Chapter 480: Troops approaching the city, asking for help
Late at night, no one could sleep in the lobby of the Xiangping County Sheriff's Mansion in Liaodong County. Even though there was a charcoal fire burning in the lobby, Liaodong County Governor Zhang Bi, the county magistrate, the county lieutenant, the chief registrar and other important officials were all present.
Listening patiently and angrily to the report of a Wei soldier in the hall who was dressed in shabby clothes, dirty, and covered in blood.
The soldier said sadly: "Guardian, the Wu army made a sneak attack with a large number of people. Now the three counties have fallen, and only a few people have escaped. One of the three county magistrates died in battle, and two were captured.
I think the troops will be at Xiangping City tomorrow afternoon, so the county guard should quickly send someone to ask for help from Jixian County, after all, the strength of Liaodong County today is not as good as it used to be."
But the civil and military personnel in the hall were all wearing fur clothes, cotton robes, and even a few were wearing paper clothes. Of course, this was only in Liaodong, but there were very few animal furs such as fox furs in the hall.
A little further south, there is no need for such clothes, and you can wear thinner clothes.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, due to frequent wars and economic backwardness, before the popularization of paper fur, people usually wore fur, which is now called fur.
Fox fur is the most precious among fur clothes. The reason is that fox fur is not made from a whole piece of fox skin, but from the armpits.
Only the down of the armpits of the fox is taken. This kind of fox fur is pure white in color, light and warm. It is also called "fox white fur". Only the nobles among the nobles can afford to wear it. It can reflect the noble status of the wearer.
"Yanzi Chunqiu" records: "Jinggong gave Yanzi a fox-white fur and a black leopard, and his capital was thousands of gold."
Duke Jinggong of Qi rewarded Yan Zi with a fox-white fur coat decorated with black panther skin. It was worth thousands of gold and was an extremely rare fur coat at that time.
There is a sentence in "Mozi": "The water of a river does not come from the same source; the fur of a thousand yi (twenty taels, one says it is twenty-four taels) is not the white of a fox."
It shows that making a fox white fur coat often requires hunting a lot of foxes before it can be used.
During the Warring States Period, Meng Changjun, a member of the Qi clan and minister, once bribed others with fox-white fur coats to save his life.
"Historical Records" records: "I imprisoned Lord Mengchang and planned to kill him. Lord Mengchang sent people to King Zhao's concubine to ask for answers..." King Zhao of Qin imprisoned Lord Mengchang and planned to kill him. Lord Mengchang sent people to find King Zhao of Qin's concubine to intercede on his behalf.
Save your life.
The concubine said, "I would like to have your fox-white fur." Because it was winter, Mengchang was wearing a fox-white fur that was worth thousands of gold and was "unparalleled in the world."
It was important to save his life, so Lord Mengchang did not hesitate to take off his fox white fur and offer it to King Qin Zhao, thus saving his own life.
In addition to fox white fur, the nobles also wore mink fur, raccoon dog fur, lamb fur, etc., as rare fur garments. Du Fu wrote a poem: "The mink fur fur is a warm guest, and the sorrowful management drives the Qingse away."
Many people should be aware of the allusion of "Baili Xi was raised in the market". Baili Xi, the "Doctor Wuxi", was exchanged by Qin Mu from the market.
After Baili Xi became the prime minister of the Qin State, "anything he planned was improper, and his actions were meritorious". He cultivated the state internally and sought hegemony externally.
Made a huge contribution.
When Duke Mu of Qin used five pieces of black sheepskin in exchange for Baili Xi, they were the material used to make furs.
Sheepskin could be exchanged for slaves, which shows how precious a fur was at a time when the economy was not very developed.
As for the common people, they can only rely on robes made of old silk cotton and messy linen to resist the wind and cold.
The Book of Songs Qin Feng said that people in three ancient dynasties had records of cotton robes. In the Zhou Dynasty, the status of robes was not high and it was a kind of casual clothing. Because of its good performance in keeping out the cold,
At that time, soldiers fighting in the field were equipped with cotton robes as standard in winter. The so-called battle robes came from this. Even so, in ancient times when materials were scarce, cotton robes were not something you could wear if you wanted to.
There is a poem called Wu Yi in "The Book of Songs Qin Feng". The beginning of the poem says, "Wu Yi, sharing the same robe with his son." So the situation at that time was that two people shared the same robe, and poor people especially had no clothes.
The robe can be worn,
There is a poem from later generations that says: "The five-flowered horse and the golden fur will be exchanged for fine wine." This is a very popular saying.
At the same time, we can also see from the side that in ancient times, the "five-flowered horse" and the "thousand gold fur" were rare and precious personal items, especially the "thousand gold fur", which ordinary farmers could not afford and dare not wear.
Therefore, those who can afford to wear these are wealthy businessmen or high-ranking officials.
So what did ordinary people wear during the winter in the past? In the past, during the twelfth lunar month of winter, the emperor also liked to carry out activities for the welfare of the common people and wanted to bring warmth to the poor.
Therefore, giving away paper clothes has become an important activity, and paper clothes are also called "paper fur".
"People all use paper as clothes, or those who have clothes and scriptures", "It's cold in the country, and everyone uses paper and scraps of books as clothing."
At this time, the poor people suffered from war and were displaced. Since they had no cloth clothes, they used local materials to make paper clothes to keep out the cold. The cost of paper raw materials was low and easy to obtain, so it could be widely used.
Cao Fang would also distribute paper clothes to the people of Luoyang every winter. Cao Shuang would not do this before, but this year Cao Shuang wanted to prepare some after the emperor distributed paper clothes in the winter in a few months.
The people of Luoyang.
In the Tang Dynasty, kapok and straw cotton wadding were used to make clothes, which was rarely seen in the royal family. Rich people bought clothes made of animal skins.
Leather clothes are not cheap now, let alone in the past. Paper furs were not only given by emperors to provide warmth, but ordinary people would also make them themselves in order to survive the winter.
The material of paper fur is usually mulberry bark. The bark must be made into paper first, and then the paper can be used to make clothes.
The basic method is to use hundreds of pieces of mulberry bark to make paper.
These papers are then steamed together. After boiling, walnuts are added to increase the softness of the paper, and then the papers are pressed into one sheet for cutting clothes.
As a fibrous material, after this series of processes, the paper made from mulberry bark is not only flexible, thick, but also airtight. In order to increase the thermal insulation effect, fillers such as linen wadding are placed in the middle of the paper fur.
After it is made, you can also dye the paper fur into the color you like according to your own preferences. After it is finished, the clothes will not only be clean and beautiful, but also have good warmth retention, as good as fur.
For ordinary people, the more important point is that if the paper fur is old and torn, it can be repaired and continued to be worn.
The great poet Su Dongpo was very experienced in repairing paper fur. He once said: "If the paper fur is going to be broken, use six or seven yellow hollyhock stalks. After crushing it, soak it in water and brush it with saliva, and it will be as good as new. Or use hibiscus,
Needles can also be repaired by pounding them with water and washing them."
Now that the economy has developed, most people choose to wear robes.
The robe is actually a bit like our current military coat. It is a long coat that is one piece from top to bottom. It has two layers, inner and outer, with soft cold-proof material inside.
There are two types of materials, one is relatively high-end and uses wadding made of silk; the other has some burlap or other things put inside, which is a kind of wadding that is very similar to silk.
Since the Zhou Dynasty, the robe has been a kind of casual clothing.
It's a bit like the military coats and down coats of later generations, mainly used to keep out the cold.
At that time, in order to prevent soldiers from freezing when they went out to fight, each soldier was given a piece of clothing. The inside was made of burlap and the like, and it was also anti-freeze. This was standard equipment, and the term "war shirt" came into being.