Domestic geese can be roughly divided into two systems: China Goose and European Goose. European geese originated from grey geese, and China geese were domesticated by Hongyan. China Goose originated in the northeast of China, and it has been recorded in Erya. It was raised as early as 4000 years ago and is a very old goose species.
Domestic ducks, Hongyan domesticated into China domestic geese, and wart-nosed ducks domesticated into muscovy ducks.
Biologist Darwin mentioned in his book Variation of Animals and Plants at Home that "in Homer's epic, geese were domesticated as early as ancient Greece, and in the temples of ancient Rome, people raised domestic geese as sacrifices to God"; Some people think that Egypt successfully domesticated domestic geese around 2000 BC according to the information left by ancient Egyptian strokes.
China ancient book Zhuangzi's "South China Classic" records: "Vertical Axis was ordered to kill geese and cook them. Vertical axis, please say, if one can sing and the other can't, please kill it. The master said, "Killing people who can't sing" shows that China had a mature domestic goose domestication technology before 400 BC.
At present, it is generally believed that China domestic geese and European domestic geese have different origins. China domestic goose originated from Yu Hongyan, while European domestic goose originated from grey goose. Wang Xizhi, a great calligrapher in Jin Dynasty, likes to watch the posture of geese. "Biography of Wang Xizhi in the Book of Jin" records one thing: "(Wang Xizhi) loves geese, and there must be lonely old people who raise geese and are good at singing. I couldn't get the quotation, so I took my relatives and friends to see it. As soon as I heard that Xi was coming, I cooked for it and regretted it for a long time. " There is a record of the emperor hunting geese in Jin Dynasty.
From the biological point of view, goose is not an independent species, at best, it can only be regarded as a variety or subspecies of red goose or gray goose.