What is the "Yangtze River Walking Jiao"?
Since ancient times, there has been such a rumor among Chinese folk: "The snake has turned into a dragon for five hundred years, and the dragon has turned into a dragon for a thousand years." "Dragon, since ancient times in the Chinese civilization has a very high status, the ancients worshiped the dragon as a mascot, the Son of Heaven as the incarnation of the dragon, the ancient book "Classic of Mountains and Seas" also has many records of the dragon.
In 5,000 B.C., the Chinese nation carried forward the Yangtze River civilization along the Yangtze River, and the Yangtze River civilization has a history of more than 7,000 years. In the long history, all kinds of anecdotes about the Yangtze River are scattered among the people, and many of the secrets about the dragon are buried in the vast basin of the Yangtze River.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, traces of dragons have also appeared in the Yangtze River basin from time to time. Whenever the rainstorm comes, the Yangtze River will be lightning and thunder, and the flood will be rolling. The churning waves carried the yellow sediment rushing forward, and the roaring flood mixed with thunder and loud roars roared in the Yangtze River basin, and the water surface became extremely fierce, and the flood rushed to the village, bringing great disasters.
And in 1998, when a flood broke out, some people said that they saw a huge black dragon rolling in the water in the Yangtze River.
The snake that lived the longest
According to folk legends, the predecessor of Jiao was a snake, and a snake can only turn into a Jiao in 500 years, so can a snake really live for 500 years?
There is no shortage of folk legends about snakes, including the 1867-year-old Black Water Dragon King, and the 2400-year-old python in Anhui Province. But if you want to talk about the most famous snake, we also belong to the Southern Song Dynasty folk tale "The Legend of the White Snake" in the white snake Bai Suzhen, who has practiced for thousands of years, and Xiaoqing, the green snake who has practiced for 500 years.
But the legend is a legend after all, the real average life span of snakes is only between 6 and 25 years old, snakes as cold-blooded animals, the length of life is affected by the climate, even if it is artificially bred, the longest life span is only between 30 and 50 years old.
At present, the longest officially recognized snake in the world is a snake that lived in the Philadelphia Zoo in the United States, and lived to be 50 years old.
There are also rumors that a 145-year-old reticulated python was found on the Indonesian island of Java, but there is no official confirmation at present. In China, there is no official record of a snake living more than 50 years old.
The snake is divided into three parts, head, torso and tail, the eyes are sharp and cold, the whole body is surrounded by scales, there are no limbs, it is a cold-blooded animal, and the snake is also used as the prototype as a description of the dragon's appearance in ancient Chinese records. But so far, no snake can live for 500 years, so what about the Yangtze River?
The mystery of the Yangtze River
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, there have been many rumors about the appearance of dragons in various places, and the Yangtze River walking incident in 1998 is one of the most famous events.
In 1998, when a rare flood occurred in the Yangtze River basin, old villagers living nearby responded that they saw a huge black dragon in the churning waves, which made the local residents explode.
You must know that as early as before, there have been several famous "dragon appearance" incidents in China, such as the Yingkou falling dragon incident in 1934 and the Songhua River falling dragon incident in 1944, all of which made the "dragon" seem to have stepped out of the legend and become a real creature, which also cast a more mysterious veil on the "dragon".
There is a legend that it is said that the Jiaojiao will bring floods and flood all the crops in the surrounding villages, and it will bring great disasters to the local people wherever they go, which is a bad omen.
There is also a rumor that the Jiao is actually a symbol of the imminent transformation of the dragon, and it is precisely the last tribulation that can be transformed into a dragon, so it will bring great disasters. Whatever the way it is said, the appearance of the Jiaojiao seems to be inseparable from the flood.
"Walking Jiao" is actually a normal phenomenon. It turns out that this phenomenon has a great relationship with the special geographical location of the Yangtze River.
First of all, the Yangtze River is located in the 800 mm precipitation basin of the mainland, and the precipitation is large. Every year from June to July, when the rainy season begins, a large amount of rainwater will flow in, and the water level will skyrocket.
Secondly, the topography of the Yangtze River also determines that it is prone to flood disasters. The middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River have a huge difference in topography and a fast water flow, and whenever the water level rises sharply, the already fast water flow becomes faster, which is easy to cause flooding.
The lower reaches of the Yangtze River are flat and the water flow is slow, and the Yangtze River itself is dominated by soft soil such as red soil, which will carry a large amount of sediment into the downstream every time the water flows, which will cause the river water to pile up and burst, and it is easy to cause flood disasters when it comes and goes.
The ancients had no way to deal with such natural disasters, so they could only think that Jiaolong did it, and there are many legends about Jiaolong and floods.
Sometimes the Yangtze River enters the rainy season, and the rushing river from a distance makes people mistakenly think that the dragon appeared, and many people speculate that the flood is due to the dragon. Therefore, in the Yangtze River Basin, the theory of the appearance of Jiaolong has never been broken.
Modern technology against "dragons"
With the continuous development of science and technology, the mainland's water conservancy engineering undertakings have also made great progress.
In 1988, the mainland built the Gezhou Dam, followed by the Three Gorges Dam in 1994. The dam has brought the flood under control and made the Yangtze River basin more peaceful, so that people living nearby can feel more at ease and no longer have to worry about the rainy season causing damage to crops and houses.
In fact, from the perspective of Guan Long's legend, it is more that people came up with an explanation method for natural disasters before the development of science and technology.
In fact, there are no snakes in the world that can live for more than 500 years, not to mention the appearance of real Jiao, let alone the appearance of dragons, these are only mythical things. As an extremely important part of Chinese culture, the dragon has carried the blessings and prayers of hundreds of people for the future in the millennium culture, and has also become one of the most important cultural symbols of Chinese culture.
When modern science and technology are developed today, dragons can still be used as spiritual sustenance, long-lasting in the hearts of every Chinese, and retain a beautiful expectation for the future.
It's just that in the face of natural disasters, we no longer use "dragons" to deal with them, but should use science and technology to better fight natural disasters and protect people's lives.