What was the ancient Chinese method of making ice! Why in the scorching summer of the imperial court on a hot day where the ice!

1, cellar ice

The old traditional yearly custom. Also known as "hidden ice".

As early as the pre-Qin era, people will use natural ice to cool, to keep food fresh, make cold drinks. According to the "Rites of Zhou" records, the Zhou royal family to ensure that the use of ice in the summer, specifically set up the appropriate institutions to manage the "ice government", the person in charge of the "Ling people". The establishment of this department is not small, **** there are 80 "employees". Generally from December each winter, workers begin to take natural ice for storage.

Every year during the cold season, the ancients began to chisel ice storage, management of ice hiding affairs of the officials supervise the slaves, farmers to the water quality of the place chiseling picking, hidden in the pre-prepared ice cellar.

Ice cellars were built in cool places, deep underground. They were lined with fresh straw and mats, and once the ice was placed on top, they were covered with insulating materials such as rice bran and leaves, and then the cellar was sealed to be used in the following year.

Since about two-thirds of the ice would melt each year if stored in this way, the ancients often increased the amount of ice they stored to three times the amount of ice they needed to use.

2, ice

Around the end of the Tang Dynasty, craftsmen mined large quantities of saltpeter in the production of gunpowder. Occasionally they found that saltpeter dissolved in water will absorb a lot of heat, can make the surrounding water cool down until ice. So some craftsmen began to use saltpeter to make ice.

The craftsmen put water into a jar, took a bigger container, put water inside the container, then put the jar inside the container and kept adding saltpeter to the container, as a result, the water inside the jar froze.

Nitrate is a white, bitter-tasting crystal that is the color of frost. The chemical name for saltpeter is calcium nitrate, and when it dissolves in water it absorbs a lot of heat, lowering the surrounding temperature so that ice forms.

Expanded Information:

Cellar Ice Origin:

China's northern summer summer heat, winter ice, so there are in the winter to hide ice cubes in the cellar for the use of the summer. custom. The origin of this custom is very early, "Poetry" that is recorded, and more line in the court, the government. In ancient times, there are officials specializing in the management of this matter, and built a cellar ice "ice well".

Song Gao Cheng, "Things Chronicle" cloud: "" Zhou Li " ice people, in charge of cutting ice, Ki Ling. Note: Ling, ice room. The matter began here."

The Qing dynasty ice cellar is divided into three kinds: the official ice cellar, the government ice cellar, the commercial and civil ice cellar.

Every November thirty-nine, forty-nine days, that is, there are logging ice, hiding ice move, quite an event.

Qing "canon" "Ministry of Public Works are water cleaner Division of the hidden ice" article cloud: "Where the logging ice to take the Imperial River ...... years to the winter solstice in the second half of the month, the Department of the Division of an officer, to raise a man to cut the ice, to take its clean and strong and thick, to the square foot has five inches! The first is to take the ice from the Imperial River, and the second is to take the ice from the Imperial River. Where the ice, the Forbidden City cellar five, hiding ice 25,000 blocks;

Jingxi Shanxi outside the cellar six, hiding ice 54,000 blocks; Deshengmen outside the cellar three, hiding ice 36,700 blocks for the altar and temple rituals and the inner court of use. Two earthen cellars outside the Deshengmen, hiding ice 40,000 pieces; two earthen cellars outside the Zhengyangmen, hiding ice 60,000 pieces, for the public light house ...... to set up the summer soup." In the Republic of China, this custom still exists.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Cellar Ice

People's Daily Online - Ancient people did not have air conditioning, how did they live in the summer of "heat death"?