In the novel about the life of scholars and people, it has been written many times about Lantern Appreciation in Yuan Dynasty.

In the entire one hundred chapter "Jin Ping Mei", the Shangyuan Lantern Festival alone is described four times, and the content spans sixteen chapters. The huge length makes us feel how much the author of "" feels about the excitement of the Lantern Festival.

An almost infatuated complex.

So, what kind of festival is Shangyuan Festival that the author spared no effort to describe?

It just so happens that the Chinese New Year is coming soon, and we can experience the excitement of the Lantern Festival in person here!

The Shangyuan Festival is today's Lantern Festival. It falls on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. This day can be said to be the biggest statutory festival for the people of the Song Dynasty.

Although Shangyuan Lantern Festival has become a custom in the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty did not designate the Shangyuan Festival as a legal holiday. The birth of this legal holiday was in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty.

On the night of the first year of Jianlong's reign, Zhao Kuangyin, who had just become emperor, climbed onto the Xuandemen Gate Tower. He saw thousands of lights, flutes and drums playing, ladies and gentlemen having a party, and busy traffic. What a prosperous time!

Song Taizu was in a good mood and asked the minister beside him, Li P: How do the characters compare with those of the Five Dynasties?

Li?

Zhao Kuangyin was very happy to hear this. Thinking that the newly established Song Dynasty had just pacified the Southern Tang Dynasty, Jingxiang, and Sichuan, and the Zhao family's flag was flying in the wind, it was time to celebrate.

At that time, military parades were not popular in the world, so Zhao Kuangyin ordered that Kaifeng Prefecture hold two nights on the 18th and 19th during the Shangyuan Festival to allow the soldiers and the people to have fun.

From then on, the Shangyuan Festival, a legal holiday, became a common practice in the Song Dynasty.

If we talk about the Winter Solstice, Beginning of Spring, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day, everyone is still busy celebrating the New Year individually, then the Lantern Festival is the climax of the collective celebration of the Spring Festival.

Since they had three days of vacation and more time for recreation, Tokyo residents took the custom of lantern viewing to the extreme and arranged Tokyo Bianliang into a sea of ??lanterns.

Among these many lanterns, one worth mentioning is the revolving lantern.

From the perspective of the history of the development of science and technology, it is the bud of modern gas turbines. However, the people of the Song Dynasty used the principle that air rises after being heated and cold air sinks, and transformed it into the manufacture of revolving lanterns. It can be said that they worked hard!

On this night, even the emperor was no longer lonely. He took his concubines to the Xuande Tower to enjoy the lantern festival and various performances by folk artists.

The artist was inspired, shouted long live, and performed even harder. The emperor in the Xuande Tower shouted "reward", and money rained down like raindrops? Our today's lantern riddle guessing was also invented in the Song Dynasty. It is probably because of the lantern viewing that is too light.

It's too monotonous, so I need to find some entertainment.

Of course, if you guess the lantern riddles, you can also get a reward, which can be as small as a lantern or as large as a pair of copper coins. Anyway, you will have fun!

Due to Emperor Taizu's supreme directive to "allow the soldiers and the people to enjoy themselves", the government made exceptions and liberalized various prohibitions, and even the majority of female compatriots were liberated.

In normal times, they never leave the boudoir, and there is no social activity to talk about.

On the Lantern Festival, they can also go out with their families to watch the lanterns.

So many love stories between the Huaichun girl and Wang Sungongzi were staged on this day: There was a scholar named Zhang in Tokyo who went to Qianming Temple to look at the lanterns on Lantern Festival night and picked up a red gauze handkerchief on the head of the temple. There was a poem on the handkerchief.

There is also a line of small words: "Lovers who find this handkerchief must not forget it. Please wait for a while at the back door of Xiangguo Temple on the 15th night of the first lunar month next year. The one with the mandarin duck lantern in front of the car." The routine is of course old-fashioned, but it is just that old.

The routine was enough to frighten people at that time.

I wondered why the girl who dropped the handkerchief was so bold: How did she know that the one who picked up the handkerchief must be a handsome man?

And he was very patient, so we decided to date him in about a year.

Fortunately, good stories about talented men and beautiful women are always made up for good. Zhang Sheng waited patiently for a year (compared to today's hook-ups between men and women, he is really a sincere gentleman!), and on the tenth day of the first lunar month of the second year

After five nights, the lovers finally had a chance to meet each other, so after many twists and turns, they agreed to change their surnames (note, not transgender), hide their names, and escape to Suzhou to grow old together.

This story from the Song Dynasty was recorded in the "Yongle Dadian". It should be a piece of social news during the Shangyuan Festival of the Song Dynasty.

Even more hilarious social news is recorded in "The Legacy of Xuanhe": During the Lantern Festival in Tokyo, the romantic emperor Song Huizong had a whim and ordered the royal wine to be given to everyone.

After a woman drank the royal wine, she was greedy and hid the gold cup.

There was no bra or bag at that time. I wonder where she was hiding?

Anyway, it was discovered and captured.

This is great!

The case happened in front of the emperor's eyes.

Song Huizong just treated the case as a sideshow and tried the case himself.

However, that woman is not simple either. She was definitely made to be a defense lawyer if she was born today. You see her defending herself: My husband and I went out to look at the lights, but we got separated from him in the crowd.

Now the emperor gave me wine, and after eating it, my face looked drunk. Although we in the Song Dynasty did not investigate drunk driving, I did not return with my husband-in-law and looked drunk. I was afraid that my parents-in-law would blame me when I went back, so I wanted to take the gold cup back as a certificate.

, telling them that the emperor gave them wine and they must drink it - look!

look!

Look how lightly she said it.

However, this woman is also a young and artistic woman. It is said that she even composed the lyrics of "Partican Sky" on the spot: "The moon is full, the pot is shining, and the lamp is bright, and I go to Duanmen hand in hand with the man.