What was the ancient term for time? For example, 12 o'clock at noon, etc.

The specific designations are as follows:

Zi: 2300 to 0100 hours

Ug: 0100 to 0300 hours

Chin: 0300 to 0500 hours

Mao: 0500 to 0700 hours

Chen: 0700 to 0900 hours

Si: 0900 to 1100 hours

Noon: 1100 to 13:00 hours

When: 13:00 hours to 15:00 hours

Shen: 15:00 hours to 17:00 hours

You: 17:00 hours to 19:00 hours

11:00 hours: 19:00 hours to 21:00 hours

Hai:00 hours: 21:00 hours to 23:00 hours

An hour is a half an hour, and a quarter of an hour is fifteen minutes.

Expanded Information

Origin of the Hour

The best time to observe the celestial phenomena should be when it is late at night and the sky is full of stars. At midnight (twenty-three to one o'clock), the ancient Chinese people (astronomers or Taoists) looked up at the sky for a long time, and then suddenly heard a small sound around them, and looked down to see that the rats were moving around. After a long time, the ancient Chinese people realized that the time when rats were frequent was Zi Hao (子时).

So, the time of the day was associated with rats, and became "Zi Rat", and according to the beginning of the day, ranked in the first of the phases of the genus.

"A horse cannot get fat without night grass," and this is certainly true of the ox. Farmers use oxen to plow their fields, and feeding them well is a big deal for farmers. At the ugly hour (1:00 to 3:00), farmers would get up and feed the oxen themselves. When the ox is associated with the ugly hour, it becomes "Ugly Ox".

From 3 to 5 a.m., the tiger, which travels by day and by night, is the most ferocious, and farmers often hear the sound of the tiger's roar not far from them at this time. Thus, the tiger was associated with the time of the Yin (寅) and there was the "Yin Tiger".

From five to seven o'clock, when dawn breaks, rabbits run out of their nests to eat grass with dew on it. Thus, the rabbit is associated with the hour of dawning, giving rise to the 'U Rabbit'.

Seven to nine o'clock is the time when fog is likely to rise. Dragons are said to be able to ride the clouds and fog, and it is in the fog that the "divine dragon is seen and not seen". However, the dragon is a legendary animal, or a "man-made animal" cobbled together by people with "parts" of several animals, which cannot be seen in reality, and it is only in the fog that people will have visions of dragons. It is only in this way that dragons 'appear' in the fog at the hour of the eternity.

The association of the dragon with the hour of the eon gives rise to the 'dragon of the eon'.

Between nine and eleven o'clock, the fog clears and the sun is bright. Snakes whose body temperature is not constant crawl out of their burrows to bask in the sun. Whether venomous or non-venomous, snakes are terrifying, and the moment when they are most active is "巳時". When the character was created, "巳" was drawn as a snake's hieroglyph. The word "巳蛇" is naturally associated with the word "巳" (巳) and "蛇" (巳).

Baidu Encyclopedia - The Twelve Hours