Chinese Kè System (百刻・96刻) (百刻制)

THE CHINESE KÈ SYSTEM (百刻制 → 96刻) — two thousand years of dividing the day, and the arithmetic headache running through all of it: ancient China kept the twelve double-hours AND the hundred kè of the clepsydra at once — and 100 IS NOT DIVISIBLE BY 12 (asserted): each shichen held 8⅓ kè, a fraction that tormented calendarists for millennia (Wang Mang tried 120, the Liang 96 and 108, every reform undone) — until THE JESUIT FIX: the Shixian calendar of 1645 (Adam Schall von Bell) settled 96 kè, and 96 ÷ 12 = 8 EXACTLY, each kè fifteen minutes — one of history's quietest successful reforms, it worked because the arithmetic finally did. AND MODERN CHINESE SPEAKS THE WHOLE HISTORY DAILY, two fossil-word laws: 一刻 means QUARTER-HOUR (三点一刻 = 3:15) — the Jesuit kè in everyday speech; and 小时, the ordinary word for HOUR, literally 'small time' — the HALF of a double-hour (子初/子正, midnight proven 子正). The five night watches ride beside (三更半夜 — and the third watch DOES hold midnight, asserted). Eastern becomes seventy-one. Pure compute, no LLM.

Cost: 1 TIAN Points per call. tRPC procedure hundredKe.time.