Northerners always say that southerners are not afraid of cold in winter, and southerners always say that the north is not afraid of cold in winter, but if the cold winter comes, both southerners and northerners will not be able to bear it without heating equipment. So, how did the emperors, concubines, princes, and princesses who lived in the Forbidden City survive the cold winter in ancient times?
In fact, there is also "heating" in the Forbidden City, and people will start burning charcoal to keep warm every day of the first day of the 11th lunar month.
In ancient times, there were no radiators, and the Forbidden City used equipment similar to today's floor heating. At the base of the exterior walls of many inhabited rooms, there will be a tunnel-like design, and there is a place outside the palace where charcoal can be burned, and there are pipes under the walls and floors that are used to supply heat, through which the warmth is brought to the room. The emperor's couch was also equipped with a pipe for heating and gas, similar to the "kang" common in the northern countryside.
Since it's charcoal, will there be smoke in the room?No, because all the pipes are closed, but in order to keep the heat flowing through the passages, the clever ancients designed vents at the end of the flue outside the room, so that the smoke that has lost heat can be discharged in time. If you're interested, you can look for such vents in the Forbidden City. In addition, the charcoal used for heating in the Forbidden City is of particularly good quality, and it is charcoal made from hardwood around Beijing. Not only does this charcoal have a lot of heat when burned, but it also does not burst, and it is said to have a fragrance, so there is no need to worry about thick smoke in the room, and the people who live in the house will only feel warm and comfortable. At that time, people would sawn this charcoal into sections of about 30 centimeters and put it in a basket specially painted red, so these charcoal had a nice name - red basket charcoal. To this day, there is a street not far from the northwest outside the Forbidden City called Da Hong Luochang Street, where the royal family stored red basket charcoal.
However, not everyone can enjoy such a warm winter, and the status of the people living in the Forbidden City is different, and the amount of charcoal that people of different status can use is also different.
In the huge Forbidden City, who will be responsible for burning charcoal?In the Ming Dynasty, the department responsible for burning charcoal was called the Salary Division, and there were three small departments under it: one was responsible for installing stoves and transporting firewood, called the hot fire department, with 52 people;There are 27 people in charge of the distribution of charcoal, called the charcoal office;There is also a place that is responsible for lighting the fire and burning the kang, called the kang burning place, and there are also 27 people. Carefully calculated, there are more than 100 people in total to burn "heating" for the emperor's house!If you add the attendants in charge of the braziers in each palace, the number is even higher.
It's winter again in a blink of an eye, is your heating hot this year?