Tracing back to the source, in the Qin and Han Dynasties, people had a custom at that time: Every family hung peach symbols on both sides of the gate during the Spring Festival, that is, two boards made of peach wood, and then carved exorcism generals on the boards, namely Shen Tu and? Lei Yu, it is said that they can keep the house safe and drive away evil spirits. This is the earliest origin of couplets.
It was not until the Five Dynasties that people began to write words on mahogany plaques instead of portraits. According to records, the first known couplet in history was posted on the bedroom door by Meng Chang, a master of Houshu, on New Year's Eve in 964? New Year's Day in Qing Yu, Cargeno. Changchun? This one. In the Song Dynasty, it was a common custom to paste Spring Festival couplets. Wang Anshi, a poet in the Song Dynasty, mentioned in his poem "January Day" that thousands of families always exchange new peaches for old ones. Because the predecessor of couplets is Fu Tao, Fu Tao is used to refer to couplets in the poem, which intuitively confirms the grand occasion of pasting couplets at that time. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the great ancestor of Ming Dynasty, highly praised couplets. When he established Nanjing as his capital, he ordered all officials and ordinary people to post couplets at home during the Spring Festival. He goes out traveling incognito and likes to read couplets from door to door. This made couplets once one of the fashions pursued by literati and elegant guests at that time. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of couplets had been greatly improved, and their popularity was no less than that of Tang poetry. Many beautiful sentences were born and became one of the most popular art forms at that time.
With the blending of cultures at any time, Spring Festival couplets have also spread overseas. Nowadays, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and other countries also have the custom of posting couplets, which shows that couplets have become one of the popular folk customs and entrusted people with their yearning for a better life.