Mythical Stories of Henan

Mythical Stories of Henan is an article about ancient Chinese mythical stories, which contained a large of information, contained the pioneers of the ancient Chinese people's pursuit of life and the emotional sustenance. And we know them to learn our history, honor the patriarch, inherit and promote the traditional culture. And my hometown is Zhumadian, a small city of Henan, where there are varieties of culture there’s lots of mythical stories because of Henan being one of the cradles of the Chinese nation.There are many narations, which maybe you are interested in.^[1]

Hetuluoshu

We know there was an emperor, named Fuxi, in ancient times. One day, there’s a Longma, whose back had hetu, in yellow river, part of Mengjin, Luoyang, Henan. Hetu was presented to Fuxi, and became Bagua, the source of Zhouyi. And luoshu was found at the back of deiform tortoise in Luohe, Luoning, Luoyang. Yu dealt to yellow river according to luoshu, at last he succeeded and made china into Kyushu. People said, there’s hetuluoshu in river, there’s saint. I think it’s a symbol of auspice, peaceful environment, and clear and bright society. Today, people have also searched for the mathematics from hetuluoshu.^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

Wu zetian close to Luoyang peony

As we all know, Luoyang is the city of peony. Why the city is Luoyang but not others? In the tale, Wu Zetian, the empress of the tang dynasty, wanted to see the scene of hundreds of flowers blooming together in winter. Hundreds of flowers except peony all blossomed out because of the empress’s power and influence. So peony was demoted to Luoyang, far away from the capital Chang’an. Since then peony lived well and blossomed out beautiful flowers in Luoyang, and the city also became the capital of peony. Owing to its beauty and the sense of riches and honor, peony is one of people favorite flowers all the time. And Luoyang is famed for its meeting of peony flower today.^[7][8]

Butterfly lovers

My senior high teacher has said, there are one big, one small, one temple, as well as one fool guy at Runan of Henan province. The fool guy is Liang Shanbo, and there’s a tomb of Liang and Zhu at Maxiang, Runan. And this tale has been said as the eastern Romeo and Juliet by our premier Zhou Enlai. Liang and Zhu who pretended mankind met, knew and fell in love at college of Hongluoshan. But, they were separated by parents because of Liang’s poor family. Finally, Liang died of disease and Zhu went into Liang’s tomb on her wedding, and they became two butterflies together. We are still touched by their love story today.^[9][10]

The general cypress将军柏

The Songyang嵩阳书院^[11]college’s general cypress, locates in Dengfeng登封^[12],Zhengzhou, Henan province, as the ancient Chinese cypress because of their 4000 years old, was called “the original cypress” in reputation both at home and abroad. The famous poet Piaochu had left the poem “songyang has zhoubai ,seeing the world for three thousand years.”^[13]According to legend, Liuche刘彻^[14],the emperor of Xihan Dynasty^[15], had ever walked to the Songyang college .When he just entered a door and saw a tall cedars with flourishing branches and leaves ,the emperor determined to call it the “general”. Then the emperor went through the second courtyard and saw a cypress tree, taller than the “general”, however, the first cypress had been called the “general”, the second one had to be regarded as the “second general”. After a while, another bigger one was called the “third general”. Because of the emperor’s injustice three general all had a bad mood. The “general”, aware of his reality, daren’t to look up others, and as time passes, he became to a bent tree slowly. The second one became into a hollow tree by reason of his stomach splitting owing to his angry in the heart. The third one was too angry that burned to death. Therefore, there is a piece of thrilling folk ballad to make a record of the matter more vividly. It said that the big was called small one and the small was named big one as a result of the first impression, and the third one burned to death because of angry, then the second refused to explode belly. And the “general” smiled to pour wall, then lowered his head because of his ashamed. No body could evaluate this two thousand-year upside-down case.^[16][17][18]

Yugong moves the mountain^[19]

Yugong, a near 90-year-old man, lived over against the mountains, which were called Taihang Mountain and Wangwu Mountain. And the mountains took an area of about seven hundred li里,highing 7000 or 8000 zhang丈.so his family suffered from the mountains when coming out. To get out of the mountains easily, Yugong appeal people to try to dig the steep mountains and flat a ended at the southern states to prepare to make a road. Then all people took part in this project. However, a wise man, Zhisou智叟,laughed at Yugong , stopped it，said: “you are not wise! With your remaining years, you couldn’t move the rest of the tree even the mountain grass, how about the earth stone?” Yugong said: “your heart is really stubborn. Even if I died, my son still lived, and even if my son died, I also have grandson. Then my grandson has his son, and son has grandson, so my children is endless. But the mountains can’t increase, why do you worry about that we couldn’t dig up?” Zhisou had no words to say. Finally, the immortal emperor was touched by Yugong’s sincere, and ordered others to back away the two mountains. There have been no mountains cutting off the road from that time.We can learn a lot from the “fool” of Yugong and Zhisou’s“wisdom” .As people say, the story contains the idea that where there’s a will there’s a way. The ancient and modern astronomers, artists, politicians have used the legend. Mao Zedong has once encouraged and educated people to develop the spirit of hardworking by the story. People also believe that no matter what difficult, so long as you have the perseverance to hold on, there is likely to be successful. ^{[20] [21] [22]}

Reverences

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ zh:河圖洛書
3. ^ [2]
4. ^ [3]
5. ^ [4]
6. ^ [5]
7. ^ [6]
8. ^ [7]
9. ^ [8]
10. ^ [9]
11. ^ zh:嵩阳书院
12. ^ Dengfeng
13. ^ 嵩阳有周柏，阅世三千年
14. ^ 汉武帝
15. ^ Han Dynasty
16. ^ 大封小来小封大，先入为主成笑话。三将军恼怒自焚死。二将军不服肚气炸。大将军笑倒墙头上，自觉有愧头低下。是非颠倒两千载，金口玉言谁评价？
17. ^ [10]
18. ^ [11]
19. ^ [12]
20. ^ [13]
21. ^ [14]
22. ^ [15]