"Twenty-four, sweeping the house day", the custom of sweeping the house on the twenty-fourth day of the waxing moon has a long history, it originated from a religious ritual to drive out diseases in ancient times, as early as the Yao Shun era, it has formed a festival custom.
"Zhu Zi Family Training" said: "Sprinkle sweeping the court, to clean up inside and outside", now it is about to be the New Year, of course, it is more important to create a clean and hygienic New Year environment, and also contains the meaning of blessings and blessings, the house is dirty, how can the blessings come in?
Why the house is swept away on the twenty-fourth day of the lunar month, in addition to the above reasons, there is also a folklore story.
Legend has it that a long time ago, in order to be able to grasp the good and evil behavior of the people in the world in detail, the Jade Emperor specially sent the Three Corpses God to patrol the netherworld, and he was like a shadow, following the whereabouts of people, inseparable. The Three Corpses God is a guy who sees the wind and makes the rudder and flatters, likes to manipulate right and wrong, spread rumors, and often say bad things about others in front of the Jade Emperor, describing the human world as ugly. After listening to it for a long time, in the impression of the Jade Emperor, the human world was a filthy world full of sins.
Once, the Three Corpses God secretly reported to the Jade Emperor that there were people in the human world who blasphemed the gods and wanted to rebel against the Heavenly Court. The Jade Emperor was furious and ordered the Three Corpses God to draw a mark on the wall of the perpetrator's house, and when the Chinese New Year's Eve night, he sent the Heavenly Soldier Heavenly General to catch the guilty person according to the mark on the wall, and cut the door and cut it down, leaving no one behind.
When the Three Corpses God received this holy will, he couldn't help but be overjoyed, and in order to ask for merit and reward, he indiscriminately made marks on the walls of each household so that the Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals could kill them all.
Just when the Three Corpses God was drawing a mark, the good-hearted Vesta God discovered the evil deeds of the Three Corpses God, so he found the Stove King of each household and discussed how to deal with the Three Corpses God. Finally, they finally thought of a good way, that is, starting from the twenty-third day of the waxing moon to send the stove god, until the Chinese New Year's Eve received the stove god, every household must clean the house, if any household is not cleaned, the stove king will not return to which house. Therefore, in accordance with the instructions of the king of the stove, on the second day after the delivery of the god of the stove, that is, the twenty-fourth, everyone began to conscientiously clean the room and the courtyard, clean the dust, clean the doors and windows, and clean their own house and look new.
By the evening of the thirtieth century, the Jade Emperor sent heavenly soldiers to arrest the sinners. When the Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals looked at each other, the windows of every household were bright and bright, and the people were celebrating the New Year happily, and they could not find the marks left on the walls by the Three Corpse Gods. The Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals had no choice but to return to heaven and report to the Jade Emperor that the facts were not at all like what the Three Corpses God had said, and that the human world was peaceful and full of joy. The Jade Emperor was furious and reprimanded the Three Corpses God for lying about military information and committing the crime of deceiving the king, ordering him to slap his mouth for three hundred and being imprisoned in heaven.
Later, in order to report to the vesta god, after sending the vesta god, people began to clean the house, and gradually formed the custom of "twenty-four, sweeping the house", which has been passed down to this day.