How did the ancients describe the date and time?

The ancients used heavenly stems and earthly branches to express time, such as the year of Chen Geng, but there are so many unclear expressions, because there will be a year of Chen Geng in 60 years, so the expression of the year of the ancients depends on the dynasty of people and events to determine the specific year.

The month and the day are also represented by heavenly stems and earthly branches. For example, there is a "Ma Ri incident" in history, which means that that day was the horse's value in the earthly branch.

When we talk about birthdays, we actually mean the date and time when we were born.

The ancients divided a day into twelve hours, one hour for two hours, one hour for eight quarters, and one hour for 15 minutes. In fact, we still use moments to express it now. For example, 12 o'clock 1 time means 12 o'clock 15 minutes.

I wrote it according to what I know, so it may not be very detailed. Hope to understand.