The Year of the Dragon is coming soon!
There are all kinds of good wishes for the Year of the Dragon, but there is a lot of reverence for dragons, after all, as creatures that only exist in myths and legends, dragons themselves have their own mysteries.
So, as fictional creatures, how did dragons get into the zodiac? What kind of "mysterious background" does the dragon have? This is an interesting issue of interesting knowledge that will make your Year of the Dragon soar.
Why did the dragon give birth to nine sons, but there was no dragon in it? It is said that "dragons give birth to dragons, and phoenixes give birth to phoenixes", but in fact, dragons give birth to nine sons, but there is no dragon in them, why is this?
The first thing to explain is that the dragon gave birth to nine sons does not mean that the dragon only has nine children, "nine" is an imaginary number, which means that the dragon has many children. Therefore, different versions of the nine dragons may also be different.
One of the more accepted theories is that the nine sons of the dragon are prisoner cow (qiú niú), 睚眦 (yá zì), mock wind (cháo fēng), 蒲牢 (pú láo), 狻猊 (suān ní), 赑屃 (bì xì), 狴犴 (bì àn), negative 屃 (fù xì), and 螭kiss (chī wěn).
The reason why the nine sons have different looks and temperaments is mainly because their mothers are different.
The eldest prisoner cow is considered to be the son of dragons and buffalo creatures, the second is considered to be the son of dragons and jackals, and the mothers of the rest of the sons are also different, the mother of the mocking wind is a flying bird, the mother of Pu Lao is a ** class, the mother of the fox is a lion, the mother of the is a turtle, the mother of the fox is a tiger, the mother of the negative is a turtle, and the mother of the mantian is a fish.
Dragon Seven Sons|Source: Picture Worm Creative.
Attentive friends may have discovered that the mothers of both the two are turtles, and their names are also very similar, how to distinguish these two brothers?
Look at the appearance and location.
Generally speaking, it looks more like a turtle, and the stele under the stele of the ancient building is carried by the stele, which is the stele, because the legend is that the stele is infinitely powerful, it is a super strong man, and it can carry three mountains and five mountains, and it is natural to carry a stele.
And looks more like a dragon, on the inscription entrenched in the general negative tuan, the legend of the negative tuo elegant good words, is a "literary green", it often lies on the top of the stele.
Guess who this is|Source: Picture Worm Creative.
Which of the Chinese characters with "dragon" has the most strokes? 
It is composed of four "dragon" characters, a total of 64 paintings, from the Jin Dynasty collection of characters "Five Tone Chapter Sea", which means verbose and noisy. In fact, this character not only has the most strokes among the Chinese characters containing "dragon", but it also has the most strokes among the Chinese characters with a clear provenance.
It's easy to get confused with the following word (mainly because it's too small to read clearly):
This character is also not easy to write, it is made up of three traditional "dragons" and has 48 paintings. Previously, when CCTV announced that the theme of the 2024 Spring Festival Gala was "Dragon Xing, Xinxin Family and Country", this word attracted people's attention.
Lu comes from China's first regular script dictionary "Jade Chapter", describing the appearance of the dragon soaring, high-spirited and enthusiastic.
Source: Weibo @Spring Festival Gala.
So, let's also march towards the Year of the Dragon!
3.How many fingers does a dragon's claw have?
As for how many fingers the dragon's claws have, many people believe that "five claws are dragons and four claws are pythons", but judging from historical data, in addition to the five-clawed dragon, one-clawed, two-clawed, three-clawed, and four-clawed dragons have also appeared, and there are even clawless dragons.
For example, the jade "Jasper Dragon-shaped Pei" in the Warring States Period, with feet and no claws, is a clawless dragon; The long dragon in the mural on the top of the tomb of King Chu of the Western Han Dynasty, with one claw on each foot; In the silk painting "Figures of the Dragon" in the middle and late Warring States period, the number of two-legged claws in front of the dragon is two, which is a two-clawed dragon; The three-clawed dragon can be seen on the portrait brick "dragon pattern hollow brick" of the Qin Dynasty; In the Eastern Han Dynasty portrait stone "Dragon and Tiger Title", the dragon has four claws.
When did "five claws for a dragon and four claws for a python" become explicitly stipulated?
The earliest stipulation of "five claws for a dragon" can be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty.
"Yuan History" contains "but not allowed to serve the dragon and phoenix text (the dragon is five claws and two horns)", and the "Yuan History: Criminal Law IV" also records "the dragon, five claws and two horns". That is to say, in the Yuan Dynasty, non-royal people could not wear clothes with dragon and phoenix patterns, and the dragon mentioned here is "five claws and two horns".
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, a stricter distinction was made, identifying "five claws for the dragon and four claws for the python", but many python robes in the Qing Dynasty also had five-clawed pythons on them.
4.Why are the dragon kings all surnamed Ao?
I found that the Dragon King of the East China Sea Ao Guang, the Dragon King of the South China Sea Ao Qin, the Dragon King of the West Sea Ao Run, and the Dragon King of the North Sea Ao Shun all have the surname Ao, although the names of the four dragon kings are slightly different in different mythological stories, such as the Dragon King of the East China Sea in "Romance of the Gods" is called Ao Guang, and in "Journey to the West" is called Ao Guang, but no matter how it changes, they are all surnamed Ao.
The Dragon King in "Journey to the West".
There is an explanation that the dragon king's surname Ao is related to a mythical creature called Aoyu, the so-called Aoyu, that is, when the carp jumps the dragon gate, only half of it jumps over, the head becomes a dragon, but the body is still the appearance of a fish, the surname Ao may have evolved from Ao.
Of course, the above explanation is full of mythology, a more scientific explanation is that this is related to the Yuan Dynasty miscellaneous drama "Fighting for the Jade Board Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea", before that, the dragon king did not have any fixed name, this miscellaneous drama gave the name of the four dragon kings, and later people also followed this miscellaneous drama to name the dragon king, but the descendants did not change the surname, but changed the name later.
So, why did the Dragon King be surnamed Ao in "Fighting for the Jade Board and the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea"? I'm afraid I can only ask the author himself, maybe the author thinks that if someone asks the dragon king "what's your name", the other party directly "snorts", and simply surnames Ao.
5.As the saying goes, "On the second day of February, the dragon raises its head", how does the dragon raise its head?
The "dragon" mentioned here is actually a star group. The ancients divided the stars around the equator and the ecliptic into 28 star groups, which were called the 28 Nakshatras. These 28 Nakshatras are divided into four groups, each of which is a group of seven Nakshatras: Canglong in the east, Suzaku in the south, White Tiger in the west, and Xuanwu in the north.
Specifically, the Oriental Canglong contains the seven houses of horn, Kang, Di, Fang, heart, tail, and Kei, of which Jiaosu is the dragon's head, Kangsu's is the neck, Disu's is the chest, Fangsu's is the dragon's belly, Xinsu's is the dragon's body, and the tail and Keisu's are the dragon's tail.
In winter, the "Seven Nights of the Dragon" is below the horizon, and after the beginning of the second lunar month, the horn (i.e., the dragon's head) will appear on the horizon, but the dragon's body is still below the horizon, and it looks like a giant dragon has raised its head, so it is called "the dragon raises its head".
On the day of "the dragon raises its head", people will go out and get haircuts to express their best wishes for the future.
6.The dragon is so powerful, why is it not the first in the zodiac?
In the hearts of many people, the dragon is a mysterious and supreme existence, but according to Li Mu, an associate professor at the School of Arts of Nanjing University, in fact, before the Ming Dynasty, the dragon was not praised so highly, nor was it exclusive to the imperial power, which is an important reason why it did not rank first in the zodiac.
Before the Ming Dynasty, dragons had always been in a supporting position, for example, many dragons in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" were actually used as means of transportation. According to Li Mu's research, in the pre-Qin period, there was no necessary connection between the dragon and the king, and people other than the king could also use dragon patterns and dragon-shaped utensils; From the Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang dynasties, with the introduction of Buddhism, the snake god "Naga" in Hindu mythology was translated as "dragon", and people began to have faith and awe for dragons, and the ruling class also realized the importance of dragons; During the Northern Song Dynasty, the dragon was already a noble spiritual symbol, but it still did not have a very close relationship with the emperor.
The turning point was Yuan, according to the record in the "History of Yuan": "Renzong Yanyou has two months in the winter of the first year, and the color of the fixed clothes ranks ......."However, it is not allowed to serve the dragon and phoenix (the dragon is said to be five claws and two horns)". It was stipulated that, except in a few special cases, only the royal family could use the five-clawed two-horned dragon, and at that time the dragon and the imperial power were linked. The regulations of the Ming Dynasty on the dragon-shaped uniform system were also very strict, and in the Qing Dynasty, the dragon pattern used by the emperor must not only be five claws and two horns, but also the posture of the dragon must be "positive dragon".
It can be seen that it should be strictly calculated, and the relationship between Longcai and imperial power in the Yuan period was relatively close, especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The 12 zodiac signs germinated and formed in the pre-Qin period and were established in the Eastern Han Dynasty, long before that.
It can only be said that the dragon "rose" a little late, otherwise the ranking may really be able to move forward.