Was it hot in the summer in ancient times? How did the ancients beat the heat?

The Fushan County Chronicles recorded the extremely high temperatures in the summer of the eighth year of the Qianlong reign: In May, the weather was extremely hot, and many pedestrians died on the road. The weather was even worse in the capital, and some Fushan people who were doing business in the capital also died of heatstroke. Meteorologists speculate that the highest temperature in the eighth year of the Qianlong reign could reach 40 degrees Celsius.

From the perspective of solar terms, there is a saying that "the Lesser Heat and the Greater Heat are hot above and below". From this perspective, the summer in ancient times was also very hot, and there were also extreme high temperatures.

There were no electric fans or air conditioners in ancient times. What methods did the ancients use to cool down?

Clothing: Ancient people were also afraid of heat, and they were not conservative in their summer clothing. Most men would go shirtless and wear shorts. Some ancient people's summer clothing was even more open and bold than modern people's.

In ancient times, rich people wore gauze clothes. These gauze clothes were thin and transparent. There is a story like this: A foreign merchant saw a Tang Dynasty merchant and asked him, "Can you see the mole on your body even if you wear two clothes?" The merchant laughed and counted them. It turned out to be five gauze clothes. You should know that the plain gauze clothes unearthed from Mawangdui were as thin as cicada wings and weighed less than one or two taels. It is difficult to reproduce them with modern weaving techniques. The poor people wore linen clothes. If it was too hot, they wore bamboo clothes because bamboo clothes have the function of heat dissipation. In ancient times, there was also a kind of pants called "shin clothes". Only the trouser legs covered the thighs. This is what we call open-crotch pants. Modern people dare not wear them like that.

Food: There were no refrigerators in ancient times, but that did not affect the ancients' enjoyment of eating ice.

Ancient people usually had two ways to obtain ice: one was to store it in cellars, and the other was to make ice.

Ice cellars are ice blocks collected in cold regions or in winter, cut into large ice blocks of one meter square, and then stored. There are officials in the palace who are in charge of this matter, and "ice wells" are built to store large ice blocks.

The government usually obtained ice through "ice distribution" and "ice granting" from the palace, while the common people had commercial ice cellars.

Smart ancients also used methods such as making ice with saltpeter to make artificial ice, but because artificial ice-making required large investments and produced little results, it was not often used.

In the pre-Qin period, the ancients also invented the ice jar. The structure of the ice jar is relatively simple. It is a container with an interlayer. Ice cubes are placed in the interlayer and food is placed in the container, which has the effect of chilling food.

Selling ice is a good business in the summer, and merchants will also mix a variety of delicious iced drinks.

"Ice and Snow Leng Yuanzi" of the Song Dynasty: Made from soybeans and sugar, fry the soybeans, peel them, mix them with sugar or honey, add water to form small balls, and finally soak them in ice water to make a sweet and delicious cold dessert.

In the prosperous Song Dynasty, cold drinks were already in the homes of ordinary people. In the painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival, you can find nearly 20 stalls selling iced drinks under large umbrellas.

Yang Wanli, a poet in the Song Dynasty, was a foodie who loved cold drinks. His poem "Ode to Ice Yogurt" is a testament to this: "It seems greasy but also refreshing, condensed but also floating. The corn is crushed at the bottom of the plate, and the snow melts towards the sun." Reading this poem by modern people makes us drool.

Residence: Throughout the dynasties, water pavilions have always been a good choice for people to escape the summer heat. Water pavilions are built by the water, surrounded by dense trees and bamboos, and are cool and unique. Spreading a cool mat in the pavilion and having a plate of iced fruit drinks is really a special experience. Some water pavilions are also equipped with professional wind-pulling equipment, called "fan carts", which are similar in appearance to water wheels. Fans are inserted in an orderly manner on the carts. The flow of water drives the carts to move, and the movement of the carts drives the fans to rotate, and then there is wind. It is an ancient version of "automatic fans". The imaginative ancients would also use water wheels to send water directly to the roof, and the water would then flow down from the eaves to create artificial waterfalls, achieving a very good heatstroke prevention and cooling effect.

Ordinary people have used their brains to come up with ways to avoid the summer heat without leaving home and spending money. People living on the Loess Plateau use the principle that the ground temperature is much lower than the air temperature to dig caves to create an underground summer escape mode. This kind of sunken cave, built about 10 meters vertically downward, has an indoor temperature between 10℃ and 20℃ all year round. You need to cover yourself with a quilt when sleeping in the dog days of summer, but the cave is warm in winter, which is truly warm in winter and cool in summer.