It is said that Tang Gaozu Li Yuan celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival with civil and military officials. He looked at the round "Hu cake" sent by Tubo with great interest and pointed to the bright moon in the sky, saying that he would invite the bright moon with round cakes. Later, the custom of eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival spread.

Moon cakes were not called moon cakes at first, but Hu cakes, which were made of walnuts and sesame seeds. When Emperor Taizong was eating Hu Bing, he thought the name Hu Bing was not pleasant to listen to, and that day happened to be the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th, so he looked up at the moon and said that since the moon was so round, he called this Hu Bing a moon cake.

mooncakes were originally offered as sacrifices to the moon. Later, people gradually combined the Mid-Autumn Festival with mooncake tasting, giving and eating mooncakes, symbolizing the reunion of people and the moon.