It is said that Meng Chang, the king of the Later Shu Kingdom in the Five Dynasties, was a king who liked to be unconventional. On New Year's Eve at the end of 964 AD, he had a whim and asked one of his bachelors named Xin Yinxun to design a mahogany board Two sentences were written on it and hung as peach charms on the door frame of his residence. These two sentences are "New Year's greetings, happy festivals and Changchun". The main idea of ??the first sentence is: In the New Year, we enjoy the legacy of our ancestors. The main idea of ??the second sentence is: The festival heralds the everlasting spring. Since then, the form and content of Taofu have changed, which is not only reflected in the use of parallel couplets to replace "Shen Tu" and "Yulei", but also expanded the connotation of Taofu, not only to ward off evil and disaster, but also to Added content of prayers and wishes. This became China's earliest Spring Festival couplets.
By the Song Dynasty, it was quite common to write couplets on peach boards. Wang Anshi's poem "Yuan Ri" writes: "The sound of firecrackers eliminates the new year, and the spring breeze brings warmth to Tusu. Thousands of households always replace old talismans with new peaches." It reflects that every New Year's Eve, every household The grand occasion of hanging peach charms. At the same time, with the emergence of door gods and the use of red paper to write peach charms, which symbolized happiness and auspiciousness, the mission of the peach charms in the past to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters was gradually transferred to the door gods, and the content of the peach charms evolved to express people's prayers for good luck in the coming year. Good wishes for advent and abundant harvest.
The term "Spring Couplets" appeared in the early Ming Dynasty. After Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, became the emperor, he liked the pomp and bustle, and also liked the peach charms posted by wealthy families every New Year's Eve, so he wanted to promote it. Before New Year's Eve one year, he issued an imperial edict requiring every household in Jinling to paste Spring Festival couplets written on red paper on the door frame to welcome the New Year. On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, Zhu Yuanzhang inspected the Spring Festival couplets incognito from house to house. Whenever he saw a well-written Spring Festival couplet, he was very happy and praised it full of praise. When he was inspecting, he saw that a family did not post Spring Festival couplets. Zhu Yuanzhang was very angry and asked the reason. The attendant replied: This is a master who is engaged in killing pigs and trimming pigs. They are very busy during the New Year and have not had time to hire someone to write them. Zhu Yuanzhang ordered people to bring pens, inks, paper and inkstones and write a couplet for the family: "Cleave the road of life and death with both hands, and cut off the root of right and wrong with one knife." After writing, he continued to patrol. After a while, when Zhu Yuanzhang returned to the palace after his inspection, he passed by here again. He saw that the butcher's house had not posted the Spring Festival couplets written by him, so he asked what was going on? The owner of the family replied respectfully: "This couplet was written by the emperor himself. We hang it high in the middle hall and burn incense to worship it every day." Zhu Yuanzhang was very happy after hearing this and ordered his attendants to reward the family with thirty taels of silver. It can be seen that the naming and promotion of "Spring Couplets" were only promoted in every household by Zhu Yuanzhang through administrative orders and imperial edicts.
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