As the saying goes, "A calm mind will naturally cool", but when faced with the high temperature of summer, you will never feel cool no matter how calm your mind is. Most people hide in air-conditioned rooms and enjoy the coolness brought by high technology. It has to be said that the advent of refrigeration technology has brought many conveniences to people's lives, such as air conditioning and refrigerators are two essential tools in summer. With them, summer is no longer afraid of heat, and the comfort of life is greatly improved. At the same time, people can’t help but wonder how people in ancient times spent the hot summer without such high technology? Don’t underestimate the ancients, they have many good recipes for spending summers.
First, ancient people would use ice cubes to cool down in summer. Just put some ice cubes in the room to achieve the effect of absorbing heat and cooling. Most of these ice cubes are collected from the river water in winter and placed in a special ice cellar and taken out in summer. Some of them are used to direct the river water to a special ice warehouse to make ice. Ice was a luxury in ancient times. Because there was no refrigerator, it was not easy to obtain ice easily. It required a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources to obtain it. Generally, there will be a special ice cellar in the royal family, and it will be managed by a dedicated person, and it will only be used by the royal family. There are also some private ice cellars among the people, but the ice is very expensive and is only for use by nobles and rich people, and ordinary families cannot afford it.
Secondly, although ancient people did not have air conditioners and refrigerators, many people could not afford ice cubes, but people could work hard on daily daily necessities. For example, when clothes are hot in summer, you naturally need to wear less clothes or some cool and thin clothes. There was a kind of "cooling clothes" in ancient times, which were made of kudzu . It was thin and comfortable and just worn in summer. Later, a kind of "ice silk" appeared, which was made of ice silk . The clothes of this fabric are silky and slick, and they are extremely cool when worn on the body. It is said that this "ice silk" has also been favored by Western Regions merchants and has become a very popular product. However, this kind of fabric is expensive, so it is only popular among the nobles. Ordinary people cannot afford it and can only wear ordinary cool clothes.
In addition to clothes, there were also many cool items in ancient times, such as cool mats, cool couches, fans, etc. In ancient times, the mats and mats were made of Hunan bamboo. This mat was cooler and more comfortable, and was one of the essential cooling items in summer. However, it was expensive and could only be used by nobles. Most people can only use fans. After all, fans are cheap and not very high in production, so they can be easily bought. Most ordinary fans are manual, which has good cooling effect but is laborious. Therefore, the nobles also invented a fan controlled by mechanical means. The water flow drives the fan and makes it rotate like a windmill, which will bring a greater sense of coolness. This is carefully crafted by ancient skilled craftsmen.
Third, there is another way to cool down and avoid the heat, that is, eat cold drinks or some food that can remove the heat. Although there was no refrigerator or ice cream in ancient times, there were also many foods that could be eaten as cold drinks. For example, black plum soup, lychee soup, Xiangsu soup, etc., these are suitable for consumption in summer, which can remove the heat and feel cool. At the same time, the ancients also used well water to cool down the food, or if possible, they could add some ice cubes. Such soup ingredients are comparable to modern cold drinks. In the hot summer, drinking such a cold drink is so comfortable.
Although summer is hot, it is still difficult for smart ancient people to use ice cubes, cool clothes, mats, fans, etc. to relieve the heat of summer and make the scorching sun no longer so difficult. Even if there is no air conditioning and refrigerator, they have their own ways to survive the hot summer days. Besides, although the air-conditioned room is cold, it cannot be kept for a long time. You should go out appropriately to breathe fresh air and do not let your body rely too much on air conditioning.
It is worth mentioning that the summer in ancient times may not be as hot as the summer now. After all, the weather has already undergone tremendous changes over the years of environmental changes. Compared with ancient times, summers are getting hotter and winters are getting colder. In an instant, the change of seasons makes it increasingly difficult for people to adapt.From this we speculate that the ancient summer was not that painful, and maybe we could spend it comfortably without the need for air conditioning and refrigerator.
