Lantern Festival lasts 3 days, and Tomb-Sweeping Day lasts 7 days! What are the enviable festivals in Song Dynasty?

Those strange festivals in the Song Dynasty

Text: Chen Huasheng

Jin Ping Mei is a novel describing the life of literati in the Song Dynasty, and it has repeatedly described the appreciation of lanterns in Shangyuan. The whole 100 year "Jin Ping Mei" was described four times in the Lantern Festival last year, with a total of 16 chapters. The huge space makes us feel that the author of Jin Ping Mei is almost infatuated with the excitement of the Lantern Festival.

Then, what kind of festival is Shangyuan Festival, which makes the author willing to describe it with pen and ink? As it happens, the Spring Festival is coming, and we can experience the excitement of the Lantern Festival here!

Lantern Festival, that is, today's Lantern Festival is the 15th day of the first month, which can be said to be the biggest legal festival among the people in the Song Dynasty.

Last Yuan Festival, the emperor watched the performance.

Although the Lantern Festival has become a custom in the Tang Dynasty, it was not designated as a legal festival in the Tang Dynasty. This legal festival was born in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty.

On the evening of January of the first year of Qianlong, Zhao Kuangyin, who had just become emperor, boarded the Xuande Gate Tower, only to see thousands of lights, flutes and drums intercropping, female huan meeting and traffic. What a prosperous time! Song Taizu is in a good mood. He asked Liu Yun, the minister beside him, how did these words compare with the Five Dynasties? Of course, Liu Yun chose Zi Ling, which is a good opportunity to please others. He immediately replied: people and things are very prosperous, several times more than five generations.

Zhao Kuangyin was very happy. He thought that the newly established Dasong had just pacified the Southern Tang Dynasty, pacified Jingxiang and Sichuan, and Zhao's flag fluttered in the wind, which should be celebrated. At that time, there was no popular military parade in the world, so Zhao Kuangyin ordered that the special letters Kaifeng House be hung on the evenings of 18 and 19 of the Lantern Festival to let the soldiers have a good time. Since then, Shangyuan Festival, a legal holiday, has become a custom in the Song Dynasty.

If the solstice of winter, the beginning of spring, New Year's Eve and January 1 Sunday are all busy with their own New Year, it will be the climax of collective celebration of the Spring Festival.

Thanks to the three-day holiday, the time for leisure and entertainment is more abundant, and the citizens of Tokyo have taken the custom of watching lanterns in Shangyuan to the extreme, and arranged the capital of song dynasty in Tokyo into a sea of lights.

Among many lamps, lanterns are worth mentioning. From the development history of science and technology, it is the bud of modern gas turbine. Song people used the principle that air rises after being heated and cold air sinks to turn it into a lantern. This is not an empty idea!

This night, even the emperor was not lonely. He took the concubines of the harem to Xuande upstairs to enjoy the Lantern Festival and watch various performances by folk artists. The artist was inspired and shouted, Long live! Put it in your mouth, harder. Liu Bei gave a reward upstairs, and money rained down.

Today, solve riddles on the lanterns was also invented in the Song Dynasty. Maybe it's because watching the lights is too monotonous, so I have to find some entertainment. Of course, if you guess the riddle, you can also get a reward. It is as small as a lantern and as big as a copper coin. Anyway, have fun!

On the fifteenth night of the first lunar month; Lantern Festival; On the fifteenth night of the first lunar month; Lantern Festival; night of the 15th of the first lunar month；Lantern Festival；yuanxiao

Because Mao's supreme instructions encouraged people's happiness, the government made an exception and opened all kinds of bans, even the majority of female compatriots were liberated.

Usually they don't have to go out of the boudoir, so they don't talk about any social activities. On the Lantern Festival, they can also make lanterns with their families. So the girl in love and the prince staged many love stories on this day:

A scholar named Zhang in Tokyo went to the temple to see the lights in the middle of the night and found a red handkerchief on the head of the temple. There is a poem on the handkerchief, and there is a line of fine print on it: lovers can find this handkerchief, and don't forget it. Please wait at the back door of Suoguo Temple on the 15th night of the first month of next year. There is a mandarin duck lamp in front of the car.

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This story of the Song people was recorded during the Yongle Grand Ceremony. It should be regarded as a social news of Shangyuan Festival in Song Dynasty. More funny social news is recorded in Xuanhe's suicide note:

On a whim, Song Huizong, the happy son of heaven, ordered the royal wine to be distributed throughout Tokyo during the Lantern Festival. After a woman ate the royal wine, she was greedy and hid the golden cup. There were no bras and handbags at that time. I want to know where she is hiding. Anyway, I found that it had been withdrawn.

Great! The case happened under the emperor's eyes. Song Huizong will also become a variety show and try its own situation. However, that woman is not simple. Born today, she is definitely a defense lawyer. You see, she defended herself: my husband and I went out to watch the lights and lost them in the crowd. Now, I-I received the imperial wine from the emperor, and it-it was stained with wine. Although we didn't check the drunk driving in the Song Dynasty, I didn't check T's going home with my husband, and I was afraid of being blamed by my parents-in-law, so I wanted to take the gold cup back as a voucher and tell them that the emperor gave me the wine, so I couldn't help drinking it-look! Look! Look how easily she talks.

But this woman is also a young woman in literature and art, and it is said that she also wrote a sentence on the spot:

The moon is full of bright lights, hand in hand with Lang to the end door. Seeing the greedy crane strike, I don't think Yuanyang has left this group.

It is dawn, and I am grateful to the emperor. Your kindness, and announced that I want to drink wine, have a drink.

I am-I'm afraid my family will be blamed by Aunt Weng for stealing the gold cup.

The word touched the emperor Hui Zong, a young scholar, and simply gave her a golden cup. Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't # don't steal the emperor's golden cup, otherwise we will all be more than one bargained for.

Of course, although it is a legal holiday, not all women can enjoy it. Among some scholars and bureaucrats, women are still forbidden to go out.

When Sima Guang lived in Luoyang, it was the Lantern Festival. His wife wanted to go out and watch the lights. Sima Guang said with a straight face, why do you want to go out and watch the lights at home? My wife had to say, I still want to see the tourists. Unexpectedly, the old teacher's face tightened: am I a ghost?

Although there are people like Sima Guang who don't understand amorous feelings and are unreasonable, on the whole, the night of Shang Yuan is not subject to any constraints, and all they want is happiness. It can be said that the whole party was a carnival of the Great Song Dynasty.

This carnival will last until the seventeenth day of the first month. After the carnival, is it time to work? Then that's right. When spring comes, Taishi Museum will build a local cow and put it in the Spring Festival Hall. Then, Taichang Temple prepared music to welcome the local scalpers out of the hall. The emperor personally picked up the whip and symbolically slapped the local Niu Yi. This is called Da Chun: everyone in this country should work. Every day is morning, and every year is spring!

Playing spring is a folk custom of Han nationality, which refers to the custom of beating mud spring cattle with a whip to pray for a bumper harvest, or beating gongs, bamboo boards and so on. Singing lyrics and asking for money from door to door.

The next festivals are Cold Food Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day. We stipulated in the Song Dynasty that the Cold Food Festival and the Seamless Square Tube Shunye in the Qing Dynasty belong to the Ming Festival, and both have seven days' holiday, which is equivalent to your National Day holiday.

During the Cold Food Festival, every household should turn off the cold stove, and the palace is no exception. It can be cooked without regenerative fire, or even boiled in hot water to make tea. It is said that this is to commemorate meson push. He didn't talk about grades, did he? He didn't want money, and was accidentally burned to death by Jin Wengong. Therefore, during the Cold Food Festival, people in the Song Dynasty had to prepare food for several days. At that time, there were no supermarkets, bread and instant noodles, but wheat cakes, jujube cakes and pumpkin cakes could be made.

Two days later, in Tomb-Sweeping Day, a little eunuch was pushed out of the palace to make a fire. Whoever escapes from the fire first will be rewarded. It is said that there are fifty taels of gold for every reward! Then, the emperor will give the ministers new kindling. Ordinary people can. I can't make a fire, but I know how to make a fire, so the capital is full of smoke. After dinner, everyone can go to An 'ou.

Then, it is much more complicated and interesting to get yellow mud and clay, shape a human figure, and put the statue of Zhang Tianshi with moxa as the head and garlic as the fist in front of the door, which is much more complicated and interesting than buying calamus and wormwood to hang in front of the door today.

As for other dragon boat races, eating zongzi and Huang Wu, they are similar to the customs handed down today.

But in the Southern Song Dynasty, at noon on the Dragon Boat Festival, every household lit a wick, and the whole city was shrouded in a cloud of lingering fragrance. At noon in May, incense continued every day, and the whole city became a fragrant city. I wonder if this move came from He Dian? Probably burning incense can ward off evil spirits, or at least drive away mosquitoes and flies. The hygiene habits of people in Song Dynasty were good.

Dragon Boat Festival, watch the dragon boat race.

In a few days, the Chinese New Year will be halfway through, and everyone will miss the excitement of focusing on festivals during the Chinese New Year, so there are a lot of festivals waiting for you: Qiqiao Festival on July 7, Mid-Autumn Festival on July 15, and Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15.

Today, Valentine's Day in China was fired as Valentine's Day in China. It was the businessman who cheated our male compatriots of their money. In fact, Valentine's Day in China and Dragon Boat Festival in Song Dynasty, commonly known as Beggar's Day, are typical Daughter's Day.

On this day, the streets are full of grinding medicine and drinking medicine. Grinding medicine is not medicine, it is a doll, it is a doll. Let's just say it's Barbie from the Song Dynasty! Grinding medicine is the god of music and wisdom, and all daughters should worship it.

On this night, families with daughters will set up offerings in the yard, light incense, pray for their daughters, and then catch a spider and put it in a box. When I opened it the next day, the net was round and straight, so it was called coincidence.

Of course, unmarried daughters should also take out their own collection of needle and thread and have a needle-threading competition against the moon. It is said that a pair of skillful hands will pass through the pinhole, so this activity is called begging through the needle.

Small families in the Song Dynasty paid special attention to the cultivation of their daughters. Women must have good sewing skills and cooking skills, which almost became a basic standard for citizens to choose a spouse in the Song Dynasty. So men at that time were generally much happier than they are now.

A handful of begging festivals-Han women often wear seven-hole needles in the building on July 7, also known as it.

July 15 is the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Lanpen Festival.

There were no high-tech such as acousto-optic appliances in ancient times. All we have to do is look at the lights. Lantern Festival is about watching lanterns, and Lantern Festival is also about watching lanterns. However, the Lantern Festival is to let thousands of families put lotus lanterns in the river. In the background of night, thousands of lotus lanterns float in the river, which is really beautiful.

Orchid Festival is a legendary ghost festival, and the 15th day of the seventh lunar month is also called Mid-Autumn Festival. It is said that on this day, the gates of hell are wide open, and all ghosts are released from hell to accept the sacrifices of their loved ones and the world. Therefore, there are evidence cases and melon and fruit food at the door of every household, and everything in the temple has to be scraped. There are also river lanterns, which are said to be worn by the dead. These river lanterns will eventually drift to hell. China culture advocates ancestor worship and pays attention to the interaction between Yin and Yang. Most of these traditions were formed in the Song Dynasty.

Well, the Mid-Autumn Festival is over, and it is coming soon. We hope to live a long life and share this beautiful moonlight with each other, even though we are separated from Wan Li. See how "Dream of Liang Lu" depicts the Mid-Autumn Festival;

On the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15, the light in that month is brighter than usual, also called moonlit night. At this time, the golden wind is cool, the jade dew is cool, the sweet-scented osmanthus is fragrant, and the silver toad is full of light. Fu Sun always climbs the dangerous building, plays the moon on the veranda, or climbs the wide pavilion, lists banquets, secretly plays the piano and harp, drinks and sings loudly and enjoys the evening.

Note: Dangerous buildings include