The origin of the long summer?

According to the book "The Joy of Chinese New Year", emperors in the pre-Qin period personally led hundreds of officials to hold ceremonies in the suburbs to welcome the arrival of the long summer. At that time, monarchs and subjects all wore scarlet robes and jade ornaments, rode red horses and scarlet cars, and even the flags of the cars were scarlet. This red ceremony to welcome summer strongly expressed the good wishes of the ancient people for a bumper harvest.

On this day of the Zhou Dynasty, I personally led three officials and nine ministers until the southern suburbs celebrated the summer festival. The Ming dynasty tasted new customs. In the Qing Dynasty, there were activities such as offering sacrifices to gods, tasting new things, weighing people and making new tea. Today, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces have the custom of "one day in long summer, food supplements". Such as eating healthy bamboo shoots, long summer eggs, five tiger Dan (red dates, black dates, walnuts, longan, lychee), eating long summer rice and so on. If it doesn't rain this day, people think it will be very dry.

Later, with the evolution of the years, the custom of long summer in ancient times changed. Dong Liu, an Amin, recorded in "A Brief View of the Imperial Capital" that "ice is opened in summer and given to civil and military ministers." It can be seen that on the long summer day in the Ming Dynasty, the official in charge of ice administration in the imperial court would dig up the ice stored in the winter cellar, chop it up and hand it over to the officials by the emperor. In fact, it was not in the Ming Dynasty that Emperor Chang Xia gave ice. According to textual research, it has become a routine and custom for Emperor Chang Xia to send ice to ministers in the Song Dynasty.

In the folk, although people in ancient times could not eat ice in summer, they also had the custom of drinking ice on this day. Or "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital" said: "When people (ordinary people) want to buy and sell in summer, two copper lamps are stacked in their hands, which makes them stumble and call them' ice lamps'." Jean Lian, a poet in A Qing, wrote in Notes on the Spring and Autumn Period: "People who knock copper lamps to sell plum soup in the city (in summer) are far from selling watermelons." According to textual research, the "bronze lamp" mentioned above is actually a wooden bucket filled with iced drinks. "Copper lamp" is usually a black lacquer copper hoop with a bronze crescent cover on the lid, which not only indicates that this sour plum soup is made at night, but also is a sign to attract customers.

On May 5 or 6 every year, when the sun reaches 45, it is the "long summer" solar term. China has been used to long summer as the starting date of summer since ancient times. In the twenty-four solar terms, it is said: "We must also stand" and "Summer is also a holiday, and everything is a holiday at this time." "False" means "big" here. In fact, according to the standard of climatology, the daily average temperature rises to above 22℃ steadily, starting from summer. Before and after the "Long Summer", only the area south of Fuzhou-Nanling Line in China really entered the summer, while parts of Northeast and Northwest China just entered the spring at this time. The average temperature in most parts of the country is around 18-20℃, which is the mid-spring and late spring season of "flowers bloom".