What is the origin of lanterns?

The origin of lanterns is:

The origin of lanterns is as early as the eighth century A.D. in the Tang Dynasty there are records of the use of lanterns from. Lanterns were introduced in China after the Qin and Han dynasties, and paper lanterns may have been introduced after the invention of paper in the Western Han Dynasty.

The custom of watching lanterns at the Lantern Festival originated in the early Han Dynasty, but it is also said that Emperor Ming Huang of Tang Dynasty in the Lantern Festival in the Shangyang Palace, is in order to celebrate the prosperity of the country and the people, before tying up the lanterns, with the flickering light, symbolizing the "colorful dragons omen good luck, the people and the country", the lanterns of the wind is still widely popular today.

Expanded:

There is also an interesting folklore story about the origin of the lanterns. Legend has it that a long time ago, there were a lot of ferocious birds and beasts that went around hurting people and livestock, so people organized to fight them, and there was a god bird that landed on earth because it was lost, but it was shot by an unknowing hunter. The emperor was furious when he found out about it, and ordered the heavenly soldiers to come to earth on the 15th day of the first month to set fire to all the human and animal properties on earth.

The daughter of the emperor was kind-hearted, so she secretly came to the earth and told the people the news. A clever man came up with a plan, he told everyone to put up lights and colors in their houses on the 15th, 16th and 17th days of the first month, so that the Heavenly Emperor would think that the heavenly soldiers had already let the fire go.

On the night of the fifteenth day of the first month, the Heavenly Emperor looked down and found a red light and a loud noise on the earth for 3 consecutive nights, and thought it was the flames from the burning of the fire and called it quits. In order to commemorate this success, from then on every first month of the fifteenth, every family hangs lanterns.