In the long history of Chinese civilization, many myths and legends coexist, and many of them are specious and mysterious stories that seem to modern people, which is incredible.
For example, the legend of Pangu opening the world and Nuwa creating people. According to legend, in ancient times, the heavens and the earth on earth were like a giant egg, inseparable. In this egg lies a giant named Pangu.
The day Pangu woke up, the chaos around him made him feel extremely depressed. So he wielded his axe and slashed twice, cutting through the darkness of chaos and separating heaven and earth.
In order to stop the sky from collapsing, he held the sky with his hands and put his feet on the ground, supporting it tenaciously. In this way, the sky gradually rose, the earth became solid, and his body grew larger and larger, until the sky stabilized.
He fell down wearily, his eyes rose into the sky and turned into the sun and the moon, his body became mountains and hills, his blood became rivers and lakes and seas, his hair became trees and grasses, his sweat turned into rain, snow and mist, and his breath became ...... wind and thunderHis greatness created a whole new world and made the earth a place for human beings to live.
Later, a deity named Nuwa appeared, and she felt that the world was too quiet, so she used her image to make many small clay figurines, bringing life to the world.
She created gender and allowed people to live and live, and she also shot down the ten suns that scorched the earth, bringing hope and life to people. Although these myths cannot be scientifically verified, in ancient times, these stories represented the human search for the origin of life and natural phenomena.
The story of Nuwa and Hou Yi is like a mirror, reflecting the human pursuit of strength and wisdom, as well as the yearning for a better life. Even though history has passed, these stories still leave a deep imprint on our lives.
Hou Yi, the ancient hero, is still revered as the savior, and his name and story are still widely sung. No matter where we are in the world, we can find courage and strength in his story to face life's difficulties and challenges.
Between heaven and earth, the six demons of the Monkey, the Chisel Tooth, the Nine Infants, the Gale, the Sealing Pig, and the Snake Cultivator were rampant, bringing endless disasters to the people. Whenever the world is full of flames, there will always be a heroic savior who comes forward, and this time the hero is a mighty archer with a red god and white feather arrows, his name is Hou Yi.
Hou Yi has a long left arm and excellent arm strength, especially good at archery, he shot six demons with the divine bow in his hand, and then set his eyes on the ten suns in the sky. These ten suns are the ten children of the ancient Emperor Emperor Di Jun and the sun goddess Xihe, who lived in OOCL, and there was a big Fuso tree in the sea, and the ten suns slept under the branches of the Fuso tree.
Dijun and Xihe asked them to take turns on duty every day to bring light and warmth to the earth.
Sometimes, they are too playful and will appear together in the sky and bring disaster to people. Hou Yi saw it in his eyes, and when the ten suns came out, he pulled out the divine bow and shot them down one by one.
Leave only the last sun and let it continue to contribute light and heat to the earth. Hou Yi saved the common people with his arrows, and his story of shooting the sun was also widely praised by people, and it is still praised by people today.
Although the story of Hou Yi Shooting Sun is widely used in children's books, it may not be credible from a scientific point of view. However, with the excavation of the Taosi site, which coincided with the time of Houyi's activities, the story of the shooting of the sun has a more convincing explanation.
The excavation of the Taosi site has revealed the fact that people have mastered the art of making arrows in ancient times, which further proves that Hou Yi, who is good at archery, is not fictional, but probably existed.
Archaeologists have found that the site of the Tao Temple has not been preserved intact, but has suffered varying degrees of damage, suggesting that it may have suffered a foreign invasion at that time. This implies that Emperor Yao may not have been a native of southern Jin, but had migrated from other places.
A complete pig skeleton has also been found in the Taosi culture, which corresponds to the Dawenkou culture in Shandong, so it is speculated that the real history is that Emperor Yao led his clan of warriors who were good at shooting from Shandong to Jinnan.
On the road to open up the southern Jinnan region, he encountered stubborn resistance from the natives, and fortunately, Emperor Yao had a heroic Houyi by his side. After a fierce battle, they finally succeeded in quelling these rebellious natives and consolidating their position in the Jinnan region.
Based on this clue, we can deduce that the nine days that Hou Yi shot were not the sun in the sky, but the nine extremely powerful leaders of the indigenous tribes. Since there were no written records in ancient times, and the people at that time did not have a deep understanding of science, in order to establish himself in the local area, Emperor Yao needed to find a story that could be recognized by the local people.
So, he made up the story of Hou Yi shooting the sun, portraying the leader who could bring them warmth as a brutal sun, and Hou Yi as their savior.
In addition to the mythical and legendary Hou Yi, there was also a monarch named Yi during the Xia Dynasty.
He was once the leader of the poor clan in the Xia Dynasty, a hereditary archer, and "Hou" was the most honorable title in the Xia Dynasty. When Hou Yi usurped the power of the Xia Dynasty and established himself as the monarch, he became known as "Hou Yi".
Xia Qi's son, Taikang, was an inactive monarch who spent his days entertaining and hunting, and did not care about political affairs. Hou Yi had ambition and prestige, so he took the opportunity to make trouble, expelled Taikang from the national capital, and installed his younger brother Zhongkang as the queen of Xia.
After Chung Kang's death, his son succeeded to the throne. With the expansion of Hou Yi's ambitions, he finally expelled Xiang Ye and ascended to the throne of the Xia Dynasty himself, which is known in history as the story of Taikang's loss of the country and Hou Yi Dynasty Xia.
After Hou Yi became the monarch, his prestige and influence naturally increased greatly. In order to strengthen his divine power, he took the story of Houyi who shot the sun during the Five Emperors period as his own.
It turns out that there is such a magical story hidden behind the legend of Hou Yi shooting the sun. Professor Zhao Feng, a Chinese scientist, believes that Hou Yi did not shoot at the sun, but when a comet hit the earth, it shot at the fragments of the comet that resembled the sun due to friction and heat in the atmosphere.
This story teaches us to resist even in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity, and to express our resolve with action. The descriptions in ancient books such as "Huainanzi", "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", and "Heaven and Earth Ask Ancient and Modern Things" reveal the true meaning of Houyi shooting the sun for us.