Winter ice in summer, born in the late Qing Dynasty, if you want to run an ice cellar what to do?

In the hot summer, if you can drink a cup of penetrating cold chilled plum juice, it is definitely a particularly refreshing thing. In ancient times, when there was no refrigerator, the ancient way to cool in summer was to harvest ice in winter and store it for use the following summer.

The poem ? July" has ? The first time I saw this was when I was a young man, and the second time I saw it was when I was a young man. The record, enough to see the chiseling ice cellar storage in China has a very long history.

Time came to the Qing Dynasty, winter ice summer ice storage system is more and more perfect and developed. At that time, the city of Beijing built a huge ice cellar system, but most of the time these ice cellars are exclusively for the service of the princes and nobles, belonging to the privileged class of exclusive enjoyment. Even if you are a prince, you want to open your own cellar to store ice, that must be authorized by the emperor to achieve.

Until the end of the Qing Dynasty, folk for commercial ice cellar was allowed to start. So if you live in the late Qing Dynasty, and have some money in hand, want to build their own ice kiln in the capital to make money, how should I do it?

Site selection

The first principle of ice cellar site selection is to be close to the water source.

In ancient times there was no good way to make ice artificially, to get to the ice stored in the ice cellar, the only way is to wait until winter to go to the water source to collect ice.

So the ice cellar should be built as close as possible to the water source, so as to reduce the cost of transportation of ice. Otherwise, the cost of shipping the ice back to the ice cellar alone will be enough to make you drink a pot of water.

Ice cellar site selection should also consider the water quality of the water source.

Ice harvesting has requirements for the quality of the water of the ice source, because only the clean water quality of the river to produce ice is clean and sanitary.

The higher the quality of the water, the higher the quality of the frozen ice, and the easier it is to sell at a good price.

If you take the stinking ditch ice back, don't blame it on the next year a piece of ice can't be sold

Ice pickers in the late Qing Dynasty

Ice cellar location should also be considered as a market factor. Beijing has always had? East rich, west expensive, south poor, north cheap? said, the east and west of the city's rich and noble family more, spending power is also stronger.

So the cellar must be built as close as possible to these areas. If you build the cellar in the north and south of the city, most of the people living in the surrounding area are poor people struggling on the breadline, you want to sell ice to whom, and to earn whose money?

Build the cellar

When building the cellar, we must understand that our purpose is to make money, do not have any cross-border thoughts. The Engineering Practice Rules have already set out the specifications for all kinds of buildings up and down the country, so just follow them honestly.

Don't be jealous of people's royal cellar yellow glazed tiles on top of the magnificent, and don't envy the official cellar black tiles on top of the solemn. We ordinary people build ice cellar, as long as we follow a principle, that is affordable.

The official cellar is mostly made of masonry, but the commercial cellar is basically made of earth cellar.

The construction of the earth cellar is very simple, copy the shovel, roll up the sleeves, in the selected place a burst of fierce digging, you can get their own earth cellar. Earthen cellar is frankly a big pit, do not need to special cover the cellar roof, made into the open air can be, as long as to leave the ramp for good ice on the line.

After filling the cellar in the winter, you just need to build a simple shed on top of the cellar with wooden planks or bamboo poles, then cover it with reed mats and thatch, and smear it with mud.

Of course, such a simple earth cellar is far better than a brick cellar in terms of both insulation and hygiene, but it is low cost and easy to build.

Harvesting Ice

The Imperial Capital Chronicle records that on the eighth day of the lunar month, ice was harvested from the Imperial River. The Royal River on the eighth day of the ice storage cellar? The winter solstice three nine is ice solid? It may seem that the ice harvesting time there is a Laha and the winter solstice of the dispute, but the three nine days is based on the festival, Laha is based on the lunar calendar, in essence, these two times are not a problem, as long as the ice is frozen bonanza hard, waiting for the start of the work is good.

Why wait? Waiting for the official cellar to be mined first, of course.

The official cellar would hold a ceremony to honor the river god before harvesting the ice.

If you rush to harvest ice before the ceremony, the court will punish you for violating the river god, which is not worth the loss.

Once the official cellar is opened, you must act quickly to harvest ice.

This is because ice harvesting is a seasonal activity, only the coldest time of the year to harvest ice. To make good use of this time, you must act efficiently.

This way, the water that has been harvested can be harvested again when it freezes again. Three to four or even five crops of ice can be harvested repeatedly in a winter. The exact number of crops you can harvest depends on how cold the winter was and how efficiently you harvested the ice.

Two or three crops of ice are frozen in the coldest temperatures of winter, thick and solid, clean, crystal clear, and even edible if the water quality is good. Four or five crops of ice is frozen in the cold and warm, the ground heat gradually rise, ice crisp and bubbly, easy to melt.

It must be remembered that ice harvesting is best done at night. This is because the night ice without sun, not easy to melt, easier to save.

If there is a warm winter, the thickness of the ice is not up to the requirements, but also have to find a way to increase the thickness of the ice by pumping up the water under the ice to cover the ice.

The tool for ice harvesting is the ice ice tongs, which are very heavy, and when used with both hands to hold the handles vertically according to the ice line, a lift and a release to the ice tongs, which seems to be simple, but in fact it is a test of physical strength, and a test of technical work.

Technical good people to call down the ice square, consistent size, no broken edges, and no technology to call down the ice will be broken.

So it's a good idea to recruit a group of good ice pickers and establish a long-term, stable relationship - after all, talent is hard to come by.

The sequence of ice picking at the rink is usually to start at the far end, pick up one row and then another, backing away from it, and then having someone pull a square block of ice and skate it across the ice to transport it to the cellar.

After the ice is brought into the cellar, it is neatly stacked from the inside out, with a straw curtain separating each layer.

The ice is collected every day for a whole month until the cellar is full, and then the door can be closed for cash.

Special attention should be paid to how much ice to play is also very careful. According to the Ministry of Public Works are water clearing the Division of official ice regulations one foot five inches square, but this is the official cellar of the standard, as a private cellar, or to play some of the larger for the better. This is because the private cellar insulation effect is worse than the official cellar, if the ice played small, it is likely to melt away, then it can be blood money.

Operation

After the hard work of picking ice and storing ice, wait until the next April summer, it is time to open the cellar to sell ice.

That's really the harvest time. All vegetable markets, fish houses, butcher stores, chicken and duck stores and restaurants of all sizes have a great demand for ice in order to keep food fresh.

Take fish behavior, for example, the Qing dynasty Beijing fish mainly from Tianjin. In order to prevent the fish from rotting and deteriorating after long-distance transportation, fishmongers needed ice for frozen transportation, and there was a great demand for ice.

In addition, in the hot summer ordinary people are also fond of ice. In the summer in Beijing, ice sellers? hand two copper calendars iterative, its sound knocking, said ice calendars?

In the face of such a strong demand for ice, you do not have to worry about the sale of ice.

As the weather gets hotter and hotter, you'll have less and less ice in stock and more and more empty space in your cellar.

Congratulations, a new source of wealth is coming. Because the ice cellar is always frozen, the temperature is extremely low, is a natural large cold storage, very suitable for cellar perishable food.

Fruit sellers in Beijing often use ice cellars to store fruit, and renting them out can earn them an extra income.

Conclusion

The use of ice in winter and summer fully reflects the extraordinary wisdom of the ancients.

A simple ice cellar, the life of the ancients became more colorful.

Traditional ice cellar although in modern society has disappeared, but in the Qing Dynasty to open the ice cellar is definitely a steady business. The method has been told to you, as for how to cross the past, then forgive the author can not help.