Virtual year is one of the methods to calculate the age. It is the traditional Chinese method to calculate the age. So why do Chinese people calculate the virtual year? Before Qin and Han Dynasties, Chinese people lived in the chaotic era, and the three body people could not calculate the year. Looking at the rising and setting of the sun, our predecessors calculated every day, but the concept of year made them dizzy.
≫ & gt; & gt; click on the next page to see why there are empty years
Like the trimarans, they could not accurately calculate the solar return period (year) according to the movement of the stars at that time. Therefore, the Chinese people before the end of the Zhou Dynasty (let's use this concept for convenience) almost lived in the chaotic era.
In the chaos era, the Chinese can only determine by observing the growth of crops. When you are busy with an agricultural cycle, and the grain is ripe and harvested, then even if it is over a year. Therefore, the word "Nian" in the oracle inscriptions is interpreted as "Gu Shu" in Shuo Wen Jie Zi, which indirectly indicates that "Nian" in ancient times means "He Yi Shu". And the node of this cycle is set in October.
There is a sentence in the book of songs in July, which is "Ho my wife and son, said to change the year, people in this room. And he said, "in October, we will have a feast of wine and say," kill the lamb. ". One of them is called the "eternal life".
For the Yellow River Basin in North China, the harvest of crops is finished, the old agricultural production cycle has ended, and a new production cycle is coming. So at that time, people took October as the beginning of one year, held a grand festival ceremony, and congratulated each other on their long life. It shows that the change of years is in October, and the increase of people's age is also at this time.
But the ripening of grain is actually a very unstable time cycle.
The end of the chaotic era is attributed to a group of calenders. They carefully observed various phenological changes in the sky and on the ground, and found relatively accurate periodic signs.
It is said that the earliest calendar in China is the summer calendar. The lunar calendar is divided into December, including ziyue, chouyue, Yinyue, maoyue, Chenyue, Siyue, Wuyue, Shenyue, youyue, Xuyue and Haiyue. The month where the winter solstice is located (the mid winter month) is the child month, the month where the cold is located (the winter month) is the ugly month, the month where the rain is located (the spring month) is the Yin month, and so on. In the summer calendar, the new moon day is taken as the first day of each month, and the year of return is divided into 24 solar terms. In the month lacking middle Qi, the leap is placed. Yin month is taken as the first month, that is, Yin Zheng (later called Xia Zheng). The whole number of 366 days is taken as one year, and the subtraction method and positive leap surplus are used to adjust the time difference.
However, the calculation of the leap month in the "summer calendar" is very troublesome and erratic, so the actual calculation of the age can only take the method of increasing the age at the end of the year, that is, increasing the age by one year in the last month of the year. If we increase the age by the beginning of the year, we must carefully calculate the leap month, because the lunar calendar in ancient China was a Yin Yang calendar, and the number of days in each year was not fixed, and the difference between the ordinary year and the leap year was even one month. It's easy to confuse one's age with the method of increasing one's age at the beginning of the year.
Later, in order to surpass the previous dynasties, the calendars of several dynasties always advanced the beginning of the year by one month. In the Qin calendar, the new moon where the winter solstice is located is taken as the child month, that is, this November.
Why did the ancients pay more attention to the empty year than the first year: in order to collect taxes
It is a major national strategic project to calculate the year and year clearly. Only when we know the age of the population under our rule can we collect taxes.
Qin Dynasty is the first unified dynasty in China. With the central government, there is tax. In the natural economy, the direct embodiment of tax is food and manpower. So how to control people is the most important issue for the rulers. In the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Japanese scholar of Chinese history, Nishi Dingsheng, said that the most simple and effective way was to register the population. From Qin Shihuang's sixteen years (the first 231), the book of men's books began, until the three year (1911) of the Qing Dynasty's promulgation of registered residence law, the registered residence and archives of the government only recorded the life or age of the people, and did not bear the month and day of birth.
Therefore, according to this method, even if you were born on the last day of the year, there is no difference in age between you and the person born on the first day. Even if you're almost a whole year apart.
This is why the ancients paid more attention to the empty year than the first year.
The work of this age registration started in the Qin Dynasty, in the 'household time', that is, in August of each year. The registration of registered permanent residence is a complex process, including the activities of the people in the household, the case of the government, and the registration of registered residence. After the people declare their age, the government has verified the registered residence. Therefore, it takes time, usually two months. Which time point should be taken as the record? In the Qin and Han Dynasties, it was the custom to calculate September. All kinds of data, including household registration statistics, had to be completed before the end of September. The reason is simple, because millet, the most important food crop at that time, matured in September. Statistics will be finished at the end of September. In October, idle farmers will be able to perform corvee, and the time will be right.
Therefore, the time of naturalization actually becomes the node of the official age. In other words, the official year's growing node is not marked by the traditional head of the year, but also increased by one year after that. It is the time of recording to the household register, that is, the standard time for the establishment of the registered residence as the beginning of the year, in short, it is a sign of increasing the membership with the name of the book.
In the case of annual registration, one year old of the people actually becomes the period between two adjacent time points of registration. People have their own way to calculate their age. They can increase their age at the end of the year, or at the beginning of the year, or celebrate their birthday. Such a person has two years, official age and private age.
In the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu reformed the calendar and adopted the more scientific Taichu calendar. According to the Taichu calendar, one year is equal to 365.2502 days, and one month is equal to 29.53086 days; the former subtraction method is replaced by the addition method to adjust the time difference. The original October as the beginning of the year was changed to the first month as the beginning of the year; the 24 solar terms in favor of the lunar calendar were adopted; the month without the middle Qi was taken as the leap month, which adjusted the contradiction between the sun and the lunar calendar. From then on, human beings in East Asia entered the era of regular solar return cycle.
During the period from Qin Dynasty to early Han Dynasty, when October was the first year of the year, the registration time was in August and September, so the people were also "the age of the year increases as the end of the year". After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty changed the calendar of the first lunar month, there was no change in the registration time. However, when the first lunar month became the first year of the year, we could not say "the age of the year increases as the end of the year". The difference between the official age and the private age appeared.
When did these two ages unify into what we call "virtual age"?
It was in the Tang Dynasty. At the end of the year before the year of registration, the standard time of registration was actually in the first month. Since the Tang Dynasty at the latest, the official age has become the age of the first year, and the system and customs have finally become one.
The ancients couldn't even calculate their own age: increasing year at the end of the year, increasing year at the beginning of the year, and increasing year by making books
The above two paragraphs must have made many students dizzy. It doesn't matter. We can look straight down from here.
There are many ways to calculate age in ancient times, and the generation of virtual age is not from one way. It's possible to increase the age at the end of the year or at the beginning of the year. They don't have the good habit of keeping the formation.
In fact, by the Ming Dynasty, scholars could not figure out how ancient people calculated their age. Gu Yanwu put forward the ancients' view of increasing the age at the end of the year 'in rizhilu. He said:' today's people increase the age at the beginning of the year, and the ancients increase the age at the end of the year. '
Qian Daxin, another big V, disagrees with this statement. Qian Daxin cites the example of "the old people in Jiangxian county" and believes that one year old people were counted in ancient times. The example cited by Qian Daxin is the main argument for scholars to hold that the ancients' one year old was counted as the year.
According to Zuo Zhuan, the old people in Jiang county can't figure out what year it is. In the thirtieth year of Xianggong, people in Jiangxian county did not know the year of their birth, but only the year of their birth. In the first month, jiazishuo was born. There were forty-five Jiazi in four hundred, and the season was one third of today. Shi Kuang reckons that he was born in the 11th year of Wengong (616 BC), when he was 73 years old. Since the starting point of calculation is the month and day of birth, this calculation should be regarded as an annual calculation, which supports Qian Da V's one-year dating theory.
But after careful consideration, I feel that something is wrong. Jiangxian old man's date of birth is quite special, his birthday 'January jiazishuo' is Xiazheng's first year. In this way, the growth nodes of one year old and imaginary year old are on the same day; but in terms of age, one year old is one year less than imaginary year because it is not the year of birth. In February of the 30th year of Duke Lu Xianggong (543 BC), it seemed that he had already passed the first year of the year and the birthday of the old man in Jiangxian county. However, at that time, he was in zhouzheng. February of the 30th year, that is, December of the 29th year of Xiazheng, was actually a few days away from the first year of the year and the birthday of the old man in Jiangxian county. Therefore, according to the age of one year, the old people in Jiangxian county are only 72 years old. Shi Kuang's 73 is the virtual age, that is, the year of birth. In this way, this example can only prove that the ancients actually calculated their age according to their imaginary years.
What is the truth? The answer is floating in the wind.