The story begins in the first year of the Republic of China.
Before January 1, 1912, China used the lunar calendar, but on January 2, the provisional president Sun Yat-sen sent a telegram to the provinces:
Governors of the provinces:
The Republic of China switched to the solar calendar, with The 13th day of November in the Yellow Emperor's era of 4,609 A.D., as the New Year's Day of the Republic of China. It shall be resolved by the Delegation of the Provinces and promulgated by the President. It is scheduled for the fifteenth day of the first month of the solar calendar to make up for the New Year. Please announce.
Sun Wen
Later this month, Sun Yat-sen issued another decree:
Decree of the Provisional President of the Republic of China:
According to the change to the solar calendar, the former president sent a member to the Senate for public deliberation, when the whole court decided, and the provinces were elected. The Senate hereby declares: "The almanac shall be promulgated immediately, in order to revere the correct Shuo, and to use it for daily use." "And the court will hold a meeting to decide on the four articles of the calendar method, and wait for the cause to arrive at the government." He immediately ordered your ministry to check the photos, consider the united states, and compile and print a book before the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, so that it can be issued to the provinces for implementation. Essential. This order.
Ministry of the Interior
Since then, China has begun to implement the solar calendar, and the long-term dispute between the "solar new year" and the "lunar new year" has begun.
However, do you think that this dispute between the "solar new year" and the "lunar new year" is just a simple dispute between the "new calendar" and the "old calendar"? The so-called calendar is actually a political issue, and the dispute between the two "new years" actually reflects the contradiction between the government and the general public.
We need to know that the calendar is actually a political issue. Then look at the Senate resolution at that time, which emphasized "reverence for the right Shuo, and then use it daily", and then think of the "correction of Shuo, easy to serve" of successive dynasties, it is not difficult to understand: the Republic of China changed to the solar calendar, in fact, it is not just what we imagine, overthrowing China's "feudal imperial system" for more than two thousand years, introducing the "solar calendar" of Western science, and abandoning the old "lunar calendar" in China. In fact, the undercurrent of the idea of "changing dynasties and changing generations" is still surging, and abandoning the lunar calendar and using the solar calendar instead is just a copy of the ancient "correction of Shuo".
However, although the government stipulates the use of the solar calendar, the private sector does not recognize the account. In the official and folk concepts at that time, the so-called "New Year" could only be lived in one "Year". So the question is: is it the "year" of your government? Or did we live the "year" of our ancestors?
In 1914, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Beijing government submitted a submission to Yuan Shikai: "I would like to request that the New Year's Day of the lunar calendar be the Spring Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival as the Summer Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival as the Autumn Festival, and the Winter Solstice as the Winter Festival." All our citizens are allowed to rest, and those in public are also allowed to take a day off. Yuan Shikai approved.
Here, lunar New Year's Day is called "Spring Festival" and becomes a government holiday. We call the first day of the lunar calendar year the "Spring Festival", in fact, it began at this time, and it is only the last hundred years.
Since then, the "New Year" mentioned by Chinese has become two "years": the "year" of the official solar calendar and the "year" of the folk lunar calendar.
So briefly speaking, January 1 of the Gregorian calendar and the first day of the first lunar month are both New Year's Day, and the Republic of China government stipulates that everyone celebrates the New Year's Day of the Gregorian calendar, but the people do not buy it. During the Yuan Shikai period, he also legislated to designate the New Year's Day of the lunar calendar as the "Spring Festival", and the people were very active in celebrating this Spring Festival, and since then the Spring Festival has been the New Year.