A simple drawing of the old yellow calendar

In the eyes of many people, the ancient calendar is as unfathomable as astronomy. So I look embarrassed when I see the ancient calendar. Especially when we read ancient history books, we often encounter astronomical calendars, such as The Book of the Great Emperor: "Nine years of martial arts, the Xinhai in July, is too white to see. Good news, too white to see. Chen Bing in August, come in. Ding Si, it's too white to see you. Ren Xu, Tuguhun, please speak and make peace. Jiazi, the Crown Prince is the emperor. " The "Xinhai" in the article is a dry branch. If you don't know the calendar, I believe you don't know what the branches represent. In order to understand it, let's study together.

Ancient education

In ancient times, a "spring and autumn" was a year!

In ancient times, every time there was a change of dynasty, there would be "resignation and change course." It means the first year. The new moon refers to the first day of January. "Zhengshuo" refers to the calendar. Therefore, the ancient calendar is also constantly changing, and it took many twists and turns to finalize the design.

In ancient times, "nian" and "nian" were synonyms, so "nian" meant "nian" in ancient times. The ancients often called the process from sowing to harvesting a year. Therefore, in Shuowen, there is: "The year is ripe." According to the maturity cycle of rice, which is the time for the earth to go around the sun once, it is now called "solar calendar", and there is also a "lunar calendar" with "new moon" as the unit. In fact, the ancient calendar is neither a calendar nor a simple solar calendar, but a combination of Yang and Yang.

In ancient times, the average year was 12 months, with six big months, 30 days each month and six small months, 29 days each month, so the whole year was 354 days. According to the current average annual calculation, if there is a shortage of 1 1 day, there will be a shortage of one month every three years. Therefore, in ancient times, there was a leap month every three years, making the average year equal to a solar year (365). In fact, it is not correct to run once every three years, so Shuowen said: "Leap again in five years". If you jump twice in five years, it's actually more. It was later stipulated that 19 was a leap of seven months. In short, the ancient calculation of years and months needed professional celestial officials to calculate, which was really difficult for ordinary people to understand. So we just need to know that the average year is 365 days, the leap year is 366 days, and it can be moistened every four years.

In Shang Dynasty and Western Zhou Dynasty, a year was divided into two seasons: spring sowing and autumn harvest to show the four seasons of the year. Therefore, if the Spring and Autumn Period appeared before these two dynasties, it refers to the four seasons of the year. There is a saying in Zhuangzi: "huìgū doesn't know the spring and autumn." In this paper, "fly" refers to cicada, and "Spring and Autumn" refers to a year. Translated, cicada's life is too short to know that there are four seasons in a year.

The Spring and Autumn Annals compiled by Confucius refers to what happened in the year from "spring" to "winter", not just to record the Spring and Autumn Annals. Because in the Spring and Autumn Period, two seasons "Spring" and "Autumn" are used to represent a year, so "Spring" is often used as the beginning of a calendar year in Zuo Zhuan. For example, at the beginning of Zuo Zhuan's Hidden Year, it is recorded: "In the spring of the first year, Wang Zhouzhengyue. If you don't book it, you can take it. " This paper adopts the imperial chronology method, which has years, seasons and months, and is generally inaccurate to a certain day.

Timing sundial

Ancient months and seasons, many elegant names!

It goes without saying that the ancient year was divided into four seasons. But in the four seasons, it is divided into 12 months. The ancient summer calendar divided 65438+February into "Meng Chun (65438+ 10), Midspring (February), Ji Chun (March), Xia Meng (April), Midsummer (May), Late Summer (June), Qiu Meng (July) and Midautumn (August). In fact, the order of "Meng, Zhong and Ji" is similar to that of the ancient brothers. " "Meng" refers to the boss and "Zhong" refers to the third.

Lu You's poem "Ji Bu" reads: "Meng Chun is full of fragrant grass, and ancient customs welcome children. In January, the poem "Meng Chun" welcomed Zigu (Ce Shen) according to ancient customs. Therefore, in ancient Chinese, if mid-spring appeared, it would be February and Ji Chun would be March. If you don't understand the ancient calendar and appellation, it is estimated that it will be difficult to understand for a while.

In ancient times, spring was called "Occurrence or Qingyang", summer was called "Zhu Ming or Changyuan", autumn was called "Jin Su or Bai Shang" and winter was called "Xuan Ying". Knowing these appellations is very helpful for us to read ancient Chinese.

The 24 Solar Terms

In ancient 24 solar terms, you should know how to master farming!

Long-term farming in ancient times mastered the changes of four seasons, and then summed up 24 solar terms, which can be used to record the moon. How to calculate the 24 solar terms? Generally speaking, a year is twelve months, and a month is divided into two solar terms, making a total of twenty-four solar terms. These solar terms are fixed, for example, there are three months in spring, the first month (beginning of spring 15 days, rainy 15 days); February (fifteen days of fright, fifteen days of vernal equinox); March (fifteen days in Qingming Festival and fifteen days in Grain Rain).

To be more exact, beginning of spring is a day of spring. After 2: 05 on 15, it means rain, which means a lot of rain. 15 will be startled at 2: 05 (in ancient times, it was called "startled sting" to avoid Han Jing Emperor Liu Qi), and so on. Among the 24 solar terms, there are long summer (summer comes), beginning of autumn (Qiu Lai) and beginning of winter (winter comes).

If you master the 24 solar terms, you don't have to worry about rural farming. The farmer's uncle knows what to plant in spring and what to plant in autumn by heart. Because young people nowadays seldom farm, I don't know what the role of the 24 solar terms is.

Ancient chronology, reading ancient books is a must!

There were about three chronologies in ancient China, which were divided into Emperor Chronology, Star Chronology and Branch Chronology. In ancient books, the chronology of emperors and the chronology of cadres and branches are generally adopted.

The earliest imperial calendar in China began in the year of "China people". The time was 84 1 year BC, and Zhou Liwang was driven out of the capital Haojiang by China people because of his fatuity. Duke Zhou (Zhou Ding) and Duke Zhao (Mu Gong) were regents together. This year is called "the first year".

Then two years, three years and four years. 14 years, Zhou Liwang died. If you want to convert the calendar year into AD, you can subtract Zhou Liwang's reign year (841-kloc-0/4 = 827) from the first year, so the year of Zhou Liwang's death is 827 BC. Zhou Liwang died this year, and his son Zhou Xuanwang ascended the throne, which was the first year of Zhou Xuanwang. Zhou Xuanwang died 46 years after he acceded to the throne (827-46 = 78 1), so the year of Zhou Xuanwang's death was 78 1 year BC, and Zhou Youwang acceded to the throne, which was the first year of Zhou Youwang. I believe everyone understands this calculation.

After Emperor Wudi of the Western Han Dynasty founded the year number, he began to record the year in the history books with the year number. For example, one of the titles created by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was "Jianyuan", and the first year, two years and three years of Jianyuan were adopted in the history books. The year number of "Jianyuan" was changed to "Jianguang" after six years, and the year was re-recorded with the New Year number.

60 jiazi

Ganzhi Chronology originated in the Western Han Dynasty, and spread in the Eastern Han Dynasty!

"Tiangan" is divided into 10 stems (1. Answer, 2 b，3。 c，4。 d，5。 e，6。 j，7。 g，8。 Xin, 9 years old. Ren, 10. Deck) and "land". Together, "heavenly stems" and "earthly branches" are sixty units, which are called "Sixty Jiazi".

"Sixty Jia Zi" is also called "Sixty Hua Jia Zi". The oldest usage is calendar year, calendar month, calendar day and calendar time. Calendar year is 60-year cycle, calendar month is 5-year cycle, calendar day is 60-day cycle, and calendar time is 5-day cycle.

How are the 60 jiazi combined? Put a word in front of the "heavenly stem" and a word in the back of the "earthly branch", thus forming a pair of "dry branches". In addition, the combination of "stem and branch" is the singular of heavenly stem and the singular of earthly branch. Even heavenly stems and earthly branches. In fact, the collocation is very simple, just take a closer look.

For example, 1984 is the year of Jiazi, then 1985 is the year of Ugly B, and 1986 is the year of Bingyin, and so on until 60 Jiazi cycles are completed, and then the chronology starts from Jiazi, thus "repeating 60 Jiazi cycles". If 1984 is the year of Jiazi, and it will be Jiazi after 60 years, then it is 1984+60=2044. In other words, 2044 is the year of Jiazi, and 2045 is the year of ugliness. No matter forward or backward, you can use the trunk and branches to calculate the year. For example, now is 2022 (the year of Jihai), so 60 years later (2079) is the year of Jihai.

The ancient calendar month took five years as a cycle, five years as 60 months, and calendar days as a cycle. For example, "in the ninth year of Wude, in July of 1911, I will see you in Taibai during the day. Good news, too white to see. August 3 rd birthday, please speak. Ding Si, it's too white to see you. Ren Xu, Tuguhun, please speak and make peace. Jiazi, the Crown Prince is the emperor. "

On July 25th, the 9th year of Tang Gaozu Li Yuan Wude (AD 626), Taibai Star appeared in the daytime. A white star appeared during the day on the 28th. The first day of August, peace. The next day, the white star appeared during the day. On the seventh day, Tu family's soul was safe. On the ninth day, Crown Prince Li Shimin ascended the throne.

It is easier to convert land expenditure into main expenditure and monthly expenditure. However, it is not easy to convert the date to the current date. I don't think many people can figure it out by oral calculation just by means of the almanac. Therefore, I will not go into details here.

ancient times

Ancient stone

In ancient times, sundials were used to measure time. In the palace, there were special time records. The ancient "Twelve Earthly Branches", also called "Twelve Hours", are: Zi, Ugly, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu and Hai. Each hour represents two hours: Zishi (from 23: 00 to 1), Ugly Time (from 1 to 3: 00), Yin Shi (from 3: 00 to 5: 00), Shi Mao (from 5: 00 to 7: 00) and Chen Shi (from 7: 00). You Shi (from 17 to 19), Chu Shi (from 19 to 2 1) and Shihai (from 2 1 to 23).

In addition, each hour represents two hours, and they also have corresponding animals, called "Zodiac". That is, rats, ugly cows, silver tigers, hairy rabbits, dragons, snakes, afternoon horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs and porcupines.

There are twelve days in a day (modern one hour is 2 hours), one hour and eight minutes (modern 15 minutes), three teas for a while (modern 5 minutes), one tea with two fragrances (modern 2 minutes and 30 seconds) and one fragrance for five minutes (modern 30 minutes).

In ancient times, only palaces and aristocratic families could master the specific time. Ordinary people rely on the sun during the day and crow at night to judge time. Therefore, ancient people often work at sunrise and rest at sunset. The 24 solar terms in ancient times were actually summed up by labor, which shows that the wisdom of the ancients is admirable.

The above is about how to check the date of the ancient Huangli calendar, and it is about the sharing of the Han Dynasty. I hope this will be helpful to everyone after reading Check Good Days Old Yellow Calendar 2022!