What were the origins and customs of kites before the Five Dynasties?

During the Jianyuan period of the Western Han Dynasty, there was an old farmer in the Yanzhao region in the north who wore a bucket hat and worked in the fields every day.

One day in early fall, when it was very windy, the old farmer was harvesting wheat in the field, when suddenly the wind became so strong that his hat flew away. The old farmer was so agile that he grabbed the thin rope tied to the hat and tried to pull it back.

But the wind was so strong that the hat was blown up into the air, and it happened that the old farmer's hat had a very long string on it, so the hat floated in the air like a leaf.

With a little more effort, the hat came back to him. He thought this was very funny, so the old farmer deliberately threw the hat into the sky, pulling the thin rope on the hat so that the hat would not be blown away by the wind, but the hat, with the help of the wind, could still float in mid-air.

The old farmer played for a while and then put away the hat. He went home and told his family about it, and deliberately threw out the hat to show it off. His family also thought it was amazing, so they told the village about it.

Then the village people spread the word about the hat. Gradually, this matter spread to the streets of Yanzhao area, and people began to play the game of releasing bucket hats.

Not long after, when people were releasing the hats, they felt that the hats were still too heavy and could not float in mid-air for too long. So some people improved the game by replacing the hats with kraft paper, and it evolved into kite flying.

Kite flying is a traditional sport widely practiced in ancient China. It is popular in all parts of China and has a long history of more than 2,000 years, and is also known as the "earliest human flying machine".

The kite originated in the ancient times of China, and this has long been recognized. But about its origin in addition to China's ancient hats, there are two other legends: one is the leaves said; the second is the sailboat said.

Leaves from the southern part of China. It is said that in ancient times, people worshiped the phenomenon of "wind-roll leaves flying all over the sky", so people used hemp wire to tie the leaves to play, and then gradually evolved into kite-flying activities.　

Sailboat said the same from the southern water towns in China, it is said that ancient southerners use wooden boats have been more than 2000 years of history. Later, there were sailboats, sails are a tool with the help of wind power, ancient people then modeled on the principle of sails, tied up kites to fly for fun, and then gradually evolved into kite-flying activities.

In China's ancient times, there are many legends about kites, which are also called "paper kites", "wind kites", "paper harriers" or "harriers". ". The kite was called "harrier" in ancient times, and also called "kite" in the northern part of China, which is an ancient traditional folk crafts.

There is a wealth of historical information about kites in China's ancient books. In fact, the first kites in China were made of wood. It is said that the earliest kite was made by Mo Zhai, a famous philosopher in the Spring and Autumn Period.

According to "Han Feizi - Foreign Reserve":

Mo Zhai lived in Lushan, chopped wood for harriers, three years and became a fly one day and failed.

This is to say that Mozi will kite research for three years, finally he made a wooden bird with wood, but only flew a day on the wooden bird is broken. The "wooden bird" made by Mozi was the earliest kite ever recorded in China.

Murice made this "wooden bird, the shape is very peculiar, and it already has the function of "flying", so it can be inferred that China's kites have a history of more than 2000 years.

Later, Mozi passed on the kite-making business to his student Gongtu Ban, who was also called Lu Ban, a famous master carpenter in later times. Lu Ban was very clever, and he began to use bamboo to make kites based on his teacher Mozi's ideals and designs. Lu Ban split and smoothed the bamboo, and then he used fire to roast and bend the bamboo to make it look like a magpie, which was called a "wooden magpie".

The wooden magpie flew for three days, which was a great improvement over Mo Zhai's wooden bird. Since the magpie could float in the sky with the help of the wind, Lu Ban used it as a method of scouting, and he used it to spy on the military situation of Song. This is the origin of Lu Ban's "making wooden magpies to spy on the city of Song".

After the introduction of the kite, it was soon used to convey messages, and later, due to the emergence of the paper industry, the kite was made of paper, and it was soon introduced to the people, and became a kind of toys for the entertainment of the people in ancient times, however, the kite was also used in the military use time and again.

Later in the Song Dynasty, Gao Cheng's "The Chronicle of Things" recorded that Han Xin, one of the three masters of the early Western Han Dynasty, used kites in combat. It is written that when the king of Chu was trapped in Gaixia, Han Xin made a kite for Zhang Liang to ride on, and flew it up to the sky to sing Chu songs, so as to break the heart of the army in Chu camp.

This also shows that when Han Xin was attacking the Western Chu army led by Xiang Yu during the Chu-Han conflict, he used kites to scout the strength of the Western Chu army.

At the famous Battle of Gaixia, when Xiang Yu's Western Chu army was besieged by the Han army of Liu Bang and Han Xin, Han Xin also sent people to make kites from cowhide with bamboo flutes on top. These kites sounded in the wind, as if many people were playing flutes together. The Han army matched the sound of the flute and sang the folk songs of Chu, which also directly demoralized the Western Chu army.

To the Eastern Han Dynasty, after the famous inventor Cai Lun invented the papermaking technique, then the people began to use paper to make kites, which were slowly called "paper kites".

As for the name "kite", it should be attributed to Li Ye, a minister of the Later Han Dynasty, who used to fly a paper kite on a string as a game in the palace to please Emperor Yin of Han. Li Ye installed a bamboo flute at the head of the kite, and when the kite flew up to the sky, the wind blew into the flute and made a sound like that of a koto, which gave the name "kite" to the paper kite.

About this story, the original words in the history book are:

Li Ye made a paper kite in the palace, and the fuse rode the wind as a play, and then the bamboo flute at the head of the kite was used as a flute, so that the wind went into the bamboo, and the sound was like the sound of a kite, and hence the name "kite".

So, in the north and south dynasty period, the kite is roughly divided into two kinds, one can not make a sound called "paper kite"; and "paper kite" equipped with a bamboo flute can make a sound called "kite". The kite is called a "kite" because it can make sound.

The anecdote of using kites to ask for help was later recorded in the book "The Chronicle of Things" and the history book "New Book of Tang". In 549 during the Southern Dynasty, enemy forces besieged Xiao Yan, the Emperor of Liang Wu, in Jianye City, the capital of Liang. At this time, the city walls were surrounded by enemy troops on all sides, and the city was cut off from inside and outside.

Some people suggested to Xiao Yan that he should make a "paper crow" to tie a letter of help to it.

Xiao Yan thought it was a good idea, so he had his soldiers make paper crows, which he then released outside the Taichi Palace in the northwesterly winds to ask for help.

But unfortunately, this "paper crow" was discovered by the enemy troops, who thought it was a "demonic art" and shot it down with their bows and arrows. This was the beginning of the use of kites to transmit military intelligence.

A more bizarre rumor about kites is found in the "White Stone Reef True Manuscripts". 559, when Emperor Wen Xuan of Northern Qi Dynasty, Yuan Shao, the grandson of King Yuan Fei of Pengcheng, was imprisoned in a dungeon. Yuan Shao's cousin made kites for Yuan Shao, and the two of them flew away from Golden Wind Tower on the kites. These legends reflect the whimsical ideas of our ancient people about kite flying.

Yuan Zhen, a famous poet of the Tang Dynasty, once wrote a poem about kites, in which he wrote:

There are birds and there are birds flocking paper kites, which are held by children because of the wind's false momentum.

Going to the ground gradually high people's eyes chaotic, the world for er feathers all.

The wind has broken the rope and the child has gone away, but the remaining momentum is still in the sky.

Worrying about you, who will have mercy on you when you fall into the deep mud.

Also, the Tang Dynasty poet Gao Jiao in his poem "kite" described:

Night quiet strings sound in the blue sky, the Gongshang trust to the wind,

Vaguely like the song can be listened to, and the wind blowing in a different tune.

These verses show that kite flying was already very popular among the people in the Sui and Tang dynasties. At that time, kites were more perfectly crafted, their forms were more varied, and the bamboo flutes attached to them were more melodious and pleasing to the ear.

In fact, it is impossible to prove the real origin of kites now. Most people believe that the ancient people invented kites mainly for the remembrance of their deceased relatives and friends, so people usually put their condolences to the deceased on the kites during the Qingming Festival, hoping to transmit them to their dead relatives and friends with the help of the kites.

So, kite flying has been passed down for a long time as one of the customs of Qingming Festival in ancient China. It is proved that in ancient times, kite-flying activities could last until the Qingming Festival after the Lantern Festival, so the Qingming Festival was also called the "Kite Festival" in ancient times.

Before the Sui and Tang dynasties, kite flying was still an outdoor activity with witchcraft significance, which aimed at letting people let go of their bad luck. When the kite was flown high, people intentionally cut the fuse and let the kite float away, which was said to take away people's bad luck, troubles, bitterness, sorrows and illnesses.

The Qingming Festival, the sky is clear, the breeze is smooth, the grass and trees are sprouting, it is a good time to fly a kite. So on this day, the ancients wrote all their troubles on paper, and then people tied the paper in the kite and flew it, so that the paper with the troubles would never return with the kite.

So kite-flying was not only a cultural and recreational activity, but also a kind of talisman to avoid evil spirits during festivals in ancient times. Of course, with the passage of time, kite-flying has long since washed away the old witchcraft colors, the ancients simply used it to express their good wishes.

This also shows that kite flying has become a popular recreational activity in ancient times in China, and that people flying kites outdoors greatly relaxed the tense and serious atmosphere of the weekdays and regulated the busy rhythm of life.

But flying a kite as a talisman was not something that anyone could enjoy in ancient times, because kites were finely crafted and expensive, so flying a kite became an elegant recreational activity. In fact, in ancient times, due to low productivity, people were unable to resist diseases and various natural disasters, so they prayed for good luck from heaven. This psychological manifestation reacted to kite flying as the custom of flying bad luck.

Anciently, people believed that flying kites could let go of bad luck and bring good fortune, and at the same time bring good luck to themselves. Because flying a kite is letting go of bad luck, the ancients had to cut the strings and let the kite fly away, no matter how delicate the kite looked. In this way, the ancients sought to achieve the purpose of eliminating disasters and difficulties.