The residents of the Tang imperial capital do not know that when the brilliant lights of the Upper Yuan Festival are lit up, waiting for them will be a disaster that consumes everything. The Turkic invasion, Wolf guard raid, kidnapping the general's daughter, various assassinations of court officials, the flames are about to burn the city, the lives of tens of thousands of people in Chang 'an are at stake, and the gears of destroying Chang 'an are turning...

The fifteenth day of the first month is the Shangyuan Festival of the Tang people, which is what we call the Lantern Festival. To this festival, not only have a three-day holiday, but also cancel the curfew, for Tang people to enjoy a hi tour - enjoy the lanterns, guess lantern riddles, escape... "The trees of fire and the silver flowers of the star bridge are closed. The dark dust goes with the horse, the moon comes one by one. Swim all luxuriant lee, line song all fall plum. Jin I can not help the night, jade leakage Mo urge."

Shangyuan Festival, one of China's traditional festivals named after the influence of Taoist culture, is dominated by the warm and festive lantern viewing custom, and is generally regarded as the last day of the Chinese New Year festival.

The Lantern Festival belongs to the "national legal holidays", which is not the creation of later generations, but was determined as early as the Tang Dynasty.

Although listed as an official holiday, Shangyuan Festival was originally only a one-day holiday. After the end of the festival, the serious attitude of the civil servants interferes with the emperor's happy mood, Tang Ruizong Li Dan because of the upper Yuan Festival to play with the burning lamp, right pick up the relics of strict is not pleasing to the eye, so he asked Tang Ruizong Li Dan not to toss around day and night, Tang Ruizong can not do but obey.

Later, Tang Ruizong's son, Tang Xuanzong, probably did not want the good day to be spoiled by those who did not understand the customs of the officials, and simply increased the holiday to three days, and the government funded the fun of civil servants!

In ancient city management, for the sake of safety, the implementation of "night ban". Night ban refers to the prohibition of traffic at night within a fixed time.

Chang 'an of the Tang Dynasty also implemented a curfew, and when the drum was banned at night, travel was forbidden. However, in order for Chang 'an citizens to fully enjoy their Shangyuan Festival, during the festival, there is no curfew, but a unified "night" for three days, so that citizens can freely shuttle between Chang 'an squares at night.

The custom of "opening the night" on the Upper Yuan Festival originated in the Tang Dynasty. Before the Tang Dynasty, there was never any behavior of opening the night ban for a certain festival. After the Tang Dynasty, this custom was gradually fixed and passed down by successive dynasties. Therefore, on the Yuan night "night", can be said to be a pioneering work of the Tang Dynasty.

The ancients regarded the night as mysterious and dangerous, but the Tang Dynasty broke the "night ban" during the Shangyuan Festival, with the help of indoor and outdoor lights, to disperse the dark night of heaven and earth, people eat meat porridge, face cocoon, silk cage, fire moth, jade beam cake and other food, singing, tug-of-war and other activities, open the carnival mode all night.

Ancient women were not allowed to go out at will, let alone at night, but during the Shangyuan Festival, men and women broke the daily taboo and could go out at night to play, so this festival has become the best time for many men and women to tell each other their hearts, and some even choose to elope during this period.

"The book of the Old Tang Dynasty" records: "The first month of the fourth year, the emperor and after the small walk in the city, to watch the burning lamp. And put thousands of court ladies, night tour throughout, because with outsiders Yin Tong, escape not return." In the reign of Emperor Zhongzong, thousands of court ladies were allowed to go out at night, but some of them eloped with outsiders. The original statutory festival, because of the custom of night, gradually became a secret meeting between men and women.

Many later literati and poets also created excellent poems on the theme of love in the Shangyuan Festival. For example, Ouyang Xiu's "Sheng Zha Zi" "Last year on the night of Yuan, the flower market lights were like day. On the willow tip of the moon, people about after dusk. Yuan night this year, the moon and the lamp are still. Not seeing last year's people, tears wet spring sleeves." Xin Qiji's "Qingyu case · Yuan Xi" in the famous sentence, "people find him thousands of hundred." Suddenly look back, the man is in, the lights dim."

Although in history, the burning lamp is mostly associated with the mysterious primitive worship and the profound heaven, time and things, which is slightly "heavy", but in the later development, the entertainment continues to increase, and finally achieved the "carnival night" of the Shangyuan Festival.

As the saying goes, before the Tang Dynasty, "lanterns" were mostly local folk activities, and the burning of lanterns by a few emperors in the history books was only an occasional sacrifice or celebration by the rulers, and did not stabilize.

It is said that during the reign of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, dozens of fires were piled up to burn lanterns during the Shangyuan Festival, and the materials used were all precious agarwood, but this mode was still very different from the later lighting customs. In the Tang Dynasty, the burning of lanterns was not only the fire of the previous dynasty, but also the rise of various kinds of burning lamps. This "lamp burning" activity has also become a tradition, passed down from generation to generation.

Tang Dynasty Shang Yuan Festival lantern shapes and styles are varied. "Yunxian Miscellaneous records" recorded on the fifteenth night of the first month of the Tang Dynasty in the palace lights, cloud: "white Luan turn flowers, yellow dragon spit water, gold ghost, silver Yan, floating light hole, Zxing pavilion, all lights also." It refers to lamps made of various shapes that imitate animals, such as silver swallow, yellow dragon, and white luan.

Among the innovative lamps of the Tang Dynasty, the most remarkable was the popular "shadow lamp" at that time. The emergence of the shadow lamp fully demonstrates the active creativity of the Tang Dynasty people, because the shadow lamp uses the knowledge of "thermal dynamics" physics, generates heat through the built-in burning lamp candle, promotes the rotation of the lantern, and makes the lamp surface made of five-color wrong paper and bodhi leaves. The figure shapes painted on the lamp surface appear lifelike in the light's reflection and the constant rotation of the lamp body.

Influenced by the lantern custom of the Upper Yuan Festival, more princes and nobles rose to do "lamp maidservant", lamp maidservant is a lamp stand carved into a wooden statue of maidservant, holding a lamp and standing in person. In the "Kaiyuan Tianbao relic · Lamp maidservant" article, recorded "in the king's palace, every night in front of the tent listed wood carving dwarf maidservant, decorated with color Zeng, each holding the lantern, since dusk, it is said to be lamp maidservant".

In addition to these ingenious lamp shapes, Tang Dynasty lamps also pay attention to "tall", such as lamp trees, lamp wheels, lamp buildings and so on. The lamp tree was developed on the basis of the Sui Dynasty, referring to the shape of the tree and made of a lamp stand branching lamp shape. Empress Wu Zetian's sister, Mrs. Korea, had lit a hundred branches of the lantern tree on the night of the upper Yuan Dynasty, and erected the mountain. The light was very bright and could be seen within a hundred miles. The shape of the lamp tree was tall and the lights were brilliant.

The lamp wheel is a new type of lamp shape influenced by Buddhist lamps, and the lamp wheel is seven layers, with seven lights on each layer, just like a wheel. According to legend, during the Tang Ruizong period, the Lantern Festival lasted 3 days and 2 nights, and a 20-zhang-high lamp wheel was built. Even more exaggerated, the Tang Dynasty also had "lantern buildings". Li Longji is more excellent than his father Tang Ruizong, and is not satisfied with the lamp wheel and begins to build the lamp building.

Tang Dynasty Han E "Year Huajili · Shangyuan lamp floor" has "Tang Xuanzong built lamp floor in Shangyang Palace, one hundred and fifty feet high, hanging with pearl jade, the breeze will come, Qiang ran into rhyme." In the Tang Dynasty, one foot is equal to 30.7 centimeters now, so a 150-foot lamp building is more than 46 meters, which is equal to the height of a modern 15-story building. Let's not verify the accuracy of this record, but at least we can see that there were giant lanterns in the Tang Dynasty.

The lamp floor is high, still hanging gemstones around jade, the breeze blows, the ding dong sound of the collision of gems disturbs the loneliness of the high sky at night, and then accompanied by the bright lights of the folk, I have to say that the Tang Xuanzong luxury lamp floor is also very aesthetic!

It originated in the Han Dynasty or even earlier, and was popular in the Tang Dynasty. It was widely loved by officials and folk, and it was even played on the day of the Shangyuan Festival to add fun. Tang Dynasty tap song is also called "tap ballad", the Tang Dynasty government will hold large-scale Shangyuan Festival activities, such as Tang Ruizong selected more than 1,000 girls in Chang 'an, singing under the lantern wheel for three days and nights.

And Emperor Xuanzong is keen on lyrics, causing the court scribes to compete to create. Tang Dynasty Gu State "listen to mountain partridge" in the poem "night stay in peach blossom village, singing then day dawn", described the folk village people singing all night scene. Bai Juyi's "the fifteenth night of the first month" wrote: "Lights every city, and song everywhere, no matter Sidi, will not get tired of Hangzhou" describes the lively scene of Hangzhou outing.

In addition to the folk songs shared by officials and people, tug-of-war competitions also arose in the Tang Dynasty. Tug of war in history, also known as "hook" play, in the Tang Dynasty had the name of "tug of war". "Feng's Record of Smell" : "The two hooks are drawn together, the large group of neutral flags is the boundary, the drum is vibrating and the noise is making the phase pull; But to lose, called the tug of war." The activity described was a tug-of-war on the fifteenth day of the first month of the Tang Dynasty. The specific process of tug-of-war is four to five zhangs long hemp rope, hundreds of small ropes are divided at both ends, and people start "tug-of-war activities" in two teams.

In the Tang Dynasty Shangyuan Festival food, the primary food is white porridge or meat porridge, "Tang six" records: "there are festival food... On the fifteenth day of the first month, dark day ointment ". "Paste" is meat porridge. Meat porridge in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties for sacrificial purposes, which also includes "welcome Zigu", but did not explicitly say that the fifteenth day of the first month to welcome Zigu special food, until the Tang Dynasty to stabilize, become the main food in the Yuan Festival. In addition to porridge, there are many other Shangyuan Festival food. Such as cocoon-shaped food made of glutinous rice called "mian cocoon", cake food made of wheat noodles called "silk cage", there are fried food called "fire moth", and cakes made of rice or wheat flour called "Yulang cake".

Eating tangyuan at the Lantern Festival began in the Song Dynasty, when tangyuan had names such as "Yuan Zi", "water Tuanzi", "Tuanzi" and "Yuan Zi", while other delicacies were eaten in the Tang Dynasty. No matter how different the Shangyuan Festival cuisine of the Tang Dynasty was from that of modern times, the fact that people had fixed or exclusive food at a fixed time indicates a special definition of this date. Before the Tang Dynasty, there was no exclusive food on the fifteenth day of the first month, and it did not appear until the Tang Dynasty, which was an important stage in the development of Shangyuan Festival.