After the establishment of the Sui Dynasty, the Turkic Khan, who occupied the Mongolian steppe, sent an envoy to Chang'an to propose marriage to Emperor Wen of Sui. In order to stabilize the situation in the north, Emperor Wen of Sui did consider following the policy of the Han Dynasty and marrying his daughter to the Great Khan. But in the end, after his daughter's bitter pleas and the Empress's desperate attempts to stop her, Emperor Wen of Sui sighed and said, "How can I bear to marry you off to a place where you'll only bathe three times in your life?" So in ancient times, did minority nomads really only bathe three times in their lives?
First, ordinary nomads really only bathed three times in their lives.
On the Mongolian steppe in ancient China, although the various ethnic minorities changed their ruling forces like a horse and cart, such as the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Turkic, and Qidan, etc., these ethnic minorities were always in a state of nomadic herding. In order to find the right grassland, the nomadic tribes kept moving their tents every day. It was impossible to carry enough water at all times in this state to find fertile grassland in the vast Mongolian steppe. Even if they find a water source, they do not have the opportunity or time to take a bath. Even if one was dirty and needed to bathe, one could only wipe with water. There were no toiletries in the Central Plains, and there were no comfortable bathing facilities in the Central Plains. So water was very precious to the nomads who lived collectively.
The common people of the ethnic minorities were also in a state of domination, and they had to do what the nobles needed to do. Usually, they don't have time to boil water and take a bath. So for the average nomad, they only bathe three times in their life. But nomadic bathing is not as casual as in the Middle Kingdom. After a newborn is born, the child's father will hold the child and bathe it, representing a clean start.
Because of the high infant mortality rate due to limited sanitation at the time, the child's father prayed for God's blessing on the child for the ceremony. At the time of marriage, both the bride and the groom were bathed. The man represents his coming of age and the woman his new life. When an old man died, his family would bathe him to represent the clean life he had led. In other words, the nomads of the North really only bathed three times in their lives.
Secondly, the nomadic nobles bathed often and were not limited to three times at all.
It is true that the early nomadic aristocracy, like ordinary people, bathed only three times in their lives, but this changed with the deepening of Hanization. As early as the Western Han Dynasty, the monarch of Southern Xiongnu courted Emperor Xian of Han for marriage. In the end, Emperor Xian of Han Dynasty married his courtesan Wang Zhaojun to the Southern Xiongnu Monarch. The South Huns were ecstatic to get this beauty for nothing. After talking about Wang Zhaojun marrying back to Xiongnu, every five days, his subordinates would prepare boiling water and other things for Wang Zhaojun to take a bath, but he still did not have the habit of bathing.
With the deepening of Hanization, the northern nomadic nobles gradually began to take a bath. During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the Khitan people in the north established the state of Daliao, with a junior high school system modeled exactly on the Tang Dynasty. There is a saying that the Liao Kingdom inherited the customs and culture of the Tang Dynasty. Small things like bathing were naturally more popular. The urban structure of the Liao capital was no different from that of the Central Plains, and even specialized collective baths appeared. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the nomads in the north had seen the world in the south, and in the camps of the nobles, they were equipped with large buckets for bathing. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, a large army was sent to the north. When the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty fled in a hurry, he did not forget to take away his own special bath tub inlaid with nanmu and jade.
How did beautiful women bathe in ancient Chinese history?
In ancient times, China attached great importance to self-cleaning, and there was even the Shangsi Festival, which called for bathing and treatment of illnesses in the spring. During the Western Zhou period, bathing rituals were gradually customized. As bathing has penetrated into every aspect of society, people's understanding of bathing has become deeper and deeper, not just thinking of bathing as cleansing, moisturizing, and nourishing; but as a grand ritual. In the pre-Qin period before sacrificing to the gods and ancestors, bathing to purify oneself was a fixed law, meaning that one's heart was clean and pious, also called fasting.
As early as the Qin and Han Dynasties, the custom of bathing had already taken shape in the whole society, especially the good custom of "bathing on three days and bathing on five days" contained in the "Rituals of Hiring Rites"; Han had already developed the habit of washing his hair at least once every three days and bathing once every five days. So much so that the government took a day off every five days, which was also called "bathing", to allow officials to clean up when they had time. In the Tang Dynasty, the "five-day bath" was changed to a ten-day bath, called "rest".
The first, middle and last three days of the month are variations on the cold, cold cold is Huan, meaning wash. Probably because of the ten days of Huan, Huan has the meaning of punctuality, lasting ten days. Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty system, these ten days of vacation is called "Huuhuan". Ming Dynasty celebrity Tu Benjun also "bathing" and "appreciation of antiques", "famous incense", "recite famous quotes," alongside
The baths of the Ming Dynasty were more elegant than ever before.
It is worth mentioning that the ancients divided washing into very fine pieces. Eastern Han Xu Shen "Shuowen Jiezi" cloud: Mu, Zhuofa also. Take a bath and sprinkle yourself. Wash your feet and sprinkle water. Take a bath and sprinkle your hands. It can be seen that the ancients attached importance to their own cleanliness. For a long time, the Western Church still propagated bathing as a way to punish sinners In the 4th century A.D., a female Christian on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem bragged that she hadn't washed her face in 18 years, so she felt she was the purest of the pure. Ancient bathing used a much wider variety of items than washing one's hair. For the sake of clarity, the following introduction is divided into four items: bathing materials, bathing containers, bathing places, and bathing utensils.
I. Materials
1) Grass wood ash
Yes, it is also in the previous article about "hair washing". It's really handy and useful, and I won't go into the details of its efficacy. In the Song Dynasty, it was recorded that women in the south used grass ash to remove dirt.
2)Amoy water
The same thing mentioned in the previous article about "washing hair". As early as 3000 years ago, during the Zhou Dynasty, people used rice water to bathe and remove dirt. It was said to not only remove dirt, but also to have excellent health benefits. It was a cheap and common early bath water at the time.
3)Soap pods
Similarly, a popular natural washing material. Soap pods were already being sold by the time of Xiaoqi in the Southern Dynasty at the latest. There are more than a dozen varieties of soap pods, the ability to remove dirt is strong and weak. Soap pods have the effect of lubricating and refreshing the skin, eliminating oil and cleaning the skin, and are also commonly used in ancient beauty recipes. Washing clothes with soap pods will not discolor or shrink the clothes, and the fibers will not be damaged and lose their luster. Bathing with soap pods can also cure rheumatism and skin diseases.
4)Fat Beads
Fat beads, also known as sapodilla. According to records from 0755 to 79,000 years old, the trees grow high in the mountains and are very tall. They have branches and leaves like parsnips, white flowers in May and June, and are as strong as pills. Solid, black as soap bubbles and round as pearls. picked in October, boiled to remove the core and pounded with wheat flour or bean flour as a bath remedy. In fact, it is named because it is fat like oil and its seeds are round like pearls. Song dynasty Zhuang "Materia Medica" introduced, zhezhong area soap pods less, "fat pearl" is used for bathing face to wash clothes. Every late fall, people will pick the pods, boiled, mashed, add spices, white flour, mixed and rolled into pills, called "soap".
5)Pancreas and bath beans
Tang Dynasty Sun Simiao's "Chicken Ribs", "Thousand Golden Essentials" records, the pig pancreas dirty blood washed, torn off the fat, and then grinded into a paste, and then add soybean flour and spices, mix well, dry naturally, made of bats
Later, the people improved the manufacture of bath beans technology, adding sugar to the grinding of the pig's pancreas, replacing soybean flour with sodium carbonate, and adding melted pig fat, mixing well, and then making the batting. Molten pig fat was added, mixed well and pressed into balls or blocks. This is called "pancreas". The chemical composition of pancreas is very similar to that of today's soap. And there were many kinds of products, cinnamon pancreas, rose pancreas, quite similar to today's soaps, but with different scents.
The pancreas of the Tang Dynasty had the effect of frostbite cream. Higher grade called "face medicine", "mouth fat", used to apply on the face and mouth. The palace would give it to officials in winter. Du Fu's "Thousand Golden Wings" said, "Mouth fat, face medicine with grace, cui pipe silver poppies fall nine days." The fact is so. Dare winter labor protection products were also distributed in ancient times. High-quality bath beans were regarded as a high-class product, but doctors refused to readily publish the recipe. Because of their nobility, they were usually used only for hand and face washing.
Tang Dynasty, Li guide by the book "waxing day" is described in detail: it is said: face fat hand cream by incense bath beans, Shi Gui Sheng. However, today's medical treatment is extremely secretive and does not allow children to reveal any laws. As for the Holy Father and the Holy Son, the purpose of the saints' legislation was to make it clear to every family and to everyone. Are you making fools of the world, making the best way impossible, and blocking out the meaning of the saints?
6) Spice medicine
Largely should be understood as herbs. There are different recipes for herbs or spices mixed into water for bathing. There are also bath bean combinations etc. Just the categorization of the materials used in the head is already detailed. There are already face creams, face lipids, face washing formulas, whitening formulas yue, whitening formulas, face kneading formulas, face popping formulas, face popping formulas, face popping formulas, and flour whitening formulas in the Outer Terrace Secrets and Essentials Formulas.
There were also many spices in the full body bath. By the Han Dynasty, there was a man in pain and his skin peeled off. Because "after a water bath, the pain stopped", 20 days, the skin was born, healed, the body like solidified fat. This shows that medicinal baths are effective. Sun Simiao, Volume "Wai Tai secret formula", Tang Dynasty, there are bathing formula: clove incense, incense, real beads, jade, water spray, peach bell milk powder, papaya flowers, white pear flowers, red lotus, plum blossoms, cherry blossoms. The method of production is "the flowers and incense are mashed separately, and then the real beads and jade shavings are ground into powder, mixed with soybean powder, ground a thousand times, and hidden in secret."
Regularly wash your hands and make up, insist on 100 days. Its face is like jade, clean and moist, removing odor and powder. "Throat is washed with this medicine, too. The medicinal bath not only whitens the skin, but also prevents epidemics and strengthens the body, so it has endured. Song Dynasty Tokyo drugstore has a special "face wash medicine" for sale, Yuan miscellaneous drama "thousand gold wings square" detailed depiction of women with "boiling chaff paste incense beans" bathing scenario, indicating that "medicinal bathing formula" is very popular. The Qing Dynasty's "Xie Tian Xiang" year, "wolfberry soup" as a necessary way to strengthen the body directly recommended to the people.
Second, the container
The wooden barrel seems to be the impression of the ancient people's bathing, from the movie and television dramas of the narrow concept. In fact, the container is very rich and diverse materials. From China's surviving ancient artifacts can be seen, our ancestors from BC began to bathe with a bathtub. Zhou's Zizi is shaped like a modern bathtub. This plate is 40 centimeters high, 87 centimeters wide and 137 centimeters long. This shape can be called a "bathtub". The whole body is cast with thick and delicate flat clam pattern, and the image is extremely evocative. There are eight animal heads, each holding a ring. There are 111 inscriptions on the plate.
The Warring States period, there is also a water vessel called Jane, a bathtub with a certificate. The existing "Warring States Double Dragon Sword" is a rare and large water vessel. Sword ears for the beast-shaped, covered with a large ring, double dragon climber's mouth shaped like water, extremely evocative, the whole body decorated with gorgeous dragon pattern. In the ancient books, "Dak's record
such as a ladle, mostly used for scooping water. Early Han aristocrats bathing, people standing in a "bath tray" on the attendant water wash, so the shape of the bath tray than washing hair or washing hands with a large. The picture below is a Yunlong lacquer bath tray unearthed in Mawangdui, for the Han dynasty "border marquis family" of the bath. Its diameter is 72cm, which is quite large. It's perfectly fine for an adult to stand in the tray and be showered with water by an attendant for a bath.
Three. Land use
Specialized bathing place, bathroom, commonly known as 'bathhouse', also known as 'bathroom door', 'mixed hall' and so on in ancient times. Our ancestors have long attached great importance to the cleanliness and hygiene of the skin. As early as the Sannongji, there was the saying that 'new baths must be crowned, new baths must be shaken clothes'. The bathing of the Shang Dynasty people was also recorded. But there were no specialized bathrooms at that time. Regarding the introduction of the bathroom, there is a record in the Chu Shi that 'outside and inside do not **** wells, do not **** baths'.965
The earliest private bathroom in the history of Chinese bathing is still preserved in the Museum of the Tomb of the King of the Han Guangling in Shugang, Yangzhou. In the famous "Huangchang Tichou" high-specification wooden coffin tomb, at the fifth entrance of the west wing of the King's Tomb, there is a bath room of about 10 square meters, which is paved with a block of golden-colored nanmu wood, and there are a full set of bathing utensils such as copper pots, copper basins, back rubbing pumice, wooden clogs, copper lamps, and bathing stools. The bathroom is adjacent to the owner's sitting room.
To a certain extent, it reflects that the ancients paid attention to cleanliness, loved bathing, and pursued a secluded, quiet, thoughtful and comfortable bathing environment. By the Tang Dynasty, in Chang'an, then the capital of the city, there was a large temple of baths called 'Bath Gate'. Some even set up hot spring baths. In 723 AD, the Hot Spring Palace in Lintong was a bathhouse given to Yang Guifei by Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty. It was written by the poet Bai Juyi in his poem Zhouli.
Baths became common in the Song Dynasty. Hong Mai's "Rites of Passage":The average house built by people came with a bathhouse. Yun: "Of the millions of people in Tokyo, not one used all coal instead of firewood." Opportunities for the public to enjoy hot baths seem to have been plentiful. Fan Chengda's "Song of Long Hatred" also says that flower sellers in Lin'an, in order to compete for first place, put unopened plum branches in the bath, where they were fumigated with hot and humid steam, causing dormant buds to bloom ahead of time, in a sort of sublimation of the bath.
The latest in the Song Dynasty began to appear public **** bathhouse and bathroom. The earliest public **** bathroom was the 'mixed hall' in Suzhou. By this time, public **** bathrooms were in the business of back rubbing. Su Dongpo had a line in the year of 'Yi Jian Zhi', 'Send a message to wipe people's backs, waving their elbows day and night'. The Song Dynasty play 'Chicken Ribs Editor' wrote that before dawn, when the city was still asleep, the baths were already open to welcome guests. This custom has continued into the modern era, and is reflected in the couplet "Golden Rooster first hot and then sing soup, red sun on the full guest" plastered on the pink wall in front of the bathhouse.
Baths were very common in the Song Dynasty.
By the Yuan Dynasty, the development of public **** bathhouses had become quite mature. We are told that there were "cold-water bathing bathhouses" on some streets in Hangzhou during the Yuan Dynasty. "Male and female attendants serve you. From childhood, the male and female patrons of these bathhouses were accustomed to taking cold baths all year round and considered it good for their health." Kelboro also wrote in Hangzhou that "all people are used to taking a bath once a day, especially before eating".
An elaborate picture of "public bathing" during much of the Yuan Dynasty is shown. In those days, public **** bathhouses offered not only bathing, but also back scratching, hair combing, shaving and pedicures. However, the prices were different. For a bath, you had to pay five dollars for soup, two dollars for back scratching, five dollars for hair combing, two dollars for shaving, and five dollars for pedicure. All in all, it's 19 dollars. The bathrooms also had cabinets for clothes, hats and boots. The bathing routine was: go to the inner tang pool for a while, sleep in the second room, then go in for a wash, but rest outside the guest room for a while,
When it was combined with a special bathroom, it was supposed to be an accessory functional device. Shower equipment appeared in the Song Dynasty. It is recorded that on the night of the Lantern Festival in Tokyo, Manjushri and Pushyen, who straddled a lion and white elephant, were tied to Lantern Hill on the Imperial Street. They "came out of the water five times with their fingers, shook their hands, twisted the top of the lantern hill with a winch, stored it in a wooden cabinet, and let it down like a waterfall hour after hour." It is assumed that, given the level of mechanical production at the time, it is entirely possible to install similar winch-drying, water storage and drainage apparatus in the bath. In the work "Plum Spectrum" by Song Li, a painter of the Southern Song Dynasty, there is an artificial waterfall device controlled by a sluice gate. Based on this principle, it could be converted into a shower device.
The Yuan Dynasty leaky copper timer is a device that clearly reflects the appearance of a shower. It is worth mentioning that Tao "Ru Meng Ling" recorded the bathing scene in the palace. The palace bath was made of stone, carved with stones and rocks, with exotic flowers and countless leaves placed in the center. It was topped with a purple cloud and nine dragons Huagai, surrounded by Shu brocade, spanning the pool for three weeks. On the bridge, the brocade is a pavilion with a phoenix in the center plaque, a cloud on the left plaque and a cloud on the right plaque, the three plaques facing each other.
The three pavilions are set on another cross bridge to the future. Guifei bath, riding on the warm jade lynx, white crystal deer, red stone horse and other animal toys. In the pool, you can play the game of "welcoming auspiciousness on the water". Wang Renyu "Jibang discourse" shows another scene: in the wind soup filled with Wen Yao Mi Shi, the middle tip of the jade lotus, the soup spring in the full pool, embroidered geese sewn into the water, the emperor and the consort in the middle of the carving boat to play.
Yangzhou, built in the Yuan Dynasty mosque, south of Puhadin's tomb, there is a "water room", that is, today's shower room. It was built for incoming Muslims to perform purification rituals. The "water room" was fully functional; it had a hot water stove, a one-way shower, and a hanging pot for storing hot water with a room underneath where the water would pour down. You can bathe your whole body in the order of right then left, from bottom to top. It seems that this is the earliest testimony of "shower" in Yangzhou, which contributed to the development of bathing industry.
Conclusion: Through the above introduction, we must all know that ancient women had a really serious life, only three baths. Because it was a patriarchal society at that time, women rarely had time to boil water for bathing while they were busy at home. Ancient beauties were also very particular about bathing. I hope that the introduction of the side of the Shaw will be helpful to you.