龙，一种现已绝迹的稀有动物 | 说书

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Interface News Editor | Yellow Moon

For the Chinese, dragon worship is a long-standing tradition. Dragon culture existed in the Neolithic Age - dragon pattern pottery pieces were unearthed in the ancient ruins of Chahai in Liaoning Province more than 8,000 years ago - since the Yin Zhou Qin and Han dynasties, the worship of dragons has not faded because of the passing of the totemic era, but has intensified, becoming a symbol of the Chinese royal family and even the Chinese.

But perhaps it's because we're so familiar with dragons that we ignore the sense of disobedience that lingers on them. The existing literature records show that by the Han Dynasty, the custom of using 12 kinds of animals with 12 earthly branches (Zi Rat, Ugly Ox, Yin Tiger, Mao Rabbit, Chen Long, Si Snake, Wu Ma, Wei Yang, Shen Monkey,, Hu Dog, and Hai Pig) had been finalized, and the pattern of the 12 zodiac signs was the same as today in Wang Chong's "On Balance and Materiality" and "Words and Poisons" of the Eastern Han Dynasty. But have you ever wondered why among the 12 zodiac signs, there is only the dragon, a purely imaginary magical animal?

Image source: Visual China

Ma Xiaoxing, a researcher of dragon culture, consulted the Book of Han, the Book of the Later Han, the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, the Book of Jin, the Book of Song, the Book of Southern Qi, the Book of Liang, the Book of Chen, the Book of Wei, the Book of Northern Qi, the Book of Zhou, the Book of Sui, the Chronicles of Huayang, the Spring and Autumn Period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, the Notes on the Book of Water, and the Notes on the Ancient and Modern Records of Fuhou and other classics, and found that in the 806 years from the fifth year of Gaozu of the Han Dynasty (202 BC) to the fourth year of Renshou of the Sui Dynasty (604), there were records of seeing dragons 108 times. After the Sui and Tang dynasties, records of seeing dragons continued to appear, and even until 1944, there were people in the northeast who claimed to have seen dragons with their own eyes. In these dragon accounts, the characteristics and habits of dragons are described in much the same way. Ma Xiaoxing couldn't help but ask a question:

"When we are very resolute in denying the superstition of the dragon, it is necessary to ask ourselves calmly: Have we taken possession of and carefully studied all the records left by the ancients, and have we paid sufficient attention to the changes in the circumstances of the past and the present, and have taken into account the various internal and external factors that make up this mystery of the ages?"

Through literature review and fieldwork, Ma Xiaoxing came to a bold conclusion in the book "Dragon: An Unidentified Animal": the ancient Chinese worshipped the dragon as a real animal, because the dragon is a rare animal that is now extinct.

Dragon: An Unidentified Animal (Revised Version)

Written by Ma Xiaoxing

Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2018-8

See the real dragon in person

Judging from the shape of the oracle bone inscriptions and the golden inscriptions, the ancients believed that the dragon was such an animal: a reptile with a long body, able to bend and twist like a snake, and drag a long tail behind it. It has a large head, feet on its head, and scales and dorsal fins on its body. Some ancient texts use the word "dragon" to look a lizard. The Modern Chinese Dictionary (1983 edition) defines "dragon" as:

Dragon, a mythical animal in ancient legends on the mainland, has a long body, scales, horns, feet, can walk, fly, swim, and rain.

Regarding the origin of dragon worship, Wen Yiduo put forward the famous "comprehensive totem theory" in the article "Fu Xi Kao" published in the 1940s:

Presumably, before the totem merged, the so-called dragon was just a kind of big snake. The name of this snake is called "dragon". Later, there was a group of Klan who used this great snake as a totem, and annexed and absorbed many other totemic tribes of all kinds, and the great snake accepted the four legs of beasts, the head of horses, the tail of hyenas, the horns of deer, the claws of dogs, and the scales and whiskers of fish...... And so it became the dragon we know now.

However, Ma Xiaoxing pointed out that judging from the history books of the past dynasties, the ancients did not just regard the dragon as an imaginary magical animal, but as a real animal. From the fifth year of Gaozu of the Han Dynasty to the fourth year of Sui Renshou, there are as many as 108 records of seeing dragons in the history books. It is recorded in the Book of Sui: The Five Elements of Chronicles,

In the fifth year of Jiande of the Later Zhou Dynasty (576), the black dragon fell to death in Bozhou.

The incident of "a monster with a huge body and a large body falling from the sky" is not only recorded in the official histories of the past dynasties, but also in notes and local chronicles. As Ren Fang's "Narrative of Differences" volume wrote, the people in the court at that time not only saw the falling dragon, but the emperor even ordered it to be slaughtered and boiled into dragon soup to share with the ministers.

In the first year of the Han Yuan Dynasty (84 years), it rained heavily, and a green dragon fell into the palace. The emperor ordered it to be cooked, and gave the ministers a cup of dragon soup. Therefore, Li You's "Seven Lives" said: "The taste is also dragon soup." ”

Ma Xiaoxing found that after the Sui and Tang dynasties, records of seeing dragons continued to appear, and the records of dragons' characteristics and habits were similar: dragons usually fell from the sky and were able to crawl after falling to the ground. The dragon's primary threat after falling to the ground is a lack of water, and if it is not replenished for a while, it may lie in place for several days or even ten days and half a month, leaving people to watch until a heavy rain comes, and it will take off on the rain. In most cases, the local residents who watched the falling dragon did not harm the dragon, but helped it as much as they could. Residents build pergolas to shield the dragon from the sun, drench its body with water, and state and county officials even visit the site to hold rituals. For example, in the early years of Daoguang, Feng Xigeng (Haoyutang) recounted a dragon fall incident that occurred in the suburbs of Guangzhou (now Huangchuan County, Henan) in the last years of Qianlong:

In the 58th year of Qianlong (1793), there was a great drought in Gwangju. Suddenly, a thunderstorm shook and a dragon fell to a village in Dongxiang for more than ten miles to the city, and the village house collapsed. The snake lies down, and the filth is smoky. It was June, and the flies were around. People from near and far are covered to avoid the sun. After a long time without water, the scales are all cocked, and the flies enter and gurgle, and they suddenly close, and the flies die. The state honors the family sacrifice. For a few days, heavy thunderstorms took off and thousands of houses were damaged, and there were people who flew to Xixiang to go to the city dozens of miles away.

Dragon-shaped carvings on the stone wall (Image Credit: Visual China)

What is surprising is that in 1944, hundreds of people witnessed the "black dragon" on a certain beach in Heilongjiang, and whether it was the appearance of the black dragon, its habits, or the way people rescued it, it was similar to the above-mentioned incident that happened in the 58th year of Qianlong. In December 1989, in the column "Strange Things in the World" in the fourth issue of the third volume of "Chinese and Foreign Book Digest" edited and published by Shanghai People's Publishing House, an essay "The Black Dragon I Saw" was published by Ren Dianyuan, a retired cadre of the Xiangshan Dairy Farm in Dulbert Mongolian Autonomous County, Heilongjiang Province, and compiled by his son Ren Qingchun.

According to Ren Dianyuan's recollection, in August of the lunar calendar in 1944, he went out of the river with his father and others to fish, passing through the south of the Mudanjiang River, and found that there were many people around Chenjiaweizi Village. Its body is more than 20 meters long, its head and neck are thinner than its body, its forehead has a horn, and its seven or eight long whiskers are thick, hard and shaky. The four paws are deeply inserted into the sand, and it is impossible to see how many toes each paw has, and behind the hind legs is the tail, which is thinner than the previous body, and the foot is eight or nine meters. It looks like a "giant four-legged snake" (called "horse snake" in the Northeast dialect). It was covered in scales, and the scales on its back were iron-blue, the size of an ice tray, and the shape was similar to that of a carp. A large swarm of flies flew around it, and from time to time it shook its scales to drive away the flies that had stopped on it, and it emitted a fishy smell that could be smelled hundreds of meters away. In order to save it, the villagers of Chenjiaweizi built a shed on it and carried water to pour water on it. It rained heavily in the afternoon and turned into torrential rain in the evening. The next morning, Ren Dianyuan went to the scene with his father again and found that the black dragon was gone. Only a deep ditch was left in the same place, and there was a strong fishy smell in the sand.

Ma Xiaoxing corresponded with Ren Qingchun dozens of times, and not only asked someone to visit the site, but also personally went to Heilongjiang to communicate with the black dragon witnesses, thinking that Ren Dianyuan's account is unlikely to be just an old man's imagination. He found that in the folk tales circulating in Buyeo, Zhaoyuan, Dulbert and other places, such a plot can be found from time to time: a dragon suddenly fell to the ground and could not fly, and the local people rushed to the rescue and built a shed for Wolong to water. At the end of March 1994, Ma Xiaoxing personally went to Zhaoyuan County to visit Gucha and Chao townships, and talked with dozens of old farmers on the north bank of the Tongjiang River.

What is a dragon?

Ren Dianyuan described the black dragon he saw as a "horse snake", a common name for lizards given to the inhabitants of northern mainland China. Interestingly, in some Neolithic faience ornaments found in Henan and Gansu, there are also many realistic lizard-like ornaments. According to researchers' speculation, the lizard totem worship is the predecessor of the dragon worship of the Xia people. Until modern times, the Yi people in southwest China still depict dragons in the image of lizards. In addition, some of the characters for "dragon" in the oracle bone inscriptions are written in a way that resembles a lizard or a crocodile. Could this be a coincidence?

Cultural relics of the Wei State during the Three Kingdoms period of China, Qinglong portrait brick (Image source: Visual China)

Ma Xiaoxing found from a conversation between Cai Mo and Wei Xianzi in "The Twenty-ninth Year of Zhao Gong": "The ancients were beasts and dragons, so the country has the Dragon Clan, and there is the Royal Dragon Clan. According to Cai Mo, from the legendary time of Emperor Shun until the Kong Jia of the Xia Dynasty, that is, from about the 22nd century BC to the 18th century BC, there was a group of professionals who raised dragons. Since the dragon is a rare animal that cannot be caught regularly or raised in large numbers, the dragon art is not easy to master and is usually passed down from within the family. Even Sima Qian, who was cautious about ancient legends, did not deny the authenticity of the "Kongjia Animal Dragon", and his account in the "Historical Records of Xia Benji" differed only in a few details from the "Zuo Chuan".

Kong Jia was the thirteenth monarch of the Xia Dynasty. According to the "Zuo Chuan", by the time of Kong Jia's reign, the dragon technique had been almost lost, but this also means that in the early Xia Dynasty and before the Xia Dynasty, there was a dragon business in the Central Plains. Ma Xiaoxing believes that this may be related to climate change. 3,000 to 6,000 years ago, there were large areas of swamps, bamboo forests, grasslands and forests in the Central Plains, the climate was quite warm and humid, and the rainfall was much heavier than today. Researchers generally believe that such a climate and environment are more conducive to the reproduction of crocodiles. Ma Xiaoxing believes that the animals, known as "dragons" by the ancients, are accustomed to moving in the air with high humidity, and that places with abundant rain and swamps are ideal habitats. "On Balance and Feeling of Emptiness" wrote:

When Tang and Yu were in the Tang Dynasty, the dragon was in the dragon, and the dragon was always in the court. At the end of summer, the government declined, and the dragon was hidden.

In other words, during the reign of Tang Yao and Yu Shun (late Neolithic), people could often see dragons, and even raise dragons. But since the end of the Xia Dynasty, there have been fewer and fewer traces of dragons, and most of them are hidden in the abyssal ravines. The ancients attributed this change to the political decay of the monarchy, but from a scientific point of view, the more likely explanation is that the climate of the Central Plains changed significantly after the Xia and Shang periods, and was no longer suitable for the survival of dragons.

Ma Xiaoxing goes on to point out that almost all of the records of dragon sightings during the Cao Wei period are about "Jinglong", that is, traces of dragons found in well water, perhaps because the Three Kingdoms period was a period in China's climatic history that turned colder significantly. There are clouds in "Shuowen Jie Zi", and the dragon "ascends to the sky at the spring equinox, and dives into the abyss at the autumn equinox". There is also such a sentence in "The Book of Rites and Rites": "The dragon thinks that it is an animal, so the fish is not a tuna." This means that the fish are led by dragons, and since the leader is kept in the pond by human animals, the fish under his command will also be happy with him.

On January 28, 2024, in Shanghai, a glimpse of the lantern festival in Yu Garden.

The close connection between the dragon and the fish may hint at its attributes, and Ma Xiaoxing boldly deduced from the history of biological evolution that the dragon was an ancient amphibian that evolved from fish animals that landed on land to survive and survived to the written age. The dragon lin evolved directly from some ancient fish scale, and like bony fish scales, it grew for life after formation. The fishy smell of dragons comes from the mucus secreted on the surface of their bodies, and the mucus secretion of amphibians is an important means of maintaining the respiratory function of the skin. Dragons are mostly dying on land, which may prove that dragons' lungs are quite low and far from being able to meet the needs of land locomotion. The mouth tendrils are the most important tactile organs of fish, the dragon has thick mouth whiskers, indicating that it has never been far from the water, but also lives in dark places for a long time, the developed tactile organs are formally to compensate for the lack of vision, witnesses observed that its mouth whiskers are constantly shaking, because it wants to try to detect the surrounding situation:

Once we understand this intrinsic connection between dragons and fishes, it is not difficult to understand: why in folk stories, the dragon lord and the dragon son, the dragon grandson, the dragon woman, and the dragon girl often appear in front of mortals in the image of a fish when they travel in disguise; ”