Legends or stories about the New Year.

First, the origin of the Spring Festival legend:

Wan nian Chuang Wan Li

According to legend, a long time ago, a young man named Wannian saw that the festival was chaotic at that time and had a plan to make it accurate. But he couldn't find a way to calculate the time. One day, he was tired of chopping wood up the mountain and sat in the shade to rest. The movement of the shadow inspired him. He designed a sundial to measure the time of the day.

Later, inspired by the dripping spring water on the cliff, he began to make a five-layer clepsydra to calculate the time. Over time, he found that every 360 days, the four seasons would cycle once, and the length of the weather would be repeated.

At that time, the monarch was called Zu Ti, who was often troubled by the unpredictable weather. After ten thousand years of knowledge, he went to see the monarch with a sundial and a clepsydra, and explained to Zu Ti why the sun and the moon moved. After hearing this, Zu Ti was overjoyed and felt reasonable, so he left for ten thousand years and built the Sun and Moon Pavilion in front of the Temple of Heaven, a sundial platform and a leaky pot pavilion, hoping to accurately measure the running law of the sun and the moon, calculate the exact time in the morning and evening, and create a calendar to benefit the common people all over the world.

After the calendar was made, Wannian pointed to the astronomical phenomena and said to Zu Ti, "Now it is twelve months, the old year has passed and the new year has begun. Please make a festival for you. " Zu Ti said, "Spring is the first year of a year, so let's call it Spring Festival". It is said that this is the origin of the Spring Festival.

Second, the origin of jiaozi

Zhang Zhongjing invented jiaozi.

Zhang Zhongjing was born in Nieyang County of the Eastern Han Dynasty (now Zhangzhai Village, Gedong Town, dengzhou city City, Henan Province). Since childhood, he has studied medical books hard and learned from others, becoming the founder of traditional Chinese medicine.

According to legend, when Zhang Zhongjing was the magistrate of Changsha, he often treated the people. One year, when the local plague was prevalent, he made a cauldron at the entrance of Yamen, giving up medicine to save people, which was deeply loved by Changsha people. After Zhang Zhongjing retired from Changsha, he just caught up with the winter solstice and walked to the shore of the Baihe River in his hometown. He saw that many poor people were hungry and cold, and their ears were frozen.

It turned out that typhoid fever was prevalent at that time and many people died. He was very upset and determined to treat them. After Zhang Zhongjing returned to China, he followed Changsha's example and asked his disciples to set up a medicine shed and cauldron in an open space in Dongguan, Nanyang, and open it on the day of winter solstice to give medicine to the poor.

Zhang Zhongjing's Quhan Joule Decoction is a summary of more than 300 years of clinical practice in Han Dynasty. Its practice is to put mutton and some cold-dispelling medicinal materials into a pot and cook them, then take them out and chop them up, make them into ear-shaped Joules with flour bags, put them into a pot and cook them and distribute them to patients seeking medical treatment. Everyone has two charming ears and a bowl of soup.

After eating Quhan decoction, people feel feverish all over, their qi and blood are smooth, and their ears are warm. People eat from the solstice of winter to New Year's Eve, fighting typhoid fever and curing frozen ears.

Zhang Zhongjing didn't give up taking medicine until New Year's Eve. On the first day of New Year's Day, people celebrate the New Year and the recovery of rotten ears. They cook food for the New Year like burnt ears and eat it on the first morning. People call this kind of food "jiaozi", "jiaozi" or "flat food" and eat it on the solstice of winter and the first day of New Year to commemorate the day when Zhang Zhongjing opened the shed to deliver medicine and treat patients.

Extended data:

Jiaozi is a folk food with a long history. Eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival is also a unique folk tradition of China people. Because it means "making friends when you are young", it is very popular with people. There is a folk saying "delicious but not as good as jiaozi". During the Spring Festival, jiaozi has become an indispensable delicacy. In the folklore of many places in China, eating "jiaozi" on New Year's Eve is an important feast that no food can replace.

Jiaozi originated in the era of Zhang Zhongjing, and "jiaozi" is also called "Jiaozi" or "Joule", which means the alternation of the old and the new, and it is also a feast that must be eaten according to God's meaning. Otherwise, God will remove your name from the world of Yin and Yang and become an unrecorded ghost after death.