Why did the Song dynasty people eat breakfast: some people started to eat in the early morning, and some people ate only when the sun was up their asses?

In the Song Dynasty, a significant number of people lived ? nine-to-five? s life.

Here we are talking about ? nine to five?

What we are talking about here is not going to work at 9 a.m. and get off at 5 p.m., but rather having breakfast at 9 a.m. and dinner at 5 p.m. Of course, the ancients timed not to say ? Nine o'clock? and? Five o'clock? but said? "The hour of the morning"? and? Asr hour? Accordingly, the ancients called breakfast and dinner? the morning meal and the evening meal. and? Asr food. In the past, when a great general led an army to war, he liked to say: ? Destroy this morning meal! We will eat breakfast after we have destroyed the enemy!

Breakfast at 9:00 a.m. is a tradition that has existed since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Even in the Song Dynasty, the vast majority of peasants and a portion of the stubbornly old-fashioned gentry still adhered to this tradition, but there were many more people who did not eat according to the meal time. The most typical examples were high-ranking officials who worked in the capital.

Except for vacations, senior officials in the capital had to rush to the court at the fifth watch every day, and then had to wait until the stroke of the hour before the court could be dismissed and return home. The fifth watch is from 3:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m., and the hour of the hour is from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Staying up from the wee hours of the morning is even more tiring than working half a day's worth of shifts, and if you stick around until 9:00 a.m. to eat breakfast, an official with low blood sugar would probably have to pass out in the courtroom. So the Beijing court officials usually eat breakfast in the early morning, and on the way to the court.

In Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, the restaurants and breakfast stalls on the southern section of the Imperial Street are the earliest to open, and the stallholders prepare their goods at 2 a.m. and open at 3 a.m. The two hundred paces of the Imperial Street are brightly lit on both sides, with the frying pan bubbling and the baklava case crackling, and the main thing to do is to do business with the officials on the court. Some officials get up late, afraid of delaying the court, buy a good breakfast and turn on the horse, one hand grasping the baklava and fritters to the mouth, one hand grasping the reins to rush forward, this is a scene in Bianliang.

The traders in the morning market must also eat breakfast before dawn. The morning market of the Song Dynasty, like the morning court, also started at five o'clock, and the merchants selling vegetables, fish, grain and oil went late, and the stalls might be occupied by other people, so they had to eat early and take up space early. Song Dynasty business prosperity, the morning market often lasts until noon before the end of the market, if you do not pad your stomach before the opening of the market, it is estimated that the top.