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Text: A little history
Edit|Xiao Xu History
The Legend of the Xia Dynasty and the Dragon: Myth or Reality?
When we open the thick "Historical Records", it seems that we can travel back in time and return to the distant Xia Dynasty. This history book, known as the first of the "Twenty-four History", not only records vivid historical moments for us, but also leaves many fascinating folk legends. Among them, the legend about the Xia Dynasty people eating dragons is particularly interesting.
According to the "Historical Records", during the Xia Dynasty, there was an emperor named Kong Jia, who had a soft spot for dragons and even raised them. He raised a female dragon and a male dragon, and hired someone to take care of them. However, the dragon breeder was negligent and caused the mother dragon to die. In order to escape punishment, he actually cooked the female dragon into food and offered it to Kong Jia. After tasting it, Kong Jia felt that the dragon meat was extremely delicious, and he never forgot the taste of the dragon meat. So, he ordered the dragon keeper to kill the male dragon to satisfy his appetite. In this way, the last two dragons on the earth disappeared from the mouths of the Xia Dynasty.
However, is this legend true or false? We know that although the "Records of the Historians" is an authoritative history book, its content is not entirely true. Therefore, the story of "Kong Jia eating a dragon" is most likely just a fictional legend.
In fact, the existence of dragons has always been a controversial topic. Although dragons play an important role in Chinese culture, we still have no conclusive evidence of their existence. On the contrary, a growing body of research suggests that dragons may have been mythical creatures made up by ancient people based on some known animal.
So, what exactly is the prototype of the dragon? Some researchers believe that the image of the dragon may be derived from the Chinese alligator. On the basis of the Chinese alligator, the ancients carried out artistic processing and creation, and finally formed the image of the dragon as we know it today. For example, there is an ancient book that records that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty shot a "dragon", and after research, researchers speculate that he actually shot a Chinese crocodile. In addition, in some artifacts excavated from ancient times, the image of the dragon is often similar to that of the Chinese alligator. Therefore, if the story of "Kongjia eating dragon" is true, then it is likely that the Chinese alligator that was once widely distributed on the continent was eaten.
From the above, we can conclude that dragons are fictional mythical creatures of the ancients, not real species. Therefore, we don't have to be too obsessed with finding the whereabouts of the dragon. After all, in the world of myths and legends, dragons have long become an eternal cultural symbol and spiritual sustenance.