange phenomenon told the people in the Forbidden City that the long and difficult winter had arrived.
During the snowy season in the palace, what are the ways for people to heat up? Qianlong was extremely filial to his mother, Empress Chongqing, and was very respectful; he had given the empress dowager a birthday according to the specifications of the imperial level; the palace where Empress Chongqing lived was also the best at that time; in the middle of winter, there was a charcoal fire under the bed where she slept; it was a special kind of charcoal that the Qianlong Emperor found specially from Yunnan, which was burned without smoke and would not be poisoned; in addition to the fire, there was also a very high-grade floor heating in the six palaces of the east and west: there was a special fire pit built under the room, and after the fire was burned, the whole room was warmed; in ancient times, the heating in the palace was mainly by burning fire. This requires a large amount of charcoal; according to the "Case of the Ministry of Internal Affairs", the daily heating charcoal of the empress dowager is 120 taels, the empress is 75 taels, and the concubines are below 60 taels of rank; it can be seen that women with high status in the harem also live warmer in winter.
In the cold winter, people will feel much warmer when they exercise; the Qing Dynasty has a very popular ice sport called "ice frolic"; the Eight Banners soldiers wear running skates and line up to perform various actions on the ice, including difficult skills; ice frolic is both an entertainment activity and a military exercise; a system was formed during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty; according to the "Palace room of the State Dynasty", "In the winter month, Chen Bingyi, practicing labor and rewarding, cultivating national customs with simple martial arts."
In the harem of the Forbidden City, there is such a calligraphy and painting hanging in the palace of each concubine: it is a double-hooked red calligraphy, composed of nine characters, each word has nine strokes; connected together is a poem related to spring - the weeping willows in front of the pavilion cherish the spring wind, showing people's eagerness to stay up in winter and look forward to spring; it is the material of the ancient winter custom of our country - "Nine Nine Cold Elimination Map"; in ancient times, Cold and warm conditions are very simple and lacking, especially in the north, cold winter is regarded as a punishment and threat, people have a strong sense of fear of cold and frozen, and feel that winter will be inexplicably long;
At that time, the toiling masses came up with a way to sort out and pass the time and alleviate the psychological crisis in order to survive the long winter; nine nine eighty-one paintings, concubines draw a stroke every day, after the painting, after the painting will also bloom in spring; during the Qing Dynasty, a concubine also added a weather recording function to the "Nine-Nine Cold Map", upgrading the cold map to make the record more interesting; every day at sunset, the concubine took a brush dipped in white paint, and wrote down the weather of the day on the stroke of each word in the cold map, is it rain? snow? Or is it sunny? As soon as they entered the palace gate, they were as deep as the sea; the concubines wrote the "Nine-Nine Cold Elimination Map" one by one, which was "staying up in winter", and it was also a day in the cold and deep palace as winter.
People are most afraid of not seeing hope, and life without hope is lifeless; "Nine-Nine Cold Map" is giving people hope for spring; winter will come to spring, flowers will bloom, and the scenery inside the Forbidden City will be year after year; but most of the women in the palace walls are sad for a lifetime, how many can have spring?
[References: "The Case of the Ministry of Internal Affairs", "Nine-Nine Cold Removal Map"]