Chapter 495 From Taiyi to Shangyuan

[In fact, whether in ancient or modern times, because the first day of the first lunar month is actually the beginning of the year, all the complicated things are concentrated on this day, and it is difficult to have free time.

For ordinary people, the custom of staying up all night has been around since the Jin Dynasty. The New Year's Eve stay-up ended when the first day of the first lunar month dawned. After celebrating with each other, everyone went back to their rooms to sleep.

The emperor and officials were even busier. For example, the grand court meeting was written in "Zhou Li" and was the highest-level court ceremony in the feudal era. From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the grand court meeting was passed down from generation to generation and never stopped.

In addition, each dynasty would have some other work. For example, the Qin Dynasty needed to offer sacrifices to the sky on the first day of the first lunar month. The Tang Dynasty moved the sacrifice to the winter solstice, but added a "big display" to open the eyes of the vassal states. The Song Dynasty was not good at fighting, so it was naturally difficult to open the eyes of the vassal states, so it simply expanded the process to three days, with a meeting on the first day, a meal together on the second day, and a sports meeting on the third day, allowing the Song Dynasty's military generals to compete in archery with Xixia, Jiaozhi, Dali and other countries.

Regarding the miscellaneous matters of the New Year, the ancients and modern people actually have a lot in common. For example, in the Tang Dynasty, when the New Year etiquette had been initially perfected, there were many works about the first day of the New Year, among which the more famous one is Bai Juyi's "New Year's Day Drinking".

This poem written by Bai Juyi at the age of 70 is more about expressing his feelings about the changes of time, but it also records the social activities that people in the Tang Dynasty had to face during the New Year:

If you go out on New Year's Day, you need to bow your head when you see your peers, kneel when you see your elders, drink when you are at a banquet, and it is tiring to go home and communicate. In a sense, it is really similar to our modern times.

It is for this reason that the Lantern Festival, a festival that truly everyone can participate in, has officially flourished.

The prosperity of the Lantern Festival is similar to that of Laba New Year's Eve, and it is basically the process of setting the time in the Han Dynasty and the prosperity in the Tang and Song Dynasties. 】

"On this New Year's Day, the Tang and Song dynasties were certainly busy, but why did they skip our Han?"

Liu Bei complained with a smile on his face, counting on his fingers:

"Since Emperor Guangwu, our Han emperor has to visit Deyang Palace at the beginning of the year, and the ministers, generals, civil and military officials, county officials, tribal chiefs, and envoys from dozens of foreign countries have all presented their congratulations. This alone can be called laborious."

"In addition, we need to examine the local accounts and find out the gains and losses of the local areas in a year. We need to determine the merits and demerits of the officials based on this, and appease the people of the foreign countries. How can we have time to relax?"

Although he said he was complaining, there was no dissatisfaction in Lord Xuande's tone, so everyone looked at the helpless handling of the Song Dynasty, and then looked at the smile on the corner of the lord's mouth, so they could only bow their hands and say that the lord was tired.

As for the unique process of celebrating the New Year in the Song Dynasty, everyone present was not a fool, who could not understand.

If it was a good idea to compete with envoys from vassal states in arrows, why didn't the Han and Tang think of it?

To put it bluntly, it is because martial arts have declined, so they use side skills to become the best.

Not in the Song Dynasty, it is naturally impossible to judge whether it is right or wrong, but everyone watching this process does feel a sense of helplessness.

Liu Bei bowed to everyone, just saying that the emperor worked hard and he was ashamed to be unworthy.

After all, he just drank a glass of wine and had a meal with his ministers during the New Year, so why bother?

On the contrary, the emperor who was taken to Yecheng by Cao thieves is really suffering.

Speaking of the emperor who was held hostage by Cao Cao, everyone also agreed:

Yes, yes, our Han emperor is really too hard.

After the matter was paused for a while, Kong Ming remembered what he saw on the light screen before:

"The Tang Li Shimin made a name card with gold and engraved the words of congratulations. Later generations said that officials and civilians followed suit, perhaps to understand the hard work of celebrating the New Year."

This thing was collected in later generations, and Kong Ming still remembered it.

I also remember clearly the evaluation of it by later generations, saying that greeting cards are still used in later generations.

[Unlike the first day of the first lunar month, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month can basically be said to be "made" by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, who pursued "cultural integration and unification".

In terms of doctrine, Emperor Wu "rejected all schools of thought and respected Confucianism alone", and in Shinto sacrifices, Emperor Wu also began to advocate "respecting Taiyi God alone".

Taoism had not yet been formed in the Western Han Dynasty. At that time, in addition to the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, the objects of sacrifice were also the gods of mountains, rivers, and mountains, lacking the concept of a unified supreme god.

In the process of "respecting Taiyi God alone", Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty can be said to be familiar with it.

First, a Taoist priest jumped out to say how powerful Taiyi was, and was praised by Emperor Wu, breaking the concept of the Emperor of Heaven in the pre-Qin period, and began to formally set up an altar for sacrifice.

A few years later, an ancient tripod was dug up in Hedong, and it was a coincidence that the scene engraved on the tripod was Taiyi assisting the Five Emperors.

In the next two years, Emperor Wu of Han held a large-scale sacrifice ceremony, and even adopted the ritual of offering sacrifice to Taiyi God when he was enfeoffed on Mount Tai, officially making Taiyi the supreme god of the Han Dynasty.

At the same time, in the "Taichu Calendar", Emperor Wu also personally designated the fifteenth day of the first lunar month as the day to sacrifice Taiyi, and lit lanterns in Ganquan Palace until dawn as a sacrificial ritual, and the people began to follow suit.

From this point of view, it is difficult to say how much of the scripture Wu Zetian took from Liu Che later when she played a big role in the auspiciousness game, and the level was far behind.

Later in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the "Taiping Jing" as a guiding program for rebellion was gradually improved. Zhang Daoling, a genius of Taoism during the reign of Emperor Huan, first proposed the concept of "Sanyuan Festival", that is, "the Heaven Official bestows blessings, the Earth Official forgives sins, and the Water Official relieves disasters", and designated the time for sacrifice respectively. The core logic is actually somewhat similar to Zhang Jiao's talisman water later, both of which are to deceive the people by exorcising gods and driving away disasters.

As we all know, religions have always been good at gaining popularity, and the earliest Taoism was no exception, and the "Heavenly Official" in it naturally became the reference to the great Han Taiyi God.

The day designated by Liu Che to worship Taiyi naturally got the name Shangyuan Festival with the demise of the Han Dynasty and the evolution of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

After the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Sui Dynasty had already had the tradition of celebrating the Shangyuan Festival. By the time the Tang Dynasty took it a step further - after all, it is "well known" that the Li and Tang royal families were descendants of the Taoist Laozi, so the Shangyuan Festival became a legal obligation of the Tang Dynasty. Holidays.

Although it became the Shangyuan Festival, the method of worshiping Taiyi God personally formulated by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was still passed down, that is, "burning lanterns".

This method of celebrating the festival was very popular for the people of the Tang Dynasty. After all, you couldn't light lanterns during the day, and if you celebrated the festival at night, the curfew was temporarily lifted as a matter of course, and the people could party all night long. This was The ancient times before the Song Dynasty are difficult to imagine.

In addition, Shangyuan Energy Festival was extremely popular in the Tang Dynasty, not only because it was after New Year's Day, which allowed everyone to release stress, but also because it was the actual Valentine's Day in the Tang Dynasty.

When the Shangyuan Festival begins, the curfew is lifted, men and women meet, and there are no taboos. This is the real scene of the Shangyuan Festival in the Tang Dynasty.

The "Old Book of Tang" records that on the Shangyuan Festival four years after the Shenlong coup, Li Xian and Queen Wei secretly visited Chang'an market in private to watch the "burning of lanterns".

In order to show his grace, Li Xian ordered thousands of palace ladies to be released for night tours. Unexpectedly, when the number of palace ladies was rechecked at dawn, there was a big gap.

Li Xian sent Xiaoqi to investigate, and finally found out that many palace ladies fell in love with young men outside the palace on the night of the Lantern Festival, and finally chose to "escape without repaying" with their wishful husband, which is commonly known as elopement.

Later in the Song Dynasty, the Valentine's Day attribute of the Lantern Festival became more and more obvious.

For example, Ouyang Xiu's poem "On the night of the Lantern Festival last year, the lights in the flower market were like daylight. The moon was on the willow branches, and people made appointments after dusk" clearly described the scene of men and women dating.

Xin Qiji's well-known poem "Searching for Him A Thousand Baidus in the Crowd" was also written about the Shangyuan Festival, so I won't go into details because it is so famous. 】

"This Supreme One, the changes in the Three Yuan Festival actually follow this principle."

Du Ruhui was very surprised.

They, the civil servants, were actually more familiar with these historical materials discussed in later generations, but if they were to follow their fundamentals and study their internal principles, they would be far inferior to those of later generations.

For example, later generations said that Emperor Wu wanted to "integrate and unify cultures", which is suddenly enlightening.

But looking back at what later generations said, combined with the historical materials he studied personally, Du Ruhui gained a bit more understanding of the statement that "Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty installed software on the Chinese machine."

Culture can be seen and touched but it is difficult to call it an entity. Calling it "soft" does make some sense.

The Qin Emperor made the hardware, and the Han Dynasty armed the software. Now it is Zhenguan's turn, what should he do to make this machine "remove the old and innovate"?

Du Ruhui suddenly had many ideas.

Li Shimin looked at the word "well known" in quotation marks. Although his cheeks were red, he still argued with reason:

"My surname is Li, and I am also surnamed Li. We all came from the same lineage thousands of years ago, so why can't we call them ancestors?"

Everyone nodded perfunctorily, expressing their nonchalant agreement with the Emperor of Tang Dynasty.

Empress Changsun didn't even want to give a perfunctory nod, but looked at Li Shimin with a little expectancy.

And the thoughts are almost written on his face: If Li Xian can take the Queen on a small trip, why can't Your Majesty?

Li Shimin thought about last year's sudden rise to leave the palace incognito, which seemed to have indeed caused the queen to complain, so he nodded in response.

This festival he has decided to capture the good and bad of the millennium and make the people celebrate.

As the emperor, he had to leave the palace to supervise the results at that time, so it was normal for him to bring the queen to join in the fun.

"But if there is a curfew, then..."

Others are looking forward to Chang'an City having a curfew. Changsun Wuji is very worried about Chang'an City having a curfew.

Fang Xuanling understood the difficulty and also commented:

"There is a danger of flooding when people burn lanterns all over the city. If there are thieves who cause trouble, unspeakable things may happen."

The suggestions of the two ministers immediately calmed everyone down. After all, they knew very well how many people there were in Chang'an. Normally, it was fine. It may be ten times easier for thieves to create chaos than usual, and they can cause a hundred times more disasters.

"Don't give up eating because of choking." Li Shimin was the first to express his stance.

"Your Majesty may send hundreds of cavalry officers to the streets to monitor and be prepared for any trouble." Wei Zheng suggested.

Yuchi Jingde was the first to object rarely:

"The Hundred Cavalry Division only has more than a thousand people, and it is only a drop in the bucket in Chang'an. If you want to maintain peace under the curfew, you have to impose a ban on the two Yamen."

Du Ruhui frowned:

"The Imperial Guards are all brave men. If they conflict with the people, it will be difficult to punish them. No way."

Qin Qiong stood on the old brother's side and agreed:

"If you want to control a city, you must have a forbidden army. You can deploy elite troops and spread them out along the streets. You can send hundreds of cavalry officers and six-door eagle dogs to fill in the gaps. Then you can combine bad commanders with rotten people to bring peace to the town."

This opinion made all the civil and military personnel suddenly silent. After thinking about it in their hearts, they felt that it was feasible, but the only problem was:

"To mobilize troops and mobilize people like this may seem like a waste of national power, and if the people are happy but the army is in trouble, I'm afraid there will be resentment." Wei Zheng said worriedly.

Li Shimin took a step forward, not looking at the ministers but at the prosperous scene on the light screen that was imitated by the ancients and said:

"Why bother mobilizing the army? When the Western Regions are opened to the people, there will be thousands of barbarians coming to Chang'an to pay tribute. The affairs will be much more complicated than now. The efforts of Shangyuan will be a performance for the future."

"I am not exaggerating about the abundance. I will not take a penny from the Hu people. The imperial guards should be fair and let the Tang people make money from the Hu people."

How could everyone not know about the exaggeration of abundance? In the sixth year of Daye, Emperor Yangdi, in order to boast of his achievements, gathered the chieftains of various tribes in Luoyang and performed a variety of plays for the Hu people with a formation of 5,000 steps and 18,000 people.

In the market, he invited the Hu guests to drink and eat until they were full without asking for a penny. He wrapped silk and satin around the trees to show his arrogance, which led the Hu people to ask why the silk wrapped around the trees was not given to the Chinese people who were half-naked?

This incident disappeared with the fall of the Sui Dynasty and became a joke, but Li Shimin once told them after watching the prosperity of later generations that such a grand event would be held again in the Tang Dynasty, but this time he would intimidate with swords and weapons and make the Hu people serve Tang with songs and dances.

Now it seems that His Majesty remembers this ambition clearly. Wei Zheng is pleased, Du Ruhui is looking forward to it, and Yuchi Jingde is excited. They all respond.

[In addition, the most noteworthy thing about the Lantern Festival is of course the Lantern Festival.

Historically, from Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty, lighting lanterns has always been the patent of the ruling class. After all, ordinary people don’t have so much lamp oil to waste.

Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty was a spectacle lover by today’s standards. He first raised the standard of the Lantern Festival and burned dozens of piles of expensive agarwood with spices until dawn.

The Tang Dynasty could not do such a prodigal behavior, so it could only overtake in technology.

During the Taixuan Hundred Years, the lanterns of the Lantern Festival can be regarded as innovations. In the early days, they were limited to animal images in structure. In the later period, there appeared "shadow lanterns" made of thermodynamics similar to Kongming lanterns, which are commonly known as horse-racing lanterns.

By the time of Emperor Xuanzong, the Lantern Festival of the Tang Dynasty reached a peak, from anthropomorphic lantern maids to hundreds of lanterns planted on lantern mountains.

However, ordinary people in feudal times would never have fun like the emperors. After Li Dan became emperor, he spent a lot of effort to build a seven-story running lantern 20 feet high on the Lantern Festival to celebrate.

Not to be outdone, Li Longji built the Lantern Tower in Shangyang Palace, which was 150 feet high and hung with pearls and jade as wind chimes. When the breeze came, it made a rhyme, which was magnificent.

Similar to other folk customs, in the Song Dynasty, the right to enjoy lanterns was delegated to the people, and the people could not afford the spectacle. At that time, merchants set up lanterns to attract customers during the Lantern Festival. In this process, some people combined the riddles that existed in the pre-Qin period with lanterns, and lantern riddles appeared.

Lantern riddles were already an important part of the Lantern Festival during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but the degree of celebration was reduced compared with the Tang and Song Dynasties due to the shortened holidays and other reasons.

In modern times, the custom of visiting the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month is still preserved.

However, due to work and study, the degree of carnival is not as good as that of the Tang and Song Dynasties-after all, their Lantern Festival is a legal holiday, which cannot be compared.

But if we talk about the exquisiteness and complexity of the lanterns, and the grandeur of the lantern shows, it is completely bullying compared with the ancient times.

After all, whether it is brightness, richness of color, or stability, electric lights beat the ancient candle lights by a huge margin. 】