What is the Cold Food Festival?

Cold Food Festival, also known as the "Smoke-free Festival", "Cold Festival", "Hundred and Five Festival", in the summer calendar after the winter solstice one hundred and five days, one or two days before the Qingming Festival. It is the first day of the festival, smoke and fire are prohibited, and only cold food is eaten. And in the development of later generations gradually increased the cleaning, trekking, swing, cuju, pulling hooks, cockfighting and other customs, cold food festival stretched before and after more than 2,000 years, once known as the first folk festival.

The Fire Festival was later transformed into the Cold Food Festival to commemorate Jie Zi Tui, a famous official of the state of Jin during the Spring and Autumn Period. Legend has it that during the exile of the Duke of Jin, Jie Zi Tui once cut off his stock to feed him. When Duke Wen of Jin returned to his country, he divided his ministers into portfolios, but Jie Zi Pui did not want to be rewarded, so he took his mother to live in Mian Mountain. Later, Duke Wen of Jin went to Mianshan to invite Jie Zi Tui in person, but Jie Zi Tui did not want to be an official.

Hiding in the mountain, Duke Wen's men set fire to the mountain to force Jie Zi Tui to show his face, and as a result, Jie Zi Tui was burned to death under a big willow tree with his mother in his arms. In order to commemorate this loyal and righteous man, Duke Wen of Jin then ordered that no fire should be made for cooking on the day of Jie Zi Pui's death, and that cold food should be eaten, which was called the Cold Food Festival.

During the Han Dynasty, the people of Shanxi banned fires for a month to commemorate the event. During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao, Emperor Wu of Wei, ordered the abolition of this custom. "Yin punishment order" in these words, "heard Taiyuan, Shangdang, Yanmen winter solstice after hundred and five days are all cut off fire and cold food, the cloud for the son pushed", the order to the people are not allowed to cold food. Offenders, parents half a year of punishment, the main official hundred days of punishment, so that the long take a month's salary".