What's the point of setting off firecrackers in the afternoon of New Year's Eve?

There is no best time to set off firecrackers on New Year's Eve afternoon, only traditional habits. The traditional custom is to set off firecrackers before dinner on New Year's Eve.

Setting off firecrackers is a traditional folk custom in China, which has a history of more than two thousand years. According to legend, it was to drive away a monster named Nian. At midnight, the New Year bell rang and firecrackers rang through the land of China. In this "three yuan" moment of "year yuan", "month yuan" and "time yuan", some places still set up "Wang Huo" in the courtyard, which means that the air is prosperous and prosperous. It pinned the good wishes of the working people in China for good luck.

Firecracker embryonic form

In the early Tang Dynasty, plagues were everywhere. A man named Li Tian put saltpeter in a bamboo tube and lit it to make it emit louder sound and stronger smoke. As a result, the miasma in Shan Lan was dispelled and the epidemic was stopped. This is the earliest prototype of firecrackers. Later, when gunpowder appeared, people filled bamboo tubes with saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal and burned them, resulting in an "explosion war".

In the Song Dynasty, people in China began to make "guns" (that is, firecrackers) with paper tubes and hemp sticks wrapped in gunpowder. Regarding the evolution of firecrackers, Excellent Popular Arrangement records: "Ancient firecrackers. They are all popular with real bamboo, so Tang poetry is also called explosive pole. Later people roll paper for it. It's called firecrackers. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it became one of the folk entertainment activities in China.