When did the Chinese calendar begin?

In the world, China was one of the first countries to invent the calendar, and its emergence had a certain impact on the development of China's economy and culture. The lunar calendar, one of the traditional Chinese calendars, is also known as the "lunar calendar", "Yin calendar", "ancient calendar", "yellow calendar", "summer calendar" and "old calendar". On the one hand, the lunar calendar uses one week of the moon's orbit around the earth as a "month", and the average length of the month is equal to the "lunar month", which is the same as the principle of the lunar calendar, so it is also called the "lunisolar calendar"; on the other hand, it sets up the "intercalary month" in order to make the average length of each year as close as possible to the year of regression, and at the same time it sets up the twenty-four festivals in order to reflect the seasonal characteristics of the change, so the lunar calendar combines the characteristics of the lunisolar calendar with the yin-yang calendar, which is also called the "lunisolar calendar". Therefore, the lunar calendar combines the characteristics of both the yin and yang calendars, and is also known as the "yin-yang calendar". To this day, almost all Chinese people around the world, as well as countries such as the Korean Peninsula and Vietnam, still use the Lunar Calendar to calculate traditional festivals such as the Spring Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival and other festivals.

The wise Chinese invented calendars and festivals through years of labor. Legend has it that a long time ago, a young man by the name of Wannian sat down to rest in the shade of a tree one day as he went up the mountain to cut firewood because the sun was too hot. Suddenly, the movement of the shadows of the trees on the ground inspired him. After returning home, he spent several days and nights designing a sundial to measure the sun's shadow and count the time of day. However, when it was cloudy and rainy or foggy, the measurement would be affected by the lack of sun. Later, the dripping spring on the cliff aroused his interest, and he made a five-tier funnel pot. Over time, he realized that the length of the day would repeat itself every 360 days or so.

The king of the country at that time was called Zu Yi, and the unpredictability of the weather also distressed him. When Wannian heard about it, he could not help but bring a sundial and a funnel pot to meet the king of the country, and told Zuyi about the reasoning behind the operation of the sun and the moon. Zu Yi was delighted with the dragon's face when he heard this and found it very reasonable. So he left Wannian behind and built the Sun and Moon Pavilion in front of the Temple of Heaven, the Sundial Terrace and the Funnel Pavilion. Zu Yi said to Wan Nian, "I hope you can measure the laws of the sun and the moon, deduce the exact time of morning and evening, and create a calendar for the benefit of the people of the world."

Winter and spring came and went, year after year. Later, after long observation and careful projection, Wannian developed an accurate solar calendar. When he presented the solar calendar to the succeeding ruler of the country, he was already covered with silver beard. The king of the country was y moved, and in honor of Wannian's achievement, he named the solar calendar "Wannian Calendar" and named Wannian as the Longevity Star of the Sun and the Moon.

Human beings formulated the year, month, and day according to the cycles of the sun, the moon, and the earth's orbit, as well as the laws of spring, summer, fall, and winter that conform to nature and the four seasons, thus forming the calendar. In ancient China, there were three types of calendars, the solar calendar, the lunar calendar and the yin-yang combined calendar. The solar calendar is also known as the solar calendar; the lunar calendar is also known as the Taiyin calendar and the lunar calendar; and the yin-yang combined calendar, which is commonly known as the lunar calendar. The yin-yang calendar has been used up to the present day. Why has the lunar calendar been used until today?

Today, it seems that the creation of the calendar was the result of the ancient Chinese people's long-term observation of astronomical operations in order to master the time of agricultural work (referred to as agricultural time). The Chinese lunar calendar is called the Yin-Yang Combined Calendar because it has not only elements of the solar calendar, but also elements of the lunar calendar. It combines the operation rules of the sun and the moon into one, making an end of the influence of both on agriculture, so the Chinese lunar calendar is more practical and convenient than the purely lunar calendar or the solar calendar commonly utilized in the West. The Lunar Calendar is one of the representatives of traditional Chinese culture and is often regarded as a source of pride by the Chinese for its accuracy and ingenuity.

Introduction

The Lunar Calendar, also known as the Summer Calendar, which is used in Han areas, is a yin and yang calendar that uses the phases of the moon to set the months, and the sun to set the annual cycle. The beginning of each month is the first day of the lunar month when the sun and the moon rise at the same time, and thus the moon is not visible on Earth. The length of each month may be 30 or 29 days, depending on the phase of the moon, and 12 months make up a year. The solar year is divided into 24 solar terms, with the 1st, 3rd, ......23 and other odd-numbered terms as "terms", and the 2nd, 4th, ......24 as "qi", or "mid-qi". Due to the solar annual cycle and the 12-month cycle of lunar phases do not coincide, about every four years to increase one month, increased to the back of the month without the middle of the gas, such as February 2004, there is only a festival "hibernation", there is no gas, will be a leap month to increase to the month of February after the intercalary month of leap 2 months. The location of the leap month is not consistent from year to year.

Lunar year is generally 12 months, the number of days in a month in accordance with the moon's orbit around the Earth cycle, 29 or 30 days, leap year for 13 months, the Chinese lunar year for 353 or 354 days, leap year for 384 or 385 days, an average of about 365.2422 days per year (i.e., the sun's orbit around the earth for a week of time).

The lunar calendar can be deduced in the following way: the day when the moon orbits in a straight line between the earth and the sun is the beginning of each month and is called the first day of the month (solstice). The longest day of the year is the summer solstice, and the shortest day is the winter solstice, according to which the year is divided into 24 equal parts to obtain the 24 solar terms. Usually, the month in which the nearest Solstice (Chinese New Year) falls is the first month. The Spring Festival falls between January 20 and February 20 on the Gregorian calendar.

From ancient times, each dynasty to "set up the first month", the Xia Dynasty, the winter solstice for the first month, according to the dry-branch method of chronology is the first month, that is, "Zi" month; the Shang Dynasty to change the first month, pushed back in January, the Zhou Dynasty and change the first month, pushed back in January, the Han Dynasty, the first calendar, and then the subsequent dynasties, although still set up the first month, but the folk are no longer changing, and always the first month of the New Year, but the "Zi" month is still maintained in November.

Each emperor on the throne, to change the chronology of the year, and sometimes the rise of any time to change the chronology, but from the Ming Dynasty, the emperor no longer change the chronology of the reign of the emperor, but the new emperor to take the throne is still to change the defects of this chronology is the last year of the last emperor and the next emperor's first year of the year coincide with the same, such as the "Tongzhi 14" is the "first year of the Guangxu," because the year is the death of a previous emperor, the next emperor The next emperor took the throne in the same year. However, the dry-branch chronology has always maintained, in addition to the Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, no emperor reigned for more than 60 years, so as long as said that a certain emperor and the dry-branch, the age of quite clear, such as "Guangxu yihai" is the 14th year of the Tongzhi or Guangxu first year or 1875, the Tongzhi reign did not have the yihai year.

Other ethnic groups in China have their own festivals, such as April 8 for the Miao, March 3 for the Zhuang, and March Street for the Bai, all of which are based on the Chinese lunar calendar. Traditional Han Chinese festivals such as New Year (Spring Festival), Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Bon Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival are based on the Chinese lunar calendar.

Early Calendars

The Chinese calendar uses the yin-yang and stem-branch triad; during the ancient times, according to the needs of different agricultural and pastoral production situations, the solar calendar and the Taiyin calendar were produced respectively. As a traditional Chinese calendar, there is no way to find out when it first originated, but according to excavated oracle bone inscriptions and ancient Chinese texts, the current yin-yang calendar rule is generally considered to have originated from the Yin-Shang period. From the Yellow Emperor's calendar to the end of the Qing Dynasty to enable the Western calendar (Gregorian calendar), China's history, a *** produced 102 calendars, some of these calendars have had a significant impact on Chinese culture and civilization, such as the Summer Calendar, the Shang Calendar, the Zhou Calendar, the Western Han Dynasty Tai Chou Calendar, the Sui and Tang Dynasty Dahan Calendar and the Imperial Calendar, etc., and some calendars have not been used formally, but the health, medicine, ideology and academics, astronomy, mathematics, etc., played a significant role, such as the late Western Han Dynasty calendar, which is the first calendar of its kind in China. Some calendars, although not officially used, have played a significant role in health care, medicine, ideology, astronomy, mathematics, etc., such as the Santong Calendar at the end of the Western Han Dynasty and the Imperial Calendar of the Tang Dynasty. Before the Han Dynasty, the ancient Chinese calendar took 366 days as a year, and used the "leap month" to determine the four seasons and the end and beginning of the year; there were already the time units of day, month, ten days and hour, and the technology of the lunar and solar calendars was in place; the five planets and the movement of the sun and the moon were observed, and the time difference was adjusted by using the "intercalary month" and "the method of decreasing the difference"; the implementation of the calendar became an important event, with the main contents of the "intercalary month to determine the four seasons into the year" and the "positive intercalary balance," i.e., determining the position of the intercalary month and the location of the leap month, and the "positive intercalary balance"; the calendar was implemented as a major event. One of the main elements of the calendar was to determine the location of the intercalary month and how to subtract the extra days (not to add the missing days), thus determining the end and beginning of the year. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, as the Zhou Dynasty declined and the vassals went their own way, there was a multi-track system of calendars, i.e., the vassals and tribes had their own local calendars; the Qin Dynasty was the last calendar in Chinese history to "set the four seasons and the four years by the intercalary month".

The Chinese calendar took a big turn at the beginning of the Han Dynasty, when the calendar was standardized across the country and became a more independent science and technology. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty charged Sima Qian and others to prepare the "Tai Chu Calendar", after which Liu Xin made the "Santong Calendar", the two calendars are characterized by the unity of the year, the whole number of days in a year is 365, and no longer the 366 days of the previous calendars. To "add difference method" to replace the previous "subtract difference method" to adjust the time difference, the beginning of the year cycle is quite fixed, with mathematical calculations can determine the leap month, no need to "examining and determining the astrological calendar, the establishment of the five elements", so far, yin and yang and the five elements basically withdrew from the calendar. After that, China's calendar promulgated by the dynasties, are similar to the early calendar; after the establishment of the Republic of China, the Western calendar or the Republic of China chronology and use.