Qu Yuan was a Chu native in the Warring States Period. At the age of 22, he was already a leftist official, a doctor of Sanban, and assisted Chu Huaiwang. At that time, Chu Huaiwang was exiled by treacherous court officials, and did not accept Qu Yuan's idea of uniting Qi against Qin. He was tricked into house arrest by lobbyist Zhang Yi, forcing him to cede territory and offer the city, and later died of anxiety.

Qu Yuan was heartbroken when he learned about it, and wrote a letter asking King Xiang of Qing to avenge King Huai. However, King Xiang was so fond of treacherous men that he banished Qu Yuan to the south of the Yangtze River. Later, Chu was captured by the State of Qin and died in imminent danger. Qu Yuan's desire to save the country was shattered. In a state of great sorrow and grief, he plunged into the choppy Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 278 BC (when Qu Yuan was sixty-two).

When the people of Chu heard the news, they rowed after him, but when they reached Dongting Lake, Qu Yuan was no longer there. This has become the beginning of the annual dragon boat race on this day. Since then, people have scattered rice into the river at this time every year as a sacrifice to Qu Yuan. However, because all the rice sacrificed to Qu Yuan was eaten by the dragon on the river, people later used zongzi leaves, reed leaves and colorful silk to wrap zongzi.

Since then, it has been passed down from generation to generation, and it has evolved into the custom of eating palm seeds on the Dragon Boat Festival.

Extended data:

Qu Yuan was a poet and politician of Chu State during the Warring States Period in China. Born in Zigui, Danyang, Chu. Mi surname, Qu family, Ming Ping, the original word; And since the cloud name is regular, the word spirit is even. Chu Wuwang Xiong Tong's son Qu Xian's offspring. When I was a teenager, I was well educated, knowledgeable and ambitious.

In his early years, he was trusted by Chu Huaiwang as a Zuotu and a doctor of San Lv, who was also in charge of domestic and foreign affairs. Advocating "American politics", advocating internal promotion of talents and abilities, perfecting statutes, and uniting with external forces to resist Qin. Being slandered by the nobles, he was exiled to Hanbei and Yuanxiang Valley successively. After the capital of Chu was breached by Qin Jun, it sank in the Miluo River and died.

Qu Yuan is the first great patriotic poet in the history of China, the founder of China's romantic literature, the founder and representative writer of "Songs of the South", and has opened up the tradition of "vanilla beauty", and is known as "the ancestor of Ci Fu" and "the ancestor of Chinese poetry". The appearance of Qu Yuan's works marks that China's poetry has entered a new era from collective singing to individual originality.

His main works include Li Sao, Nine Songs, Nine Chapters and Tian Wen. Chu Ci, with Qu Yuan's works as the main body, is one of the sources of China's romantic literature, and is also called "coquettish" with The Book of Songs, which has a far-reaching influence on later poetry.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-Qu Yuan