The twenty-four solar terms, and their stories.

Rising spring, rain, hibernation, spring equinox, Qingming, Guyu, standing summer, Xiaomeng, Mangseo, summer solstice, Xiaohe and Dahe, standing autumn, heatstroke, white dew, fall equinox, cold dew, frost, standing winter, light snow, heavy snow, winter solstice, light cold and heavy cold.

History of the 24 Solar Terms

The Han Dynasty absorbed the 24 Solar Terms and used them as a supplemental calendar to guide farming, and in the book "Huainanzi", the names of the 24 Solar Terms are exactly the same as in modern times, which is the earliest record of the 24 Solar Terms in the existing literature.

The twenty-four solar terms are said to be based on the chronological changes in the sky, temperature, precipitation, and physical phenomena in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and for other parts of China, the same solar term may depict very different conditions. In fact, although the "four Lixi" can reflect the climate of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River with four distinct seasons, the specific climatic significance of the "Lixi" is not significant.

Climatology, often every five days of the average daily temperature stabilized at 10 ℃ above the beginning of the day divided into the beginning of spring, it is not consistent with the meaning of the lower reaches of the Yellow River spring, the real spring is only Lingnan region.

"Spring, China's winter and spring demarcation line (the average daily temperature for five consecutive days of 10 degrees Celsius or more counted as spring), in Guangxi Guilin to Jiangxi Ganzhou line. The area south of that line, spring has the breath of spring, but 93% of China's land area is still winter, to Heilongjiang, often in the valley rain when the summer into spring, the so-called spring, but also just some 'intention'."

Each of the twenty-four solar terms is separated by about half a month's time, broken down inside twelve months, with two solar terms per month. In the twenty-four solar terms, "jie" refers to a section of the year, an indication of a period of time, while "qi" refers to climate, an overview of weather changes.

China has been an agriculturally advanced country since ancient times, and because of the close relationship between agriculture and weather, the ancient Chinese working people accumulated a wealth of experience about the relationship between agricultural time and seasonal changes from their longstanding agricultural labor practices. In order to memorize the convenience of words connected together into a song: "spring rain startled spring clear valley day, summer full of mango summer summer heat connected, autumn at the dew autumn cold frost fall, winter snow snow winter small big cold."

Extended Information

The twenty-four solar terms are based on the Earth's position on the ecliptic. Depending on the sun from the equinox (zero degrees of yellow longitude, at this moment the sun shines vertically on the equator), every 15 degrees forward for a festival; running a week and back to the equinox, for a regression year, together 360 degrees, and therefore divided into 24 seasons.

Twenty-four solar terms reflect the sun's sun's annual visual movement, so in the Gregorian calendar their dates are relatively fixed, the first half of the festival in the 6th, the mid-air in the 21st, the second half of the festival in the 8th, the mid-air in the 23rd, before and after the two are not different from the 1 to 2 days. The earth every 365 days 6 hours 9 minutes 10 seconds [accurate], around the sun revolves around a week, 24 hours a day, but also rotate once.

Because the Earth's rotating orbital plane with the equatorial plane is not the same, but to maintain a certain tilt, so the direct sunlight to the Earth's position is different throughout the year. In terms of the northern hemisphere, the sun is directly above the Tropic of Cancer (23°26' north latitude), astronomically known as the summer solstice; the sun is directly above the Tropic of Cancer (23°26' south latitude) is known as the winter solstice; summer solstice and winter solstice that is, the summer and winter seasons have reached the middle of the two.

When the sun shines directly on the equator twice a year, it is the spring and fall equinoxes, which are in the middle of the spring and fall seasons, and the days are as long as the nights.

The pattern of activity of the Sun's point of direct sunlight is: the spring equinox (around March 21), the Sun's point of direct sunlight at the equator 0 °, and thereafter move north. Summer solstice (around June 22), the sun's point of direct sunlight on the Tropic of Cancer (23 ° 26 'N), and thereafter southward. Autumn Equinox (around September 23), the Sun's direct point of reference is at 0° on the equator, and continues to move south thereafter. On the winter solstice (around December 22), the sun is at the Tropic of Capricorn (23°26'S), moving northward thereafter.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Twenty-four Solar Terms of the Lunar Calendar