Resign from the Year of the Rabbit and usher in the Year of the Dragon, why is this Year of the Dragon called "Jiachen Year of the Dragon"? Listen to what astronomy experts have to say.
Lai Dihui, a member of the Chinese Astronomical Society and a director of the Tianjin Astronomical Society, said that whether it is the year of Guimao that has just passed or the year of Jiachen that has arrived as promised, it is related to the Ganzhi chronology method used in ancient China, which is established on the basis of "ten heavenly stems" and "twelve earthly branches". It is difficult to verify the specific origin of the Ganzhi chronology, but a large number of Ganzhi records have been found in the oracle bones unearthed in Yinxu. The "Ten Heavenly Stems" are composed of "A, B, C, D, E, G, G, XIN, NON, and Dec", and the "Twelve Earthly Branches" are composed of "Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai".
The stem branch is to match the "ten heavenly stems" and the "twelve earthly branches" in order and combine them into 60 chronological numbers, which are used as the names of the year, month, day and hour. For example, the first "A" character of the heavenly stem and the first "son" of the earthly branch are combined into "Jiazi", the second "B" character of the heavenly stem and the second "ugly" of the earthly branch are combined into "B Chou", and so on, when the ten heavenly stem wheels are completed again, the first round of the earthly branch "戌" and "Hai" are not finished, then start from "A", continue to match with the unfinished earthly branch, a total of 60 pairs, from "Jiazi" to "Guihai" for a week, also known as "sixty flower Jiazi", and so on, recycling.
At present, the vast majority of countries in the world, including China, are using the internationally accepted A.D. year. So, how do you quickly convert the A.D. year to the Ganzhi year?
Lai Dihui said that the positive remainder obtained by subtracting 3 from the number of years in the Common Era and then dividing by 60 is the serial number of the stem branch of that year. If the remainder is 1, the serial number of the stem branch of the year is 1, and it can be seen from the table of 60 stem branches that the year is the year of Jiazi; By analogy, if the remainder is 2, then the year is the year of B. If the remainder is 59, the year is the year of Nonxu. If the remainder is 0, the year is the year of the Lunar New Year.
Taking 2023 and 2024 as examples, subtracting 3 in 2023 and dividing it by 60 can be calculated as 33 and the remainder is 40, and this remainder is the serial number of the stem branch in 2023. 2024 minus 3 and divide by 60, the quotient can be calculated as 33, and the remainder is 41, and this remainder is the serial number of the stem branch in 2024.
Lai Dihui said that in order to facilitate memory, the ancients also used the 12 zodiac signs to visualize the "12 earthly branches". For example, the ancients called the time of the dragon (7 a.m. to 9 a.m.), so they used "Chen" to represent the zodiac dragon, so the year of Jiachen is also called the "year of the dragon".