How was the door god posted on the New Year's door chosen?

"Thousands of households always change new peaches for old ones" is a poem that everyone is no longer familiar with. Indeed, during the Spring Festival, every family always puts on new peaches to ensure peace and good luck. This peach symbol, that is, the door god, has actually undergone historical changes.

At first, there were similar records in Huangdi Neijing and Shanhaijing. Generally speaking, in ancient times, two brothers lived on Dushuo Mountain in the sea. There was a big peach tree with branches bent for 3000 miles. In the northeast of the branches, there was a ghost gate, where ghosts came and went. Every day, the two brothers check all kinds of ghosts. If there are evil spirits, they either tie them up and feed them to tigers, or let a golden rooster who lives on a peach tree come down and peck them. The names of these two brothers are Shen Tu and Lei Yu.

Later, in order to save trouble, people carved these two gods with two red boards, and then developed into portraits of Shen Tu and Lei Yu, which were hung on both sides of the door to ward off evil spirits. Jing Zong, a native of the Southern Dynasties, recorded in Jingchu Chunqiu: "Making a peach board to touch the door is called immortal wood, painting Er Shen to touch the door, leaving Shen Tu on the left and Lei Yu on the right, commonly known as the door god."

In the Tang Dynasty, the gatekeepers were replaced by (Uncle Bao) and Weichi Gong (King De), roughly because Emperor Taizong had been suffering from insomnia and illness because he was always hearing ghosts at night, so he had to guard the door with all his arms, and it would be all right. Later, he ordered the painter to draw two portraits of the door god and stick them on the door to suppress evil spirits. So people painted the two military commanders as door gods who could catch ghosts and pray for blessings.

Continue to evolve, that is, the goalkeeper is divided into white face and black face, shentu, Guan Yu stick to the left, and the black face Lei Yu, Weichi Gong and Zhang Fei stick to the right. In addition to these, there are Cheng and McCullough, Ma Chao and Ma Dai, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao.

These door gods represent the good wishes of every household to pray for good luck and exorcise evil spirits, and they are colorful elements in China traditional culture.