Every year Chinese New Year's Eve, the family sits around, tastes delicious Chinese New Year's Eve meals, and savors warm and warm times, which is a happy moment. Chinese New Year's Eve that night, there was one thing that was unified across the country, that is, watching the Spring Festival Gala.
The footsteps of time in the Spring Festival Gala with songs and dances, in the interlacing of champagne and wine, in the feast of Chinese New Year's Eve and rice, in the sound of blessings and wishes, we will all usher in a solemn moment - the bell at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night.
The people in front of the TV set, like the most powerful atmosphere group, follow the rhythm of the Spring Festival Gala host, and greet the arrival of the new year in the same frequency and synchronously with a countdown.
When the bell strikes at 12 o'clock, the exciting moment arrives, and the land of Kyushu is suddenly immersed in a sea of joy. Just a few minutes before 12 o'clock, people were busy doing another thing, which was to add fireworks to the 12 o'clock bell.
When the bell rings at 12 o'clock, the fireworks take off into the air, blooming the most dazzling and brilliant colors in the night sky, and the night sky is also decorated with fireworks as another beautiful landscape like a starry sky.
In the sound of firecrackers, the old year has passed, which also indicates that the new year has arrived, and the firing of firecrackers has become a strong sense of ceremony, a signal, a ceremony to resign the old and welcome the new.
In the sound of firecrackers, the spring breeze sends warmth into Tu Su. The Northern Song Dynasty writer Wang Anshi excitedly wrote about the festive scene of people setting off firecrackers to welcome the New Year. Setting off fireworks and firecrackers has become a long-standing tradition for people to leave the old and welcome the new and welcome the beautiful spring, and this tradition has long been deeply embedded in the hearts of every Chinese.
Why set off firecrackers during the Spring Festival? Or fireworks?
To explain this problem clearly to children, myths and stories in the traditional culture of the mainland are indispensable. It's like a god assist, always appearing when it's most time to come, so appropriately perfect, so appropriate.
"Firecrackers", in fact, the original firecrackers refer to burning bamboo, because bamboo will make a crackling sound when burning. The ancients believed that setting off firecrackers could drive away evil spirits and avoid harm, and even make a monster called "Nian" avoid it, so on the day of the Spring Festival, people would set off firecrackers.
The mainland classical document "The Chronicle of the Jingchu Years" records: "The first day of the first month is also the day of the three yuan. "Spring and Autumn" is called the end of the moon. Chickens chirped, first in front of the court firecrackers, to ward off evil spirits. ”
With the development of the times, the form of firecrackers has also undergone great changes, from the initial burning bamboo to a combination of bamboo and gunpowder. Gunpowder has played an irreplaceable role in the development and evolution of firecrackers.
Here we also have to popularize gunpowder, one of the great "four great inventions" of the ancient mainland. In the process of repeated experiments, the alchemists of the Sui and Tang dynasties found that after mixing the three things of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal in a certain proportion, they could cause combustion or even explosion, so this invention that carried the wisdom of the ancients entered people's vision.
The invention of gunpowder is also the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people in ancient China, and gunpowder is gradually popularized and widely used. The wise ancients packed gunpowder in a bamboo tube, so that once lit, the bamboo tube would make a louder sound, and the simple way of burning bamboo was slowly replaced, but the name "firecracker" was retained.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, the folk began to commonly use paper tubes and hemp stems to wrap gunpowder, and the paper tubes and hemp stems wrapped in gunpowder were strung together to make "firecrackers", its name was also called firecrackers, and firecrackers were gradually popular at the beginning of the first month of the first month, gradually forming a tradition of the Spring Festival. In fact, this is also the ancient people's yearning for the life of Antai. There are many records about the custom of people in the Song Dynasty to set off firecrackers during the Spring Festival.
Liu Chang, a historian of the same era as Wang Anshi, wrote in the poem "Firecrackers": "The fire is broken, and the deep hall is thunderous", which refers to the scene of the firecrackers being red and red, warm and noisy.
The Song Dynasty scholar Meng Yuanlao also described the scene of firecrackers in Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, Chinese New Year's Eve night in the "Tokyo Dream Record": "It is night, the firecrackers are forbidden in the mountain, and the sound is heard outside." ”
It can be seen that the display of firecrackers during the Spring Festival has been a long-standing traditional custom, and it became a common celebration in the song dynasty.
The Spring Festival firecrackers are more to increase the festive atmosphere of the festival, and the red firecrackers are also mixed with people's laughter in the crackling sound, which is a happy and happy moment. Nowadays, when people celebrate weddings, house construction, and opening ceremonies, the hosts and guests will also set off firecrackers to celebrate.
Fireworks can be said to be a plus enhanced version of firecrackers, and the history of fireworks is later than the history of firecrackers. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, Li Xiya, a merchant in Liuyang County, Hunan Province, pioneered the production of fireworks in the process of developing firecrackers, which is the prototype of fireworks.
In the 1980s, Liuyang began to develop a ceremonial flower bomb with international standards, completing the leap from toy fireworks to large fireworks. Since then, Liuyang fireworks have also completed a gorgeous turnaround, and the fireworks produced by Liuyang have become a well-known fireworks brand at home and abroad.
At the moment when the Spring Festival bell rings, people use fireworks from Liuyang to add a brilliant light to the night sky of the New Year, and this sparkling light has become a beautiful hope for people to start the New Year's journey.