The mistake of ocean map: an illustration of Qing seafood
"Sea Mistakes" is a set of atlas drawn by painter Nie Huang during Kangxi period in Qing Dynasty. Nie Huang recorded all kinds of creatures he saw and heard with his own eyes along the coast of China with vivid pictures and words. Limited to the times, the description in the book is exaggerated, but full of fun, which is deeply loved by the Qing emperors. It is now in the Forbidden City in Beijing and the Forbidden City in Taipei.
There are more than 300 species of creatures depicted in the Cross-sea Map, among which animals cover almost all major groups of invertebrates and chordates, and many coastal plants are also recorded.
The "fault" of marine fault refers to all kinds of miscellaneous meanings. Before the Han Dynasty, people used "sea fault" to refer to all kinds of marine life. The map of marine faults depicts more than 300 kinds of creatures, including drawings, observation records and literature research, which is quite modern natural history style. Although limited by the times, the book is not reliable, but today we can still interpret the survival and distribution of these marine life at that time, and how ancient China people got along with them.
Demonized crocodile
China is one of the hometown of crocodiles, which was recorded by the ancients. However, in the Qing Dynasty, due to the decrease of habitats and the cold climate, the species and quantity of crocodiles were greatly reduced, and few people saw them. Nie Huang, the author of Wrong Chart, has also heard the name of crocodile for a long time, but he has never seen a real crocodile. Although there are Chinese alligators in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River where he has lived for a long time, Nie Huang has never seen them live in seclusion. Moreover, in ancient times, the Chinese alligator was called "camel", and another crocodile with larger and fiercer size was called "crocodile"-Chinese alligator and crocodile were regarded as two different animals by the ancients.
Nie Huang is very curious about "crocodile". After consulting the information, he found that crocodiles in ancient books looked like lizards, but they were bigger than lizards. You can dive, but if you swallow someone, you will surface. There is a crocodile creek in Chaozhou, Guangdong. When a deer walked by the stream, a group of crocodiles roared, scaring the deer into the water, and the crocodiles swallowed it. There is glue on the crocodile's tail. As soon as the tail was swept away, people at the water's edge got stuck and fell into the water. ...
Nie Huang didn't believe these legends until one spring, when he met a Fujian man. This man named Yu once saw crocodiles with his own eyes in Guo (now North Vietnam), and he told Nie an interesting story.
Catfish in Wrong Chart. This picture is based on the description of a person who has seen catfish in Hunan, and its shape is distorted. But from the distribution (middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River), appearance (looks like dragons and pangolins, only 1 meter) and habits (digging holes and nesting on the shore, which is powerful but does not hurt people), it should be an alligator. The catfish in the picture is spitting fog-this may be because the wetland where it lives often has water vapor, which is an imaginary skill.
Chinese alligator, also known as "catfish" (sound "camel"), is generally only more than one meter long and rarely hurts people. The ancients in China listed it as another kind of animal different from crocodiles.
You can see animals when you go to Annan.
Yu said: "In the thirty years of Kangxi, my cousin went to Annan to do business, and I went with him. Just as King Annan celebrated his father's birthday, he ordered all localities to pay tribute to animals. We went to see it. Some people pay tribute to rhinoceros, some people send long-tailed monkeys, and some people pay tribute to 13 newborn tigers.
"Zhanchengguo (now southern Vietnam) paid tribute to three crocodiles, each two feet long (more than 6 meters), golden yellow, with armor and three gold threads on the scales. The mouth is square and wide, the four feet are short and clawed, and the tail is long and flat. The strangest thing is that there are flames in the eyes and legs, and the white background is red, just like in the painting!
"These tributes were originally used to burn sacrifices, but Secretary-General Annan believes that rhinos have precious horns. Unfortunately, long-tailed monkeys are spiritual and harmless, so they only burned crocodiles and tigers, and there were tens of thousands of onlookers. That day, I remembered the crocodile. "
After I finished painting, I drew a sketch for Nie Huang, who redrawn it and turned it into this painting in Wrong Chart.
What surprised Nie Huang most was that the crocodile was wearing a flame. He said: "Crocodiles have flames, which have never been recorded in books, but I am a witness and more credible than books." Dragons are sacred, so people add flames when painting dragons. Now the crocodile has even brought fire, so it is a dragon. It's just an evil dragon. " Nie Huang was very happy to finally know what the crocodile looked like, and wrote a poem "Ode to the Crocodile": "Crocodiles spread in words, but their bodies are hard to see. Visiting Annan far away is enough to test.
Crocodiles in Wrong Chart. The artistic image of the dragon often carries flames, and the crocodile occupying the city-state as a tribute may be painted with flame patterns according to the image of the dragon.
The ancient carnivores have been evacuated from the south.
Except that the mouth is too short, it is quite close to the real crocodile. "There are three gold threads on the scales" should refer to the rows of "scales" protruding from the crocodile's back. The body color "golden yellow" is basically true, because crocodiles already have many yellow scales. The biggest problem is the flame on your body. In reality, crocodiles have no similar structure. Perhaps it was to decorate it, or perhaps the tribute was deliberately painted according to the dragon's appearance to increase the crocodile's strength.
Judging from its 6-meter body length and "square and wide" mouth, this crocodile should be a bay crocodile. Bay crocodile is the largest crocodile in existence and the only crocodile in Southeast Asia that can grow to this size. Moreover, the land occupied by tribute crocodiles is close to the sea, and the bay crocodile is the only crocodile that adapts to seawater life, which adds a bit of credibility.
"Crocodile Creek" mentioned in China ancient books, in which crocodiles are also bay crocodiles. There used to be three kinds of crocodiles living with the ancients in China: Malay Crocodile, Bay Crocodile and Chinese Crocodile. Malay crocodiles have long snouts and can only catch fish and small animals. The Chinese alligator is too small (1 m or more) and has a gentle personality. Neither kind of crocodile will eat people.
Only bay crocodiles can eat people and deer. The Tang and Song Dynasties was a famous "warm period" in the history of China, and the temperature was much higher than now. Crocodiles like Wen are widely distributed in South China, hurting people and animals. Crocodiles in the sea will take advantage of the high tide to swim to the crocodile stream in Chaozhou, Guangdong. At that time, Chaozhou official Han Yu specially wrote "Sacrificing Crocodiles" and ordered crocodiles to evacuate to the sea.
Crocodiles are the largest living crocodiles. It is said that it can grow to seven or eight meters long, but the maximum wool length recorded so far is 6. 17 meters. It can live in the sea, so it is also called saltwater crocodile.
Malayan crocodiles used to live in China 3000 years ago, but now they only live in Malay Peninsula and Sumatra.
In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the temperature was much colder than that in the Tang Dynasty, and the population increased greatly, which invaded the habitat of crocodiles, and the bay crocodiles and Malay crocodiles retreated to warmer Southeast Asia.
But crocodiles occasionally drift to China. For example, in the year of Xuantongyuan in Qing Dynasty (1909), Lee Joon, commander of the navy, was patrolling by warships in Sanya, Hainan, when he met a crocodile cruising three or four meters long. Lee Joon asked his companion, "What is that?" The companion said, "It's a crocodile! Han Yu wrote in Chaozhou to drive it away! "
While speaking, the crocodile swam to the side of the boat and tried to climb up the side of the boat along the hanging ladder. Lee Joon quickly killed it with two shots. This is the last record of crocodiles in China. Since then, China people no longer have to worry about being swallowed by crocodiles.