Legend:
Setting off firecrackers is a traditional Chinese folk custom with a history of more than 2,000 years. According to legend, it is to drive away a monster called Nian. At midnight, the New Year's bell rings, and the sound of firecrackers rings across the entire land of China. In this "three yuan" moment of "the yuan of the year, the yuan of the month, and the yuan of the time", some places still build "vigorous fires" in the courtyard to show that the energy is strong and prosperous.
The prototype of firecrackers:
In the early Tang Dynasty, plague was everywhere. A man named Li Tian put saltpeter in a bamboo tube and ignited it to make a louder and louder sound. The thick smoke finally dissipated the mountain miasma and stopped the epidemic. This is the earliest prototype of firecrackers filled with gunpowder. Later, when gunpowder appeared, people filled bamboo tubes with saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal and burned them, creating "firecrackers." By the Song Dynasty, Chinese people began to commonly use paper tubes and hemp stems wrapped with gunpowder and braided into strings to make "weipao" (i.e. firecrackers). Regarding the evolution of firecrackers, "Popular Choreography" records: "Firecrackers in ancient times were all fired with real bamboo, so Tang people's poems also called them firecrackers. Later generations rolled paper for them. They were called "firecrackers." During the Ming and Qing Dynasties It has become one of the Chinese folk entertainment activities
Poetry about firecrackers:
Yuan Day
Wang Anshi
The sound of firecrackers. At the end of the year,
the spring breeze brings warmth to Tusu.
Thousands of households always replace old talismans with new peaches.
This poem describes the scene of people celebrating the Spring Festival in the Song Dynasty: the spring breeze brings warmth, the sun rises, every household lights firecrackers, the whole family faces the east, drinks Tusu wine, and is busy taking off the old peach charms on the door and replacing them with stickers The author chose these most typical festive scenes during the New Year to show a picture of Chinese folk customs with a strong sense of life. Wang Anshi especially liked to express his political ambitions and philosophical views through poetry. As the prime minister at this time, he was carrying out drastic reforms, so the lines of the poem are filled with his firm belief and optimism in eliminating current abuses and implementing new laws, expressing his proud and confident mood, and also reflecting his attitude towards governing.