Ten gowns are not as good as one jacket, and the reason is revealed
The warm and beautiful jacket has achieved a perfect fusion in the wisdom of the ancients. In the eleventh lunar month of 1722 AD, the cold weather did not affect Emperor Kangxi's mood, and he went to Nanyuan to hunt with great interest.
The Qing Dynasty emperor's winter clothes have an excellent warmth effect, the crown is made of black fox skin and sable, and the coat is a fluffy "end cover", which is a necessary wool coat for the Qing Dynasty emperors, kings, and close ministers to spend the winter, with a total of eight grades, each grade has different textures, skin colors, and colors.
The highest-ranking royal end cover is lined with bright yellow satin, and the texture is made of the warmest sable or fox, which makes people feel warm just by looking at it.
Despite this, Emperor Kangxi unfortunately fell ill due to the cold and had to return to Changchun Garden to recuperate, and died soon after. According to meteorologist Zhu Kezhen's research, the Qing Dynasty was in a cold Xiaoice period, and correspondingly, 7 of the 10 emperors after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs died in winter.
They did not freeze to death, but the cause of death in Shunzhi and Tongzhi was infectious diseases, which were somewhat related to weak bodies and decreased immunity in winter.
Even the Kangxi Emperor, who enjoyed the superior conditions of the imperial family, could hardly resist the threat of severe cold. From this, it can be imagined how difficult it will be for ordinary people to face the test of the bitter cold.
The noble temperament of sable and black fox fur is admirable, but it may be difficult for ordinary people to touch. In winter, padded jackets are the first choice of the public, and they appear on the streets and alleys with the north wind in late autumn and early winter.
Whether it is the black cloth cotton jacket on the grassland, or the red jacket in the ice and snow, or the blue cloth jacket in the southern alley, it is the most classic picture in the cold winter.
In"Jacket"In an era before it was invented, how could our ancestors withstand the biting winds? According to the Book of Rites, the ancients in the pre-Qin period wore a variety of warm clothing, including:"Wrap for the shirt"(Cloak filled with silk wool),"Tied to a robe"(A robe filled with flax),"The sash is pleated"(skirt without the lining) as well"Silk for pleats"(Clothing made of silk inside and out).
Among them, the most well-known ones are the ones that are most modern people"robes"。
The jacket is the predecessor of the robe. The "Notes on Ancient and Modern China" by Ma Mian of the Five Dynasties said: "The jacket is the traces left by the robe. "The robe was originally a form of thermal underwear, rather than the long coat on the outside, as people are now familiar with it.
Liu Xi of the Eastern Han Dynasty explained in his "Interpretation of Names": "Robes, buds; Buds, underwear also. "The reason why the robe changed from underwear to outer garment is because poor people have no choice.
The four types of clothing recorded in the Book of Rites were only popular among the aristocracy. The memory of winter for the working masses is usually a lack of food and clothing, and it is already rare to have a thermal underwear.
Confucius's ** Zengzi was poor and couldn't afford a single piece of clothing for ten years, but he still needed to go out often. In the harsh winter season, he could not go naked, so he had to wear his underwear – the "robe" – as a coat, just like the autumn coat and trousers of today.
Zengzi's "robe has no table", and his only robe is also worn, so there is an idiom "overstretched". Later, the robe was lengthened, thickened, and filled with hemp, so that the robe became a simple and practical outfit to protect against the cold.
The short jacket "undergarment" is a close relative of the jacket, usually filled with the outer and inner and cotton wool, and is called the "undergarment", which has the effect of keeping warm. The different qualities of the undergarments reflect the difference between the rich and the poor in society.
The aristocracy wore high-end undergarments made of silk fabrics, while the poor could only wear crude browns. Confucius's two ** Ji Ci and Zi Si, despite living a poor life, still adhered to their beliefs and wore brown clothes made of homespun cloth.
The name of the jacket first appeared in the court and had a noble origin. On the day of the beginning of winter, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty gave high-end clothes made of "five-color embroidered luo" or brocade cloth to the palace attendants and ministers, which was the first time that the jacket received a name.
Since then, the jacket has been loved by the royal family. Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty had an in-depth study of clothing, not only let the palace people wear jackets, but also prepared "cloud crane gold and silver mud coats" in the palace.
The jacket of the Tang Dynasty was still a luxury, and only a few people could have it. In Bai Juyi's poem "New Made Cloth Qiu", he depicts the joy of his new jacket, and he compares the new jacket to today's children getting a new down jacket, very happy.
In the poem, he describes the happiness of sitting in the morning and sleeping in the night, and says that his ideal is to make everyone feel safe and warm, and no longer suffer from the cold.
Although the poets of the Tang Dynasty once cherished the grand wish of "no cold people in the world", it was not until the Song and Ming dynasties that this wish was truly realized. The key to this is the innovation of jacket materials, which bring warmth and comfort to people.
The warmth of winter clothes lies in the filling material, and the real quality can make you feel the warmth of cotton. Min Ziqian was a disciple of Confucius, who was enshrined in the "Twenty-four Filial Piety" for wearing a fake and shoddy winter jacket, and his story tells us that honoring one's parents is not only in words, but also in deeds, and only by truly caring about their lives can we reflect the true meaning of filial piety.
Min Ziqian's mother died when he was very young, and his father later married a stepwife and gave birth to two sons. On a snowy day, Ziqian and his father went out in an ox cart.
In order to save trouble, his stepmother filled his coat with reed flowers. Ziqian was shivering with cold, and he couldn't even hold the reins, while his second brother was smiling. When his father saw this, he was very angry and whipped Ziqian.
At this time, Ziqian's jacket was rotten and the reeds were flying, and his father found out that his young son's cotton clothes were covered with genuine silk cotton, while Ziqian was wearing a reed flower jacket.
His father immediately drove home and divorced his stepwife in anger. However, Ziqian knelt down and begged his father to forgive his stepmother, saying, "If my mother is still here, then I alone will be cold; If the mother leaves, then all three of us will be cold. ”
His stepmother, touched by his kindness and understanding, immediately confessed her mistake.
The Ming Dynasty sent a messenger to make a robe overnight", which depicts a scene of a housewife in the Tang Dynasty urgently sewing winter clothes for her husband on an expedition. Presumably, it is the warm silk cotton that his wife is in the robe.
In China's long struggle against the cold, cotton played a revolutionary role. Since the Xia Dynasty, in about 4,000 years of history, the clothing of the Chinese has undergone a change from silk and linen to cotton.
The soft white cotton brings unprecedented warmth, making the Chinese have "cotton robes" and "cotton jackets". There are two main routes for cotton to be introduced into China, one is to introduce cotton from Central Asia to Xinjiang, which is called "Xidao cotton"; First, it was introduced from Southeast Asia to Liangguang, Fujian and other places, called "Nandao cotton".
As early as the Western Han Dynasty, the Li people began to grow cotton on Hainan Island, creating the history of cotton planting in China.
According to the Book of Liang, there was a peculiar plant in Gaochang (now Turpan) during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the shape of its fruit resembled a silkworm cocoon, and the silk thread inside the fruit was as thin and silky as silk.
The locals often use the silk thread weaving cloth of this grass fruit, and the cloth made is soft and white, which is deeply loved by people. However, the planting and processing process of cotton is very cumbersome, the steps such as picking and deseeding are time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the fiber of cotton is short, and the textile process is very different from the traditional silk and linen.
As a result, the cultivation of cotton is not widespread throughout the country. Until the late Tang Dynasty, according to the records of Arab merchant Suleiman and others, cotton was appreciated as a strange flower and grass in the gardens of wealthy families in northern China.
A runaway woman, Huang Daopo, promoted the real popularization of cotton products. Huang Daopo was from Wunijing Town, Songjiang Prefecture (present-day Shanghai), and was a child bride from a poor family.
In order to escape marriage, she was taken to Hainan Island by chance, and for the next 30 years, she devoted herself to learning cotton weaving technology from the local Li people, and brought this advanced technology back to her hometown of Shanghai.
New copywriting: After unremitting efforts, cotton cultivation technology has been overcome, but there is still a major obstacle to the popularization of cotton: insufficient planting.
The person who took over the baton of Huang Daopo was Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. The former beggar, who still remembers his suffering for the first half of his life, hopes that his dynasty will improve in terms of clothing and warmth.
To this end, he took the most direct and crude approach to the problem of planting volume: national coercion. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, state policy stipulated that all yeoman farmers, regardless of the size of the land, must grow at least half an acre of cotton.
If the land area exceeds 10 acres, cotton must be doubled. Growing cotton can be rewarded and even tax-deductible. Those who do not comply will be exiled or sentenced to imprisonment.
In this way, Zhu Yuanzhang successfully promoted the cultivation of cotton and solved the problem of cotton popularization. Although this coercive measure has caused some controversy, its effect is significant.
During the Ming Dynasty, the cultivation of cotton increased greatly and became the main textile raw material, making an important contribution to the economic development of the Ming Dynasty.
Under the impetus of the policy, the planting area of cotton gradually expanded, from south to north, from west to east, and finally at the intersection of the Yellow River Basin, and then to North China, and finally spread throughout the country.
As a result, cotton products have gradually entered the lives of ordinary people and become a major boon for countless poor families. Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, cotton has even become a representative brand in China, almost on a par with silk.
At that time, the sea route, which is today's Maritime Silk Road, was even given a new name by Southeast Asians - the "Cotton Road".
Although the padded jacket may seem heavy, it is the ingenuity and unconventional masterpiece of ancient tailors. It not only improves the way to keep out the cold, but also leads the fashion trend. During the Tang Dynasty, cotton jackets became the exclusive preserve of the palace nobles because of the rarity of cotton, and they were more fashionable on the street than today's mink coats.
The "Purple Flower Silk Jacket" recorded in the "Chronicles of the Relics of Wei Gong" integrates natural scenes into the design, with camels, wild boars and other animals galloping among them, and hunters riding horses to shoot hunting, which is both fashionable and vivid, making people shine.
Women's pursuit of beauty is innate, and the change in style is especially obvious. The gorgeous transformation of the Tang Dynasty was from the narrow design of the early Tang Dynasty to the loose and hypertrophic of the Tang Dynasty.
This change is vividly reflected in the jacket, the sleeves of the jacket are narrower and wider, and the body is getting shorter and shorter, revealing more body parts, and even in the Tang Dynasty, it is as short as the chest.
At the same time, the collar style of the jacket also became more diverse, influenced by the Gaochang, Uighur, and Persian places. In addition to the common cross-collar, square neckline, and round neck, a variety of plackets and lapels also appeared.
Regarding clothing matching, Shen Congwen has an in-depth ** in "Research on Ancient Chinese Costumes". He pointed out that women in the Tang Dynasty, if they wore "soft-soled hollow brocade boots", then the upper body needed to be matched with "lapel small sleeves knee-length jacket", which originated from the design of the palace ladies borrowing from the Hu jacket.
Historically, some of the most popular fashion styles have their origins at the bottom of society. For example, the "swivel jacket" of the Song Dynasty, which was not longer than the waist and had a unique design style.
The sleeves of the swivel jacket are particularly short, covering only the elbows. While its collar is usually straight, the long slits on the sides are sewn together, and the placket is usually open, all designed to facilitate movement.
Therefore, we can see that clothing matching is not only about personal taste, but also influenced by historical, cultural and social circumstances.
Originally, this kind of jacket originated from the people of the Imperial Horse Garden, who designed their clothing with short sleeves to facilitate horseback riding and grazing. Unexpectedly, this kind of "sportswear" has unexpectedly become so popular that both men and women compete to wear it, and it is also suitable as a daily attire.
After thousands of years in the Song Dynasty, the swivel jacket was still popular: it was worn by knights during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, and was called "cardigan" in the Ming Dynasty, and by the Qing Dynasty, it had evolved into the famous horse coat.
Zhu Yuanzhang can be called a die-hard fan of padded jackets, he once said: "The three treasures of life: ugly wife, thin field and broken padded jacket." "Although his wife is mediocre, she can run the family well; The fields are barren, but they can make ends meet; Although the padded jacket is worn, it can give people warmth.
This may be the wisdom he summed up from his own life experiences and hardships. Since Zhu Yuanzhang vigorously promoted cotton planting, cotton jackets have been popularized, and everyone from the queen's concubines to ordinary people often wears them.
This has also led to the development of jacket styles, which have become more popular and diverse.
The old band knots have been replaced by metal buttons, which appear in our lives as a fixed part of the long jacket. This simple and beautiful button, combined with the long jacket with a disc collar placket, had a profound impact on our dressing habits and became a popular fashion item at the time.
For thousands of years, jackets have provided us with comfortable and warm clothing, while adding color to the cold winter months in different styles. There is a folk proverb that says: "Ten brothers-in-law are not as good as one Lao Tzu, and ten gowns are not as good as one jacket." ”
This phrase is funny and sincere, and it really expresses people's deep love for jackets.
Chinese Heritage "Chinese Clothing" ** reveals the cultural connotation of ancient Chinese clothing. Written by Kan Chengzhang, the article is equipped with beautiful picture worm ideas**, allowing readers to gain insight into the history and artistic value of ancient Chinese clothing.
In the text, the author describes the style, material, and pattern of ancient Chinese clothing, showing the beauty and uniqueness of ancient Chinese clothing, and also revealing the aesthetics and lifestyle of ancient Chinese.
In **, readers can see the physical form and production process of ancient Chinese costumes, and feel the charm of ancient Chinese costumes more intuitively. Whether you are interested in Chinese history and culture, or you want to learn about ancient Chinese costumes, you can get something from this.