Although it has long since retired from the historical stage, it was essential to work night shifts in ancient China. Why did China play at night in ancient times? To understand the reason, we should start with the significance of playing overtime.

There are often such plots in costume dramas. At night, one of them knocked gong in the street and shouted? Be careful with candles when the weather is dry? People who talk like this. This role is not fictional in the costume drama, but real. People who beat gongs and shouted slogans in the street at night were night watchman, which was an indispensable occupation in ancient China. The night watchman's job is to work overtime, and the main function of overtime is to tell people the time at night. Of course, the night watchman also has the duty of patrolling at night. For example, when he sees which door is open, where there is a fire and where there are thieves, he will promptly remind and stop it.

In ancient times, there were no watches, mobile phones and other tools to tell time. It is not easy to judge the time, especially at night. During the day, people can also judge the time according to the position of the sky and the sun, or with the help of time-measuring tools such as sundials. But without the sun at night, the sundial can't play the role of timing, and it is even more difficult to grasp the time. In this case, it is necessary to tell the time at night. Thus came the profession of night watchman. He tells people the time at night. So how many times did the ancient night watchman have to work overtime all night, and when did he work overtime every time?

The timing in ancient China is different from that in modern times. We now divide the day into 24 hours, while in ancient times, the day was divided into 12 hours. In other words, one hour in ancient times is equivalent to two hours now. In ancient times, 12 hours in a day were named after 12 earthly branches, such as midnight and noon, which were similar to the names of the zodiac. The ancients took Zishi as the first hour of the day, which corresponds to the time from eleven o'clock in the evening to one o'clock in the morning. Every two hours after midnight corresponds to one hour. The night shift starts at seven o'clock in the evening, that is, the first shift at the beginning of the night. After that, I will work the night shift every hour, and I will work the night shift five times. The last time is at 3 am.

Seeing this, some people may find it strange. Why did ancient people start playing so early at 7 pm and stop playing after 3 am? In fact, this is mainly because the living habits and schedules of ancient people and modern people are different. For us modern people, we don't eat until after seven o'clock in the evening, and almost no one will go to bed so early. From 3 am to 5 am, except for a few industries such as catering and logistics, most people are still asleep.

But in ancient times, the situation was different. The ancients usually went out to do business as soon as the sun came out in the morning and went home for dinner after sunset in the afternoon. In addition, the ancient nightlife is not as colorful as the modern one. So the ancients generally went to bed early at night and got up early in the morning. We sometimes read in books that ancient officials began to prepare for the early hours of the morning, which is actually close to historical facts. For example, in the early years of the Ming dynasty, it started at 3: 05 in the morning.

So how did the ancient night watchman himself determine the time of overtime? This problem involves several ancient timing methods. Apart from burning incense and hourglass, the most common method used by ancient watchmen is to time by missing the carving. The principle of clepsydra timing is not difficult. Time can only be measured by clepsydra, ruler and water.

It takes at least two pots to miss the carving. The pot above is called a leaky pot, and there is a small hole at the bottom for water leakage. Below the leaky kettle is a connecting kettle, which is watertight. There is a scale bar with 100 scales engraved on it, indicating that the time of the day is divided into 100 scales. In this way, a scale is equivalent to modern 14.4 points. People often say that a quarter of an hour is 15 minutes, and that's how it came about. When the water drops in the leaky kettle drip into the kettle, the horizontal line in the kettle will rise a little, corresponding to a time point, which is the principle of leaky timing.

The night watchman has existed not only in ancient times, but also for quite some time after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In some parts of our country, there were similar bellmen until 1970s and 1980s. However, one person is no longer fixed to work overtime, but every household in the village takes turns to work overtime, and it is free, which is more like an obligation than a profession.