The zodiac is an intuitive representation of the twelve earthly branches, namely, Zi (mouse), Ugly (ox), Yin (tiger), Mao (rabbit), Chen (dragon), Si (snake), Wu (horse), Wei (sheep), Shen (monkey), You (chicken) and Xu (chicken).
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 long-standing symbol of folk culture, the zodiac has left a lot of poems, Spring Festival couplets, paintings, calligraphy and paintings and folk arts and crafts that depict 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.
How to judge the year of the zodiac:
Zodiac year belongs to the dry calendar, which is not equal to the calendar year, but roughly corresponds to a Gregorian calendar year (AD digital year).
Gregorian calendar year 10 roughly corresponds to the year of the horse in the trunk calendar, so if the number of years is divided by 12, the remainder is 10, and it is concluded that the year of the horse corresponds to the year of the horse.
The column formula is: number of years in AD ÷ 12= a quotient, and the remainder is 10.
For example: 20 14÷ 12= quotient 167, and the remainder is 10. So 20 14 roughly corresponds to the year of the horse.
The detailed start and end dates are subject to the calendar date.