Qing Dynasty Beijing Icehouse Tibetan Ice Research

Northern China situated in the continental climatic zone, and the latitude is high, for the cold weather in winter, river water always turns to ice, therefore there has the superior natural condition to contain ice in ice cellar, thus the ice cellars distribution was common in northern China. During the Qing Dynasty, comparing with other places, Beijing area has the largest number of ice cellars and the largest scale of ice-conserving. As the capital of China, massive ice pieces were used in the numerous sacrificial offerings and celebrations which Beijing holds every year. The imperial family and the officials use huge number of ice in summer diet and to make them feel cool in hot weather which was recorded in the history book.Most articles always study about the ice-conserving in Zhou Dynasty or the Tang Song's times, little article mentions about the Qing Dynasty. Thorough analytical study to the related historical documents and the archaeology materials to research the ice cellars'construction types and the distribution conditions and the ice cellar construction schedule as well as ice cellar current management condition and so on, many aspects carries on the omni-directional discussion in Beijing of Qing Dynasty to research ice-conserving technology development in the Qing Dynasty of our country. This paper is divided into six chapters:The first chapter is an introduction. Introduction is about background of selecting the topic, research present situation, research mentality, research technique and so on about the paper.The second chapter mainly studies the quantity and distributed characteristic of Beijing ice cellars in the Qing Dynasty. In different emperors'ruling times, the ice cellars'quantity and the ice scale has changed obviously. Most ice cellars distributed nearby the high quality water.The third chapter studies the construction facility and ice-conserving principle of ice cellars. The brick-built ice cellars construction are almost the same, they all have half underground form. Brick-built cellars has lots of advantages above earth-built, The Brick cellars'shortcoming is costs too much, and then the earth-built cellar saved a lot. The ice-conserving principle mainly manifests on the ice cellars'structural design and the construction materials. The fourth chapter researches about ice gathering. The gathering process can be divided into several specifically processes, such as clearing the river, taking ice, transporting ice, containing ice.The fifth chapter studies how the ice used. Official cellars supply national sacrificial offering grand ceremony as well as hot summer aristocrat funeral indispensable. And the main use supplies in the imperial summer day diet, bestowed the ice to the royal courtier. But in the Qing Dynasty common people can also buy ice.The sixth chapter is the conclusion, extends and make summary for the paper. To show the meaning of studying ice cellar technology in the Qing Dynasty is to give reference of conserving energy and protecting environment for now.All in one sentence, the ice cellar characteristic in the Qing Dynasty are, distributes broadly, big quantity, ice-conserving quantity is huge, construction structure is elegant, considered ice-conserving convenience, ice use safety and so on various factors. The construction is manifesting the social scale. Not only the construction chose the material to consider the construction structure needed also to consider the ice cellar use particularity, was the ancient times working people wisdom and experience's summary.First, in the ancient times, the aim of ice cellars'construction is supply ice for the imperial family and the aristocrat; contrast to the old times, the ice cellars'scale and quantity has achieved a new altitude in the Qing dynasty.Second, the building technology and the building style are characteristic, particularly the official ice cellars'construction has manifested the ancient times artisan labor sophistication for the building material and the choosing of building place.Third, regarding the problem of existing articles about the number of ice cellars digit record's inconsistent, we take the ancient book literature record as the standard. For example, some articles say different about the date of first time to take ice out of frozen rivers every year, by taking many kinds of folk custom books to make a conclusion as the winter solstice in this paper.Through studying the Qing Dynasty ice cellars, we hope this paper that might call people's interest of tradition technology. Although many kinds of traditional technologies are inferior to today high tech, but in order to saved energy and protect environment, the improved traditional technologies may benefit our society using ancient's wisdom in preventing environmental pollution.