What is the origin of the zodiac?

According to our ancient records, in the Central Plains of ancient China, the "branch chronology" was originally used, that is, 10 heavenly stems symbols (A, B, C, D, E, Ji, G, Xin, Ren, Gui) and 12 earthly branches symbols (Zi, Ugly, Yin, Mao) "Book of the Tang Dynasty" records: "Twelve things in the Year of the Tiger, if the year is cloudy". In addition, the History of the Song Dynasty, The Biography of Tubo, also records that when the Tubo leaders narrate, they take events as a chronology. As the saying goes, "Twelve old things belong to Japan, the Year of the Rabbit and the Year of the Horse". Later, in the communication between the Central Plains and ethnic minorities, the two ways of dating contacted each other, forming the present 12 zodiac. As Zhao Yi pointed out in the Qing Dynasty's "Jade Cong Kao", "It doesn't matter whether there are ugly children in the early days of Gaibei custom, but it was spread in China in different years, so it didn't waste ears." This explanation about the origin of 12 zodiac has been recognized by many people.

In addition, the story about the origin of 12 is as follows: Hong Xun's Miscellanies of Yanggu says that the odd-numbered earthly branches of 12 are also equipped with odd-numbered fingers or hooves of animals. If the child is in the first place, the matching mouse is 5 fingers, and if the ground branch is even, the name is even, such as cow, ugly and so on. Ye Shijie explained the origin of Cao Zhong 12 Zodiac as follows: the painter matched 12 with 12, and each Xiao had its own shortcomings, such as toothless mice, toothless cows, toothless tigers, toothless rabbits, toothless dragons, legless snakes, gutless horses, eyeless sheep and legless monkeys.

There are other kinds of sayings. For example, the Yellow Emperor chose 12 animals to be on duty in the sky on time ... Through the competition, he selected 12 animals such as mice, cows and tigers. 12 Zodiac originated from the totem worship of some clans in primitive society, and was divided according to the strength of each tribe at a meeting; 12 Zodiac may have been introduced by Tianzhu; Or 28 stars are distributed in a week or so, and the value is 12 hours. Each star is named after an animal. Choose a common animal on duty every hour as an agent for a certain year, and so on.