Time Division in Ancient China
In ancient times, time (big time) was not counted by 1234, but marked by ugly children and animals such as rats, cows, tigers and rabbits, which was easy to remember. The specific division is as follows: from eleven o'clock to one o'clock, twelve o'clock is the punctuality; Ugly (cattle) from one to three, with two points as the punctuality; Yin (tiger) is from three o'clock to five o'clock, with four o'clock as the punctuality; Mao (rabbit) is from five to seven, with six o'clock as the punctuality; Chen (Dragon) is from 7: 00 to 9: 00, with 8: 00 as the punctuality; It's 9 o'clock to 1 1, and 10 is the punctuality; At noon (horse), it is eleven o'clock to one o'clock, with twelve o'clock as the punctuality; When you are not (sheep), it is 1 until 3 o'clock, with 2 o'clock as the punctuality; When applying for (monkey), it is from three o'clock to five o'clock, with four o'clock as the punctuality; You (chicken) are from five to seven, with six o'clock as the punctuality; From 7: 00 to 9: 00, 8: 00 is the punctuality; Shanghai is now 9: 00 to 1 1 point (pig), and 10 is the punctuality.
The ancients said that time and day are different, saying "bell" during the day and "more" or "drum" at night. There is also the saying "the morning bell and the evening drum". In ancient times, there were many bell and drum towers in towns. Ring the bell in the morning (7 o'clock today), so say "what time" during the day; At dusk (today 19), drums are ringing, so the night is also called a few drum days. It is more useful to say time at night, because the night watchman beats the banger while patrolling and tells the time by counting. The whole night is divided into five classes, and the third class is midnight, so it is also called "midnight".
"Geng" is actually just a name that beats time at night. From Youshi (7: 00 this evening), the night watchman plays with a clapper or drum, which is called "beating". Call from seven to nine, it's a watch; Knocking twice from nine to eleven is the second watch; Strike at eleven o'clock to 1: 30 in the morning is night; From one to three to four, it is the fourth watch; Playing from 3: 00 to 5: 50 is the fifth watch; At this time, it is almost dawn, and I don't want to play.
In addition, in ancient military camps, there were also people who played overtime, but instead of playing wooden bangzi, they played gold, which was called "Golden Bangzi (Niantuo)".
The unit of measurement below hours is "hours". One hour is divided into eight hours, and each hour is equal to fifteen minutes now. There is a saying in the old novel called "three cuts at noon", that is, at three minutes at noon (fifteen minutes from noon), at this time, the yang is full and the yin is instantly dissipated. This heinous crime should be "not even allowed to do ghosts" to show severe punishment.
From zero to now, fifteen minutes is divided into one moment, thirty minutes is two minutes, and forty-five minutes is three minutes. The above "three minutes at noon" refers to killing people at the moment before noon; Sixty minutes is four minutes, this time is noon, and so on. Seven minutes later, there is no eighth moment, and eight minutes is the beginning of the next hour.
Noon means from eleven to thirteen, an hour is divided into eight quarters, counting from eleven, every fifteen minutes, eleven is noon, eleven fifteen is a quarter of noon, forty-five is a quarter of noon, and twelve is noon (generally not called a quarter of noon).
Yin and Yang experts say that Yang is the most abundant, which is different from modern astronomy. Not at noon, but at three o'clock. In ancient times, beheading was also carried out in different periods, which is why beheading is important. Generally, beheading is to have an operation at noon and let it have a ghost to do; Repeater or heinous criminals must choose the operation at 3: 30 noon, and don't let it be a ghost. The meridian gate of the imperial city is also the most prosperous, regardless of time, so the emperor ordered the people who started the meridian gate to behead, and no ghosts did it.
The word "Zi" is engraved below. As for Zi, it is still used in Cantonese in Guangdong and Guangxi, such as "3: 10 pm", which means "15: 50". According to the analysis of linguists, there are a lot of "ancient Chinese" in Cantonese. The reason is that the Han people in the ancient Central Plains lived in Lingnan, separated from the Central Plains people for a long time, and their languages did not "keep pace with the times" with those who stayed in the Central Plains. The division under the word "zi" is unknown. According to Sui Shu's law, second is the ancient unit of time, and below second is "sudden"; How to convert, the book did not make it clear, only said: "'two' is as thin as a mountain; "Suddenly" is like the best spider silk. "
In ancient times, there were two kinds of timing tools, one was "sundial" and the other was "leakage". The sundial is timed according to the movement of the shadow, which corresponds to the scale on the surface of the sundial. Needless to say, you should have seen the sundial in the Forbidden City and the Observatory in Beijing. Water leakage is timed by dripping water, which is made up of four copper pots filled with water, which are stacked on top of each other. There are holes in the bottom of the first three, and an arrow-shaped buoy is vertically placed on the bottom one. The water level rises with the drop of water, and the pot body has scale timing. The original day and night was divided into 100 minutes, which was changed to 96, 108 and 120 minutes successively because it was not divisible with twelve o'clock, and it was officially set as 96 minutes in Qing Dynasty. In this way, one hour is equal to eight quarters. A moment is divided into three parts, and an hour is divided into twenty-four parts, just as the twenty-four solar terms are opposite. Note that this minute is not the current minute, but a word. Between two moments, two strange symbols are engraved, so it is called "word". The word is divided by lines as thin as wheat awn, which is called "two"; The word "two" consists of "he" and "Shao", where he refers to wheat and Shao refers to tiny awns. You can't row below seconds, you can only say "as thin as spider silk", which is called "suddenly"; For example, the word "suddenly" suddenly refers to a very short time, but it refers to change, which means change in a very short time.
The Hammer Monks Act, Volume 17, has such a record:
"A moment is an idea, twenty thoughts are an instant, twenty moments are an instant, twenty fingers are a stroke, twenty strokes are an instant, and thirty moments are a day and night."
Chronological time system: 12. There is no fixed time in Yin: daytime: rewelding, Dan, Ming (bumper harvest), Zhan, food day (bumper harvest), Japanese-Chinese, banners, snacks and small harvest (first half of the year);
Evening: Xiao Cai (second half), meeting, (wood+van), evening.
When Yin Bingxin arrived, paragraph 16 recorded the time: during the day: Su, Dan, Chao (a great talent), Shi Ri (a great talent), Japan and China, Shao, (Guo), Dim Sum, Meng, Mo.
Evening: meeting, fainting, (wood+everything), evening, evening.
The time recorded in Qin 16: Pingdan, sunrise, eclipse, Moshi, Japan, China, West China, sundial, eclipse, downtown, dusk, people decide, midnight, cock crow.
Note in Qin 12 paragraph: The twelve earthly branches: Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, Hai, Zi and Chou.
In addition, the common clepsydra in poetry first appeared in the Western Han Dynasty, which divided a day and night into 100 equal parts, also known as the hundred-quarter timing system. day and night
The ratio is 40: 60, which is the opposite in winter and summer.