One year on New Year's Eve, Emperor Qianlong heard that the business of a famous "in-line shoe store" in Langfang, Beijing was very depressed, so he wrote such a couplet as a gift: "Go after it; Hurry into the god of wealth. " Wu Wen Guan Bai heard about it and often went to this store to order boots, which made this store famous in Qing Dynasty.
There is a rich man in Zichuan, Shandong Province. On the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month, the novelist Pu Songling was asked to write a door-to-door letter. Pu Songling wrote, "The days are getting longer and longer, and people are getting longer and longer." Who knows, when he heard the fire, he flew into a rage: "What is the life span of a fucking poor man?" If you want to extend your life, it's my mother's turn to extend it! " Pu Songling said: "The couplet should be changed to the second half of the last sentence, otherwise people will laugh." On New Year's Day, people looked at the couplets on the rich man's door and laughed speechless. It turned out that Pu Songling changed the couplets to "growing older, mother prolonging life, and spring drying up Kun and dad."
Legend has it that Zhu Zhishan of the Ming Dynasty went to a hotel to drink one year before the spring. When the shopkeeper saw a famous man coming, he took him to Four Treasures of the Study and asked him to write couplets and make up for the drinks. Zhu Zhishan is a joker. He wrote: "Tomorrow spring is unlucky; Less luck, more money all year round. " After reading it, the shopkeeper said to himself, "Tomorrow is spring, which is really unlucky; Good luck and little money all year round. " Suddenly laughing into anger, want to ask. Zhu Zhishan smiled and read: "Tomorrow is a good spring, not unlucky; There is less luck and more money all year round. " The shopkeeper thought he was just a poor scholar and immediately bought wine to treat his guests. It turned out that Zhu Zhishan played a joke on the shopkeeper by using the function of rhetoric.
Xu Wenchang, an outstanding painter and dramatist in Ming Dynasty, went to borrow money from relatives and friends on New Year's Eve and passed by the magistrate's residence. He saw a pair of Spring Festival couplets posted in front of the door. When he took a closer look, it said, "Snow has begun, love the people, if you are a child;" Chimonanthus praecox is in full bloom and law enforcement is like a mountain. " Xu Wenchang was very angry. He knew that this corrupt official relied on someone in the imperial court to do evil, take bribes and pervert the law. When Xu Wenchang came home, he immediately cut out two pieces of red paper, wrote four words on it, and ordered people to put them under the Spring Festival couplets at night. Let the Spring Festival couplets become: "Xue Rui is the first to fall, loving the people if they are children, golden women;" Chimonanthus praecox is in full bloom, law enforcement is like a mountain, and Qian Shan has a back mountain. "On the morning of New Year's Day, people saw the couplets in front of the county magistrate. Everyone was very happy, clapping and cheering, and scrambling to recite.
Zhu Yuanzhang, who is known as the "antithetical couplet to the son of heaven", turned the "inscribed peach symbol" into Spring Festival couplets, and was pushed to the people's portal by the imperial court giants overnight. He also "laughed but didn't answer", and found that a eunuch didn't post Spring Festival couplets, so he ordered someone to take pen and ink and personally wrote a couplet: "Split the road of life and death with both hands; Cut off the roots with one knife. " This couplet is novel in conception, humorous and popular, and it is also a shop-in-shop couplet that conforms to the characteristics of the industry. Thanks to the emperor's initiative, posting Spring Festival couplets has become an indispensable custom to celebrate the New Year.
One year on New Year's Eve, Su Dongpo, a great poet in the Northern Song Dynasty, visited his friend Wang. Seeing that he wrote couplets, Su Dongpo presented a pair of couplets and said, "The city gate is big enough to accommodate a thousand riders; Tang Shen doesn't think a hundred men are shouting. " When this couplet came out, the viewers all admired and pondered it.
Lv Meng, the prime minister of the Song Dynasty, was living in poverty before he became rich. One year during the Spring Festival, he posted a pair of Spring Festival couplets on his doorstep: "2345,6789", which was horizontally approved as North and South, meaning that one (clothes) was missing and ten (food) was missing, and there was nothing. This couplet is a great satire on the social phenomenon of "building rich and local poor" at that time.
Everyone loves Wang Xizhi's words. One year on New Year's Eve, he posted Spring Festival couplets twice, but they were not covered. Afraid of being exposed again, he wrote a pair of "semi-finished" Spring Festival couplets: "It never rains but it pours". Sure enough, no one opened them again. On the first day of the new year, he wrote, "Happiness has never been in pairs until today;" Last night it never rains but it pours. " The original two unlucky words have turned into an auspicious sentence, which is amazing.
During the Five Dynasties, Meng Changjun, the Emperor of the Later Shu Dynasty, wrote such a couplet in his own hand on New Year's Eve in 964 AD: "Welcome to Qing Yu in the New Year; Jiajie Changchun. " The antithesis of couplets is neat and clear, and the word "Spring Festival" is connected together, which is very suitable for the atmosphere of the Spring Festival. According to research, this is the earliest Spring Festival couplets in China.