Chapter 15 Imperial Calendar in China

Mr. Miao Xiaoshan, a Chinese archaeologist, once said that according to the records of "Historical Records: The Benji of the Three Emperors", there was a calendar in the Emperor's time.The three emperors of heaven, earth and man have been handed down for 18,000 years each. According to calculations, China knew how to record the year as early as 30,000, 50,000, or even more than 100,000 years ago. Unfortunately, the records of ancient times have been lost and lost. It has been passed down orally from generation to generation. As for the exact year, it is impossible to do a clear textual research even today. "Tongjian" has "Fuxi (that is, Fuxi) as the Jia calendar, the heavenly stems and the earthly branches are matched, Liujia turns, and the sky is a week. The year is recorded and the year is successful, and the month is recorded and the day is successful." According to the records, it is certain that our country began to have a calendar 6,461 years ago.The Chinese calendar has been handed down for more than 6,000 years and the order of the years is still the same. Although the government's annual calculations are based on the Gregorian calendar and have been implemented for half a century, the people are still accustomed to using the lunar calendar. Of course, there are indelible advantages: First, Fuxi The calendar revised by the Yellow Emperor was based on the movement of the sun, the moon and the stars, and the revised calendars of the previous dynasties were also based on the movement of the stars, which went round and round and had its own eternal value.Second, the Chinese calendar uses decimal counting, combined with the Jiazi sexagesimal method for precise calculations, which can run parallel to the Gregorian calendar, and the government and the people are suitable for each.Third, the Chinese calendar is based on the twenty-four solar terms, which match the farming seasons. China is based on agriculture, which is very convenient for farmers to work and rest.There are these three, so until now I have not replaced them.

"Tiangan" is the ten codes of A, B, C, D, W, Ji, Geng, Xin, Rengui; "Dizhi" is the twelve codes of Zichou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Siwu, Shenyou, Xuhai.The celestial stems and earthly branches cooperate with each other and can evolve into sixty code names, which are used in turn to record the year, month, and day, which is what astrologers now call the sixty Jiazi.The earliest Wang Yirong found in the tortoise shell (that is, the oracle bones of Yin Ruins) bought in a Chinese medicine shop, the records of the Yin and Shang Dynasties were recorded according to the Ganzhi. Although not complete, it can be confirmed that the Yin and Shang began. On the tortoise shell, all the sixty Jiazi are carved out in more than twenty pieces of tortoise shell, which is the conclusive evidence that the time was recorded by Ganzhi in the Yin and Shang Dynasties.

The most important thing in the almanac is the solar terms. The solar terms are the weather. There are 24 solar terms in a year. , Winter Solstice) is divided into four equal parts.Starting from the vernal equinox at zero degrees, the summer solstice is 90 degrees, the autumn solstice is 180 degrees, the winter solstice is 270 degrees, and then back to the vernal equinox, it is exactly 360 degrees, and every 90 degrees is divided into six equal parts. Four times six is ​​twenty-four, which is twenty-four solar terms.A year is divided into twelve months, and each month happens to have two solar terms, which is the origin of solar terms.Regarding the twenty-four solar terms, the ancients once made up a formula for people to remember: "In the first month, it rains in the beginning of spring, in February, the spring equinox, in March, it rains in the clear and bright valley, in April, the summer is full of summer, in May, the summer solstice is planted, and in June, it is a small heat and a great heat. In July, the beginning of autumn and the end of summer heat, in August, the white dew and autumnal equinox, in September, the cold dew and frost fall, in October, the beginning of winter and light snow, in November, the heavy snow and winter solstice, and in December, the great cold and minor cold.” If you can memorize the formulas, you will never forget the solar terms of which month up.

Turn over the top of the first page of the almanac, there is a fleeting time map, that is, a compass for determining the orientation. King Duiwen's gossip, but this is not obvious at a glance. You must have a deep understanding of the Book of Changes to get a glimpse of its mysteries.Simply put, gossip represents eight directions and eight things.Between the outer layer of the gossip and the center of the compass, there is one white, two blacks, three greens, four greens, five yellows, six whites, seven reds, eight whites, and nine purples, which are the so-called "nine officials" by Chinese astrologers.There is a female astrologer in Italy, Helen Papo, who explored and searched for secrets. She discovered that these are the nine planets of the lunar system.On the outermost layer of the picture, there are words such as Dali, Dajiu, Xiaoli, Qingji, etc., which are calculated by astrologers based on the Yin-Yang and five elements in conjunction with the Ganzhi. It is not us laymen who can judge which is good and which is bad .

Experts who studied astronomy in ancient China divided the celestial bodies into three houses and twenty-eight mansions. The three houses are "Taiweiyuan", "Ziweiyuan" and "Tianshiyuan"; , Wei, Kei, Kui, Lou, Wei, Pleiades, Bi, Chi, Shen in the west, Dou, Niu, Nv, Xu, Wei, Shi, Bi in the south, Jing, Gui, Liu, Xing, Zhang, Yi in the north , Zhen.Yuan is a large area, Su is a small area, the left is the green dragon in the east, the right is the white tiger in the west, the front is the red bird in the south, and the north is Xuanwu in the back. Regarding the Chinese calendar, in the Qing Dynasty, Qin Tianjian presided over the calculation, formulated the time constitution and promulgated the whole country, and now it is changed to the solar calendar. Every year before the Spring Festival, there are all kinds of time constitution books on the newsstands, and the business is quite good.I went shopping and bought a Shixian book, brought it back to the elders, and read it when I have nothing to do. It seems to be quite popular!