Foreword
Whether it is ancient or today, summer is an extremely difficult season, after all, when winter comes, we can still keep warm by wearing more clothes, but we can also achieve the goal of raising the temperature by burning fires.
But after summer, you can't achieve your goals so simply, after all, you can keep warm by wearing clothes when it's cold, but it's different when you wear clothes.
The human body itself has some heat, and taking off clothes cannot achieve the cooling effect, not to mention that the ancients themselves paid great attention to life etiquetteEven if you really let them obey, they won't be able to take off a few pieces.
But if you want to make people endure the heat all the time, it is naturally an impossible thing, so the ancients thought of a way to cool down by ice cubes.
So how did the ancients manage to keep the ice that was only available in winter until winter?Could it be that in ancient times, there were already refrigerators?
The truth is certainly not that there were refrigerators or anything like that in ancient times, after all, this kind of electrical appliance has only been built todayIn ancient times, if there really were, how could it have appeared so late.
The ancients were just backward in science and technology, not that they had a problem with their brains, and they had to hide things that benefited everyone from others, and besides, the ancients didn't feel hot, and in order to hide this thing, they let themselves endure the scorching summer, no matter how you think about it, it feels like this won't happen.
The correct answer is that these ice cubes come from winter, and some people may not believe it, but in fact, in ancient times, people relied on ice cellars to store ice cubes, and they were responsible for collecting a large number of ice cubes in winter, and when they collected enough ice cubes, they would store them in ice cellars.
Then when you need to use ice, you can take it out and use it, and of course, even if you put it in an ice cellar, you still can't guarantee that it will be 100% preservedAnd the amount of this loss is two-thirds or more.
However, the victory is that they have enough storage, and it is rumored that there are 4 ice vaults left in the Forbidden City alone, each of which is about 11 meters long and nearly 6 meters wide4 meters.
If you think about it, all of them are so large, these four ice cellars alone have to store a lot of ice, but they definitely don't have only these four ice cellars.
Speaking of which, the ice cellars they built are actually quite exquisite, and they have strict requirements in many aspectsExamples include basement buildings, extremely thick walls, and culverts to divert water away.
These small designs can help the ice cellar to store ice more easily, according to the records of the Qing Dynasty, we can know that each ice cellar can store 5,000 ice cubes, and these ice cubes also have special size requirements.
After rigorous experiments, it was found that compared to other sizes, 0The 5-meter square size is easier to preserve and melts more slowly.
But even so, nearly two-thirds of the ice will be damaged for various reasons, but what is the problem that can be solved?In order to avoid running out of stock, they have always prepared three times more than necessaryThat way, even if there is more of this ice, it will be enough for them to use.
Of course, most of these ice cubes are given priority to the various palace nobles, and those poor people are naturally rarely able to get such treatment, and of course, the role of ice cubes is not just to cool down.
The ancients also invented a way to eat similar to smoothies on the basis of ice cubes, and some people would add some saccharin and other things to the ice cubes, and then sell it at **.
Some people may think that whoever buys this product is a big injustice, but you must know that there must be a lot of our modern productsThe variety of foods is directly dazzling.
But in ancient times, even such a thing was enough to surprise them, not only some people bought it, but even most people welcomed it.
Even the emperor can't put it down, and there is even an emperor who got acute diarrhea because he ate too much ice, so he can only say that no matter how good he is at eating ice, he can't be greedy, after all, diarrhea is still quite painful.
Since we talked about the summer vacation methods of the palace nobles, the next step is to talk about the summer escape methods of ordinary people, in fact, for ordinary people, they can also get ice cubes, but relatively less, after all, the number of ice cubes is limitedAnd this also means that its ** will only be high and not low.
However, even if they can't afford ice, they can choose to buy a variety of ice drinks to cool off in the summer, but they also have a water well at home, which is generally cooler than water exposed to the sun.
They can use this property to place their food at the bottom of the well to cool it down, which may not be as good as ice, but it is cool enough.
In addition, there will also be people who choose to find those places with relatively low temperatures to escape the heat, of course, ordinary people are definitely not as good as the emperor's place to escape the heatThey have a summer resort.
Some people also choose to find a place with a stream, if it is really hot and can't stand it, jump directly to relieve the heat, although this method seems a little sloppy, but as long as the goal of relieving the heat can be achieved, it is a good method.
To sum up, one of the problems will be found that the ancients did not have many ways to escape the heat, and the methods of preserving ice are even more pitiful, perhaps from the perspective of satisfying the demand, these ice are enough for many people to use at the same time.
However, we need to pay attention to the fact that the loss of ice in the process of ice preservation is not low at all, after all, there is no particularly good means of keeping warm in the process of storageThat's all they can do.
The reason why it is enough is not because of the large quantity, but because there is a lot of ice in the ice cellar when it is stored, and as long as the base is large enough, then there will naturally be more ice cubes that can be left.
What's more, these ice cubes are not for everyone, but to give priority to specific people, the key is that these specific people are not important ministers in the court without exception, and the proportion of important ministers in the court is definitely not much, so that the number of ice cubes is enough for many people to use this situation.
And this situation has also led to the emergence of a phenomenon where people who can afford ice cubes will be very luxurious, as for those who can't afford ice cubes,You can only try smoothies to survive the harsh summer days.
According to some historical records, it was found that some people relied on their own financial resources to buy those ice cubes, and even built an igloo for themselves, even built an ice bed for himself, and slept on it every day.
However, those poor people can only eat those broken ice, in addition to this disparity, there are other places that also show unfair treatment, such as those with better ice form will be distributed to the top layer, as for those who are not good, who does not need to guess to know, but even if everyone knows the injustice, there is no way to stop it, after all, no one in the imperial society dares to have an opinion.
Fortunately, after continuous development, society has also made great progressAnd those injustices have been effectively curbed, and there will be no more unfairness like that of the time.
As for the extremely rare ice that used to be a frequent visitor, it can only be said that thanks to the progress of society and technology, we have achieved what we have today, otherwise it is not clear when we will be able to achieve true freedom.
Although it is true that storing ice cubes is a very difficult problem, the wisdom of the ancients is also very high, and even in such an environment, they can think of relatively good methods.
However, one interesting thing is that there is a method of making ice in ancient books, but it is not elaborated, which means that it is still an unsolved mystery.