During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing was an official in Changsha. When he retired from his hometown, he saw many homeless people by the Baihe River, pale and thin, with no clothes to cover them. Because of the cold, his ears were frozen and his heart was very uncomfortable.

After returning to his hometown, Zhang Zhongjing invented a prescription to keep out the cold, called "Quhan Joule Decoction". That is, the mutton and some cold medicine are boiled in a pot, and when cooked, they are taken out and chopped, and the dough is wrapped into ears, and then put in a pot, and the stuffed dough is cooked with the original soup. After the bread is made, it looks like an ear, and because its function is to prevent the ear from freezing, Zhang Zhongjing named it "Joule".

Zhang Zhongjing asked his apprentice to give each poor person a bowl of soup and two "corners". People eat "dumplings" and drink soup. They are warm all over and their ears are hot. Nobody frostbites their ears anymore.

Later, Zhang Zhongjing died on the winter solstice, because he made a "cold-dispelling and charming ear soup" for everyone on the winter solstice. In memory of him, everyone will eat jiaozi on the solstice in winter. They all say that if you eat jiaozi on the solstice in winter, your ears will not freeze in winter.

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Zhang Zhongjing (about 150 ~ 154—— about 2 15 ~ 2 19) was born in Nieyang County, Nanyang (now Zhangzhai Village, Gedong Town, dengzhou city City, Henan Province). At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, a physician was honored as a "medical sage" by later generations. Zhang Zhongjing extensively collected medical prescriptions and wrote the masterpiece Treatise on Febrile Diseases handed down from ancient times. The principle of "syndrome differentiation and treatment" established by him is the basic principle of TCM clinic and the soul of TCM.

In the aspect of prescription science, Treatise on Febrile Diseases has also made great contributions, creating many dosage forms and recording a large number of effective prescriptions. The therapeutic principle of differentiation of six meridians established by him has been highly praised by doctors in past dynasties. This is the first medical monograph in China to establish the law of syndrome differentiation and treatment from theory to practice. It is one of the most influential works in the history of Chinese medicine, and it is a necessary classic work for later scholars to study Chinese medicine, which has been widely valued by medical students and clinicians.