Why are dice one and four red?

Dice one and four are red, because Tang Mingzong.

Both Tang and Yang Guifei like to roll dice. When it was Tang's turn to roll the dice, Yang Guifei could only be defeated if both dice were at four o'clock. The dice stopped, and there were indeed two fours.

Seeing this situation, Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty thought it was a good omen, so he ordered eunuch Gao Lishi to paint all four points of the dice vermilion, and later drew a little red on the side corresponding to the four points, which triggered folk imitation and has been passed down to this day.

Extended data:

The characteristics of dice:

The influential form of Bo Opera in ancient China was dice-throwing. Dices originally appeared in different shapes, and were engraved with various patterns. Later unified into a cube or cuboid, engraved with one, two, three and four points, distinguished by red and black tones.

This characteristic of "hanging on the field" has also become an important dividing line between "Bo" and "Yi" in ancient China. Although many players want to play chess, because they all use dice, they are very different from Go and Chess in essence, and they completely beat their opponents by intelligence.

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