The 2023 New Year is here, New Year's Day is here, and children have new clothes to wear!
Do you know the origin of New Year's Day?
Let me tell you: China's New Year's Day, according to legend, began with Haoxiang, one of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, and has a history of more than 3,000 years. The word "New Year's Day" first appeared in the "Book of Jin": "Emperor Hao used the first month of Meng Xia as the Yuan, but it is actually the spring of New Year's Day". In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Xiao Ziyun's "Ya" poem in the Southern Dynasties also recorded "Four Seasons, New Year's Day, Longevity and Early Spring Dynasty".
The earliest Chinese called the first day of the first lunar month as "New Year's Day". Yuan means "beginning" and "beginning", and Dan refers to "days". New Year's is collectively known as "the initial days", the first day of the year. The date from which the first day of the first lunar month is counted was also very inconsistent before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
Therefore, the month and day of New Year's Day in the past dynasties are inconsistent. The summer calendar of the Xia Dynasty used Mengxi month (January month) as the first month, the Yin calendar of the Shang Dynasty took the twelfth month (December) as the first month, and the Zhou calendar of the Zhou Dynasty took the winter month (November) as the first month. After Qin Shihuang unified China, he took Yangchun month (October) as the first month, that is, the first day of October is New Year's Day. From Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Meng Xiyue (January) was stipulated as the first month, and the first day of Meng Xiyue (the first day of the first lunar month in the summer calendar) was called New Year's Day, which was used until the end of the Qing Dynasty. But this is the summer calendar, that is, the lunar calendar or the lunar calendar, not the New Year's Day as we call it today.
In 1911, the 1911 Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China. In order to "Xiazheng, so follow the agricultural time, from the Western calendar so that you can count", the first year of the Republic of China decided to use the Gregorian calendar (actually used in 1912), and stipulated that January 1st of the Gregorian calendar (Gregorian calendar) was "New Year", but it did not It is called "New Year's Day". The "Yuanqi" mentioned today refers to the first plenary meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on September 27, 1949. While deciding to establish the People's Republic of China, it also decided to adopt the common AD calendar method in the world and set January 1st of the Gregorian calendar officially designated as "Yuanqi", and the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar is changed to "Spring Festival".
After reading, do you understand the origin of New Year's Day?