"The Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor fought in the wilderness of Hanquan, with handsome bears, horses, wolves, leopards, cats, and tigers as the precursors, and eagles, eagles, eagles, and kites as banners." - "Liezi Huangdi"
We often see the existence of dragons in legends and film and television dramas, but the Chinese dragon and the Western dragon are very different in image. Dragons in the West often appear in ugly ways, capturing beautiful princesses and spurring warriors on the path of slaying dragons. The Chinese dragon is often majestic and benevolent, and he exists as a symbol of Chinese civilization. Chinese think that the dragon is their ancestor and call themselves the descendants of the dragon, but we all know that the earliest history of China began with the Yellow Emperor, and it is reasonable to say that it should be the descendants of Yan Huang, so why is there another descendant of the dragon?
This has to say about the totem worship of the ancients. In the distant barbaric period, the various tribes stood on their own, in order to show that the enemy and us were different, often using the beasts worshipped by their own tribes as totems, some snakes, some horses, after many great wars, the tribes merged and merged, and the totem began to change. At that time, when one tribe destroyed another tribe, the most obvious sign was to add the element of another tribe to its own totem, the Yellow Emperor conquered the four sides, unified the various departments, and then the totem of the descendants of Yan Huang formed a Chinese dragon with horns like deer, head like a luo, eyes like a ghost, neck like a snake, belly with a mirage, scales like a fish, claws like an eagle, palms like a tiger, and ears like an ox.
In the process of evolution, the surname also changes accordingly with the fusion of these totems, if you are one of these 4 surnames, it may not be the descendants of Yanhuang, the descendants of the dragon, but after the "Four Fierce Gods".
First, the legend of the "four fierce gods"
As we all know, the Yellow Emperor's nemesis was The Yan Emperor, the original Battle of Yanhuang, the blood flowed and the pestle was extremely tragic, but in fact, the Yellow Emperor's biggest mortal enemy was not the Yan Emperor, but Xuan You. According to historical records, the Yellow Emperor only took three battles to defeat the Yan Emperor, but he fought against Xuan You and fought seventy-one battles in a row, and still could not achieve victory.
Therefore, there is such a thesis, saying that after the Yellow Emperor defeated Xuan You with difficulty, his subordinates did their best to demonize the image of Xuan You when recording this period of history, of which the "Shu Yi Ji" records that "Xuan You's people have cattle hooves, four eyes and six hands", which is a real monster, and the various small tribes under Xuan You's command, subject to the Yellow Emperor, are recorded as gods, and those who are not so obedient are demonized into fierce, of which the "four fierce gods" are the most famous, namely chaos, poor qi, han zhuo and gluttony, these four fierce and strange shapes, not human-like.
However, the Founder of Chinese Civilization, the Yellow Emperor, should be a wise monarch in the historical record, not like a villain who will distort the enemy, so there is also a saying that these four fierce gods are the totems of the four tribes, which makes sense.
Then the historical record of Xuan You may not be a specific person recorded, but a tribe with the shape of a monster with the shape of "human ox hooves, four eyes and six hands" as a totem, it is rumored that the food is the sheep spirit of the head of Xuan You when he died, according to the theory of totem origin, the historical gluttony is more likely to be the totem owned by the heart and abdomen clan of Xuan You.
Second, the image of the "four fierce gods"
Whether it is demon theory or totem theory, the "four fierce gods" have been handed down from generation to generation by history. What kind of image these four are, no one can say.
Chaos, some people say that he is fat and round, all red, has four wings, six legs, no facial features, good music, but according to the "Left Biography", Chaos is a big red dog, humans can not see it, encounter good people, Chaos will become irritable; if you encounter evil people, Chaos will only look at the people.
Poor Qi, according to the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", he is like a tiger, has wings, barks like a dog, and loves to eat people. He is characterized by punishing good and promoting evil, and it is said that he often flies to the scene of other people's fights, eats the reasonable party, when a person does something bad, he will give this gift of money and wild beasts as a reward, and when a person does a good deed, he will eat him.
Han Zhuo, also known as arrogant, very stubborn and fierce beast. There are very few records of him, only found in the Divine Anomaly, he and Poor Qi, he has the body of a tiger, but the difference is that he has a human face, fangs in his mouth, and extremely long hair. Legend has it that he was Dayu's father, who was originally sent to cure water, but the result was fruitless, and then he was killed by Shun, and after his death, his anger was delayed, and he condensed into a fierce beast, and he was bent on doing bad things, without any reason, without any characteristics, and was very stubborn.
The last glutton is also the most familiar beast. Legend has it that he had a sheep face and a large mouth, and his stomach was like a bottomless pit, which could eat everything in the world, because of his insatiable personality, he was sealed by the Yellow Emperor with the Xuanyuan Sword, and posterity often used gluttony to express the insatiable person, and there were also many gluttonous images in various bronzes unearthed in ancient times.
3. The surname represented by the "Four Fierce Gods"
According to ancient legendary habits, most people like to use animals to anthropomorphize, just like the famous article "Wusong Fights Tigers" in "Water Margin", some people say that Wusong did not fight tigers, but a bully at that time. Therefore, when these "four fierce gods" were transmitted to the Han Dynasty, there were different records, which were recorded in the "History of the Five Emperors": The Emperor Hong's uncaizi Hanzhuo; the Shaohao clan's untalented son Qiqi and the Jinyun clan's untalented son. To say that these four notorious beasts are all descendants of the four clans is similar to the totem theory.
Among them, Han Zhuo was a descendant of the Zhao clan, but because he was inferior to his ancestor Shengming, he often committed evil and was exiled to a remote area by Emperor Shun, but his son Yu finally became Emperor Yu because of his meritorious efforts in controlling water, so most of their descendants took "Yu" as their surname; Chaos was a descendant of Emperor Hong, but because he did not cultivate virtue, often bullied the weak and bullied others, he was exiled by Emperor Shun to the mountains, and most of his descendants took "Cheng" as their surname.
It is said that Qian Qi was the son of the Shaohao clan, just like the current middle school boy, who was violent and rebellious, disobeyed discipline, and often committed wrongdoing, so he was exiled to Youzhou by Emperor Shun, and most of his descendants were surnamed "Gao", and the later beautiful man "Lanling King" was his descendant. Gluttony is a descendant of the Jinyun clan, greedy and greedy for money, and was exiled to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and most of the descendants took "Jiang" as their surname.
Therefore, the four surnames of "Yu, Cheng, Gao, and Jiang" all originated from the "Four Fierce Gods", and it can also be said that they are the descendants of these "Four Fierce Gods".
epilogue:
With the passage of time, one tribe after another disappears, one dynasty after another changes, no one can be sure which one of the ancient legends is correct, but these surnames have been passed down from generation to generation as people have multiplied, and the four fierce gods are no longer mysterious.
Although in ancient times, people have all kinds of prejudices about surnames, often the emperor gave a surname, but today, the surname is only a synonym for each of us, and there is no other meaning, and no one will make a fuss because of the different surname, because in the development of these thousands of years, we are all integrated into the big family of China, these four surnames that originated from the fierce beast are the same as our Yanhuang descendants, Chinese orthodoxy, about the surname, what else do you know?
References: "History", "Classic of Mountains and Seas", "Narrative of Differences"