New Year's Day (Spring Festival) has been the most important festival in China since ancient times.
Later, in order to integrate with the world, January 1st of the Gregorian calendar was designated as New Year's Day, and the first day of the first lunar month was called the Spring Festival, forming the New Year's Day of the Gregorian calendar year and the Spring Festival of the lunar calendar year that we are familiar with.
If the Winter Solstice is an important day for national sacrifices, then New Year's Day is a festival celebrated by the whole people.
After more than ten years of peace in the Tang Dynasty, the people gradually recovered some of their vitality. As long as they were not particularly poor, they would find ways to have a decent Spring Festival.
Ordinary people are like this, not to mention the capital city of Chang'an, which is particularly festive and lively.
The streets and alleys are full of people walking back and forth, children are running in groups to watch the excitement, and the markets have become more lively.
There is an endless stream of people coming to Zixiao Temple to offer incense every day. The market in front of the gate is busy every day regardless of the first or fifth day of the lunar month.
On such a festive day, Chen Jingke naturally came out to join in the fun, and he came up with many tricks for later generations.
The first thing I took out was the couplet.
"The peach charms are too small and not festive enough, so we use red paper to write couplets and door gods and stick them at the door... We use printing to print the couplets and door gods, and give one to everyone who comes to burn incense."
The door gods at this time were not Qin Qiong and Yu Chigong, but the two ancient gods Shen Tu (shū) and Yu Lei (lǜ).
Sun Simiao supported his apprentice unconditionally and wrote dozens of different couplets in his own handwriting.
Although his calligraphy is not as good as those famous writers, he still belongs to an outstanding group.
Chen Jingke has been practicing calligraphy, but the time is still short and he can't see any effect. I can only say that it is not ugly, but it is still far from being good.
There are two types of couplets written by Sun Simiao, one is full of Taoist color.
For example: Purple Qi came from the east for thirty thousand miles; Hanguan first crossed for five thousand years.
There is also an ordinary festive couplet.
For example: the lucky star shines brightly in the family portrait; the spring light shines brightly in the house.
After the couplet was written, Chen Jingke immediately sent it to the printing house for printing.
Then all the door frames of the Taoist temple were pasted up, and the red paper and black characters were really beautiful.
Naturally, everyone who came to offer incense saw such an obvious change. After asking about what was going on, everyone was very interested in this novel way of celebrating.
Zixiaoguan has launched a couplet gift service at the right time. Anyone who offers incense and worships gods can receive one for free.
As a result, more people came to offer incense, and soon all the printed couplets were delivered. Chen Jingke had to ask the printing shop to suspend other work and go all out to print the Spring Festival couplets.
This trend soon became popular, and more and more people began to post couplets.
Qin Mansion, Yuchi Mansion, and Cheng Mansion were the first to post it, causing many dignitaries to follow suit.
Li Shimin didn't know where he heard about this incident, so he wrote many couplets in his own hand and posted them all over the imperial city.
What is good for the superiors must be followed by the inferiors. Even the emperor and other ministers naturally did not want to lag behind. Soon the couplets were everywhere in the dignitary's residential area in the north of the city.
This trend quickly spread throughout Chang'an City, first the rich imitated it, and then the common people began to follow suit.
It is impossible for all the couplets to come from Zixiaoguan. This is unrealistic. Most of them are written by oneself or asked to be written by others.
Many poor scholars who sell calligraphy on the streets are smart enough to immediately buy red paper and sell Spring Festival couplets, and they really make a small profit.
The Spring Festival couplets and the like are just small tricks. Chen Jingke is going to bring out fireworks and firecrackers this time and give Li Shimin a big one.
As mentioned before, fireworks existed during the Sui Dynasty, and Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty even wrote poems praising them, which is recorded in history books.
It's just that the fireworks at that time were relatively simple and primitive. They just put black powder in a bamboo tube and ignited it and sprayed sparks outward. The effect was more like the big fireworks we are familiar with.
At the end of the Zhenguan period, someone sealed black gunpowder in a bamboo tube, which would make a loud noise when lit. This was the earliest firecracker. It was not until the Song Dynasty that we were familiar with firecrackers.
The fireworks that are common today first appeared in the history books of the Song Dynasty.
What Chen Jingke wants to do is firecrackers and fireworks.
Making firecrackers and fireworks is not difficult, the difficult part is the raw material, black gunpowder.
This also does not trouble him. The formula of black powder is not much different even if everyone knows it.
The Chinese should know more or less about the four great inventions, and it is not difficult to figure them out with a little attention.
He first sent people to old houses or old toilets to collect saltpeter, and then boiled the saltpeter.
The process of boiling saltpeter is difficult to describe in one sentence, and the two words of boiling urine are exhaustive. You can imagine the taste.
No one doubted his behavior. Nitrate has always been used as medicine. It was a normal behavior for Sun Simiao's apprentices to boil nitrate.
The only thing everyone is curious about is why they don't buy it from outside. Isn't it just asking for trouble to make it on my own?
In fact, the reason why he didn't buy it was not complicated. The saltpeter outside was not pure enough and he still had to boil it for secondary purification when he bought it. He could simply boil the saltpeter himself.
After getting enough saltpeter, he couldn't stand it anymore and hurried back to take a bath. Everyone he met on the road couldn't help but cover their noses.
Fortunately, the two maids still treated him as before. Yuzhu felt distressed and quickly boiled water for him to take a bath. Yi Nu wanted to laugh but didn't dare, biting her lips and her face turned red.
After taking a bath, he still felt that there was a faint smell of urine on his body, so he had to smoke himself all over with incense to suppress the smell.
Now that the most difficult thing is saltpeter, the rest will become easier.
Prepare various materials, add water to prevent explosion during production, and then grind them into powder.
Stir thoroughly to form gunpowder mud, then make the gunpowder mud into fine particles, and dry them to become simple granular gunpowder.
He experimented with it and the results were great.
With gunpowder, the firecrackers and fireworks that followed were no problem. By the way, he also made a big killer.
When everything was ready, he ran to the palace to find Li Shimin: "Your Majesty, I have a big treasure to show you."
Li Shimin glanced at him sideways and squeezed out one word from between his teeth: "Say."
Chen Jingke was a little confused. Since the last time he told the story of the finale of Journey to the West, the emperor's attitude towards him had become abnormal. He was picky and picky.
But it doesn’t sound like burning bridges across rivers, which is a headache.
If the gender was wrong, Chen Jingke would suspect that he was menopausal.
But who is the emperor? He could only pretend that nothing happened and said: "This thing is as noisy as thunder. It is best to find a deserted and relatively private place."
Li Shimin said disdainfully: "It's all mysterious."
But he immediately added: "There is a cellar in the palace, which is more than ten meters deep underground. Is it enough?"
Chen Jingke felt contempt in his heart, but did not dare to show it on his face, saying: "Okay."
"That thing is too dangerous. I left it in Zixiao Temple. How about you ask someone to fetch it? I just took this time to go to the cellar to prepare it."
Seeing that he was so solemn about the matter, Li Shimin immediately sent Ren Feng and a group of people to fetch it. Chen Jingke, guided by his chamberlain, went to the cellar and began to arrange it.