The origin of the winter solstice-the winter solstice is the earliest of the 24 solar terms, but most people don't know that the origin of the winter solstice actually comes from the planning of a national capital. As early as more than 3,000 years ago, Duke Zhou began to measure the shadow with the earth gauge method and measure the position of the world in Luoyi. This was a move of political significance at that time, but it became one of the festivals that affected future generations for thousands of years.
When the Duke of Zhou arrived in Luoyang, he measured that Luoyang was "in the world" by the method of returning to the soil, and then began to divine the country and the land. It is recorded in Shangshu Luogu that the Duke of Zhou "Panluo City" made some investigations in several places around Luoyang, and finally determined that Jianshui East, Zhuoshui West and Zhuoshui East are "Weiluo City" (all good places to build ancestral halls). The historical fact that the Duke of Zhou chose the base site of Luoyi through the "investigation of returning to the land" was recorded in ancient books and was regarded as the law of sealing the country by later generations.
What is winter like on solstice? Winter solstice, also known as "one-day birth", is an important solar term in the China lunar calendar and a traditional festival of the Chinese nation. The winter solstice is commonly known as "the 9th, Winter Festival", "Long Festival" and "Asian New Year". As early as more than 2,500 years ago in the Spring and Autumn Period, China had observed the sun with earth gauges and determined the winter solstice, which was the earliest of the 24 solar terms, and the time was between June 65438+February 2 1 ~23 in the Gregorian calendar every year.
On the day of winter solstice, the sun moves to 270 degrees of the yellow meridian (winter solstice), and the position of the sun directly on the ground reaches the southernmost point of the year. At this time, the sun is almost directly on the tropic of Capricorn (also known as the winter solstice daily line), and the sun is most biased towards the northern hemisphere. Therefore, in all parts of the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice is the shortest day in a year, and the farther north, the shorter the day. For all parts of the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice is also the day with the lowest sun height at noon all year round.
As far as Beijing is concerned, the daytime from winter to sunrise is only 9 hours and 20 minutes, and the height of the sun at noon is only 26 42'. During the winter solstice, the northern hemisphere gets the least solar radiation, about 50% less than the southern hemisphere. After the winter solstice, the stars in the night sky are completely replaced by the stars in winter. From today, they will enter the ninth. At this time, the southern hemisphere is in a hot summer.
It is worth noting that around the winter solstice, the earth is located near the perihelion, and its movement speed is slightly faster, which leads to that the time of the sun in the southern hemisphere is about 8 days shorter than that in the northern hemisphere, so the winter in the northern hemisphere is slightly shorter than that in summer.
What is the traditional diet from winter solstice? The solstice in winter is a good time for health preservation, mainly because "Qi starts from the solstice in winter". Because from beginning of winter, life activities began to turn from decline to prosperity, from static rotation. At this time, scientific health preservation helps to ensure vigorous energy and prevent premature aging, thus achieving the purpose of prolonging life. During the winter solstice, the diet should be diversified, with grains, fruits, meat and vegetables reasonably matched, and high-calcium foods appropriately selected.
In winter solstice, different places have different customs, and most places in northern China have the custom of eating jiaozi in winter solstice. After thousands of years of development, a unique seasonal diet culture has been formed from winter solstice to Sunday. Eating jiaozi has become the winter solstice custom of most people in China. Of course, there are exceptions, such as the custom of drinking mutton soup from winter solstice in Tengzhou City, Shandong Province, which means driving away the cold.
The ancients celebrated the winter solstice. Although many people don't think it is a festival today, in any case, the winter festival is one of the "eight major festivals of the year", and foodies will not miss this festival with various winter solstice specialties, such as jiaozi in the north, Chaoshan glutinous rice balls, Mazi in the southeast, Yuan Lei in Taizhou, Hefei pumpkin pie, Ningbo sweet potato soup, Tengzhou mutton soup, Jiangnan rice, Suzhou wine making and so on.