Celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival is related to its origin: the Dragon Boat Festival is mainly a festival of sacrifice.
The Dragon Boat Festival is to commemorate Qu Yuan.
According to the "Biography of Qu Yuan Jia Sheng" in "Historical Records", Qu Yuan was a minister of King Huai of Chu during the Spring and Autumn Period. He advocated the promotion of talents and empowerment, enriched the country and strengthened the military, and advocated uniting Qi to resist Qin. However, he was strongly opposed by the nobleman Zilan and others. Qu Yuan was dismissed from his post, expelled from the capital, and exiled to the Yuan and Xiang rivers. In exile, he wrote immortal poems such as "Li Sao", "Heavenly Questions" and "Nine Songs", which were concerned about the country and the people. They were unique in style and had far-reaching influence (therefore, the Dragon Boat Festival is also called the Poet's Day). In 278 BC, the Qin army captured Kyoto, the state of Chu. Seeing his motherland being invaded, Qu Yuan was heartbroken, but he still could not bear to abandon his motherland. On May 5, after writing his final work "Huaisha", he bouldered into the Miluo River and died, risking his own life. Composed a magnificent patriotic movement.
It is said that after Qu Yuan died, the people of Chu State were extremely sad and flocked to the Miluo River to pay their respects to Qu Yuan. The fishermen rowed their boats and fished for his true body back and forth on the river. A fisherman took out rice balls, eggs and other food prepared for Qu Yuan and threw them into the river "plop, plop", saying that when the fish, lobsters and crabs were full, they would not bite Dr. Qu's body. People followed suit after seeing it. An old doctor took a jar of realgar wine and poured it into the river, saying it was to stun dragons and water animals so as not to harm Doctor Qu. Later, for fear that the rice balls would be eaten by dragons, people came up with the idea of ??wrapping the rice with neem leaves and wrapping it with colored silk, which developed into rice dumplings.
Since then, on the fifth day of May every year, there has been the custom of dragon boat racing, eating rice dumplings, and drinking realgar wine to commemorate the patriotic poet Qu Yuan.
Introduction to the Dragon Boat Festival
The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month every year. Wu, Chongwu, Wuri, Xiajie and Pujie were originally festivals in summer to ward off plague. Later, the Chu State poet Qu Yuan threw himself into the river on the Dragon Boat Festival, and they became festivals to commemorate Qu Yuan (some say to commemorate the loyal ministers of Wu State). Wu Zixu's death anniversary), along with the Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and other festivals, are important traditional festivals in the Greater China region of the East Asian cultural circle and in Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam.