In ancient times, heaven and earth had just been separated, and in order to distinguish between years, months, and hours, the Jade Emperor set up a heavenly stem and earth branch to let people work according to the prescribed time. People leave early and return late, plant in spring and harvest in autumn, and live a very happy life. However, because people cannot remember their age, it often happens that there is no distinction between young and old. Therefore, the Jade Emperor wanted to gather twelve animals as genera, so that people could distinguish between the elder and the young.
When the animals heard that the Jade Emperor was going to collect the genus, they all cheered, and when they were elected, they were ranked as gods, and the animals all looked forward to being selected. The cat heard about this and was very enthusiastic, but it had the habit of sleeping lazily, afraid that it would not be able to get up, so it let its good friend mouse wake it up in the morning. The rat heard that there was such a good thing, and he also wanted to try it, so on the day of the election, the rat not only did not wake up the cat, but also prepared to rush to the Ling Xiao Treasure Hall early when lín was chosen.
For the sake of fairness, the Jade Emperor elected representatives whether they flew in the sky or ran on the ground, and after some consideration, the final animals were: dragons, tigers, cows, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs, pigs, rabbits, snakes, and rats. But how do these twelve animals rank? The Jade Emperor decided to rank them according to the order in which they arrived.
Because the rat came hiding in the ear of the cow, because the rat came from the ear of the cow, it jumped in front of the cow and came first; the cow became the second; the tiger came third; the rabbit came fourth; the dragon originally arrived late, but because it and the rooster borrowed horns and became beautiful, the Jade Emperor made it rank fifth; the snake arrived late, but it looked like the dragon, and it was ranked behind the dragon and became sixth; the horse and the sheep had a good relationship, one ranked seventh, and the other ranked eighth The monkey saw that it was going to be the last in line, and jumped up and down, and the Jade Emperor ranked it in ninth; the rooster could have ranked high with its beautiful feathers and mighty horns, but it lent the horn to the dragon, so it ranked tenth; as for the dogs and pigs, they had no superior skills, and had to rank last.
The Jade Emperor made these twelve genera opposite the twelve branches of the land, namely zi rat, ugly cow, yin (yín) tiger, 卯 (mǎo) rabbit, chen (chén) dragon, 巳 (sì) snake, noon horse, wei sheep, Shen monkey, unitary (yǒu) chicken, 戌 (xū) dog, and hai (hài) pig. From then on, people can distinguish between the elder and the young according to the genus.
After the genus is arranged, the animals ostensibly perform their duties, but in fact they have formed a vendetta because of the ranking. For example, the cat catches the mouse as soon as it sees it because the mouse does not wake itself; and the dragon does not return the horn to the rooster, so the rooster shouts to the sky every day: "Brother Dragon, return my horn." "It is said that when the rooster lent the horn to the dragon, he let the centipede be his witness, but the centipede favored the dragon and did not recognize the borrowing of the horn. Since then, as soon as the rooster sees the centipede, it chases after the untrustworthy witness.
The story is told like this, but in fact, people correspond according to the habits of animals and time. The hour is from eleven o'clock in the evening to one o'clock in the morning, which is the time when the rats come out to steal something to eat; the ugly time is one o'clock to three o'clock in the morning, and the cow is regurgitating (chú) (1); the tiger begins to come out to feed, and the moon is still hanging in the sky, and people can still see the jade rabbit on the moon; and the hour is seven o'clock to nine o'clock in the morning, which is the time for the dragon to rain; at noon, the snake comes out of the ground and begins to move; at noon, the horse begins to gallop on the grassland; the sheep begin to graze; the shen time is three o'clock in the afternoon. The monkeys were jumping around in the trees, having fun, and when the sun was about to set, the chickens began to nest. At that time, the dog began to keep vigil for its owner; when it was time to go, the pig snored, symbolizing that the day had passed.
(Han Folk Tales)
This article is the author's original, and the theft must be investigated!
(1) Some ungulates return the food swallowed after coarse chewing to the mouth and chew it carefully, and then swallow it again.