1. The Zodiac, also known as the Zodiac, refers to the twelve animals that are matched with the twelve earthly branches in China according to the year of birth, including rats, cows, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs and pigs.
Second, the origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship. According to the Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Shuihudi, Hubei Province and Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province, there was a relatively complete zodiac system in the pre-Qin period. The earliest handed down document that recorded the same Chinese zodiac as the modern one was Lun Heng written by Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
As a symbol of folk culture with a long history, the Zodiac has left a large number of poems, Spring Festival couplets, paintings, calligraphy and paintings and folk arts and crafts depicting the image and symbolic meaning of the Zodiac. Apart from China, many countries in the world issue stamps of the zodiac during the Spring Festival to express their wishes for the New Year in China.
Fourth, Chen is a dragon, always a snake, but in the southeast. Dragons are poisonous and snakes sting people, so snakes have good teeth and dragons have scales. Wood makes a fire, and fire is poison, so the beast of the black dragon contains Mars.
The ancients divided the stars near the ecliptic and equator into "28 stars". Twenty-eight nights represent an animal. In ancient times, Sunday was divided into twelve parts, represented by twelve branches. Twelve branches belonged to the zodiac, and the zodiac had a corresponding relationship with twenty-eight stars.
6. Jupiter runs once a week for twelve years, and the annual branching order can be determined from the position of Jupiter. Yu Han, Fang Shan and Ji Shu thought that every twelve years, "three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old and three years old".