Whether it is daily life or during festivals, many people will discuss the topic of zodiac signs. Some people say that zodiac signs start from New Year's Day, some people think that they should start from the first day of the New Year, and some people think that they should start from the beginning of spring. So, when should they start from?

In fact, the calendar has countless documentary evidence, not a "salty and sweet battle". Today we will talk about it.

The ancient chronology was not easy

The Spring Festival is the largest festival for the Chinese, but this situation has not been around since ancient times. The "Taichu Calendar" established by Emperor Wu of Han was the earliest calendar with January 1 as the beginning of the year. In the previous Qin Dynasty, the "Zhuanxu Calendar" with October 1 as the beginning of the year.

The Han Dynasty began to use our first month today as the beginning of the year, but it was just a calendar act, and the custom of celebrating the New Year gradually began to form during the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Of course, it is two different things to celebrate the New Year and the Zodiac sign. In the second year of Yuanhe of Emperor Zhang of Han (85 AD), the imperial court ordered the implementation of the Ganzhi Ding and the Branch Chronicles nationwide.

A brief introduction, the year of the stems and branches is to count the ten heavenly stems - Jia Yi Bing Ding Wu Ji Geng Xin Ren Gui, and the twelve earthly branches - Zi Chou Yin Mao Chen Si Wu Wei Shen You Xu Hai, and the double rows are combined to count downwards. The first year is Jia Zi, the second year is Yi Chou, and so on. Because one group has 10, the other group has 12, and 60 years is a cycle.

A thought question: A said that he was born in the year of Yiyou, B said that he was born in the year of Dingwu, who was lying? The answer is at the end of the article.

However, for ordinary people who are illiterate, the heavenly stems and earthly branches are still too complicated, so they simply use the twelve zodiac signs to correspond to the twelve earthly branches. It is very convenient for everyone to say that they belong to something. You are a chicken and I am a rabbit. You will understand as soon as you reduce it.

The 12-year cycle length is also suitable, and it will not cause confusion - for example, 1, 13, 25, or 37 years old are all pigs, and you can tell which round of the person looks.

Why are there these twelve zodiac signs?

The earliest record of "zodiac sign" discovered so far appears in "The Book of Southern Qi: Five Elements": "The Marquis of Donghun is born in the pig... The King of Liang is born in the dragon..." is credible evidence, which shows that at the latest in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the use of zodiac signs to refer to people was widely used.

As for why these twelve animals, there are different academic statements. Some say it comes from astronomical phenomena, and the twelve zodiac signs correspond to the twenty-eight constellations; some say it comes from early animal worship; many experts such as Guo Moruo say that the twelve zodiac signs come from the Western Regions or India. These statements seem to make some sense, but none of them have fundamental evidence.

△The earthly branches and corresponding animals in the Qin and Han bamboo slips

In fact, this is still natural and slowly formed. The zodiac signs can basically be divided into three groups - life-related things, such as cows, sheep, chickens and rats; dangerous things, such as tigers, snakes, and elephants, ghosts and other things in the Han bamboo slips above; and there are magical things like dragons that do not exist or have become extinct.

This can also be regarded as an ancient "popular science tip". Once you master these animals, children will know which ones can be eaten, what can be raised, and what to hide.

△Twelve zodiac figurines of the Tang Dynasty, picture source: National Museum

Surprisingly, there are many cultures similar to "zodiac" in ancient countries in the world, and they are often twelve. For example, the Babylonian zodiac signs include falcons, the Greek zodiac signs include red cranes, the Indian zodiac signs include lions, and the Burmese zodiac signs include guinea pigs. Of course, they are all slowly formed according to the situation of animals in various places. The Greek origin of the zodiac is "zodiac", which has the same roots as the "zoo" zoo.

Where does the controversy come from?

After reading the text above, you may ask, don’t you understand the facts quite clearly? Of course, the zodiac chronicles that have existed since ancient times will not be based on the current Western calendar New Year's Day, and will not be used as improper and correct. That's right, the use of the zodiac dynasty was much earlier than the "Gregorian calendar" in the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of the dynasty of

The reason why there is such a controversy among the people is mainly due to Yuan Shikai. After Yuan Shikai took office as president, he abolished the old calendar and introduced the new calendar. It doesn’t matter. The key is that he has changed his name. The Lunar New Year, which was originally called "New Year's Day", was changed to "Spring Festival", and gave up "New Year's Day" to the Gregorian Year; the "Birth of Spring" that was originally widely called "Spring Festival" can no longer be called "Spring Festival", but can only be called "Birth of Spring". This three names have caused a lot of confusion, so that rumors are spreading, involving the algorithm of the zodiac sign.

In fact, there is nothing to argue about. Next time someone tells you that New Year’s Day or the Beginning of Spring is the first day of zodiac signs, so you will throw these three pictures to him.

This is the national standard for this issue in our country.

By the way, do you still remember to think about the questions? Announced answer: B is lying. Although there are 10 and 12 of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, because they are all even numbers, the order arrangement does not produce 120 groups of all combinations, only 60 groups. This is the concept of the smallest common multiple! Odd Heavenly Stems and Even Earthly Branches will not meet, and vice versa, so there is no such year as Dingwu.

If you can't calculate it, you might as well take a look at the table below: