Cang Jie coinage
CangJie is the creator of ancient Chinese hieroglyphics. It is precisely because CangJie created characters that some civilizations in ancient times can be handed down through characters. Therefore, CangJie is also regarded as the ancestor of Chinese characters by Taoism. The Chinese characters we use today are actually based on the hieroglyphics created by CangJie and perfected by the past dynasties.
Before CangJie created the characters, the rudiments of characters had appeared in China. CangJie systematically sorted these characters to make them more suitable for daily use.
CangJie was born with a vision. Everyone else had two eyes, but CangJie had four eyes with double pupils. Such a person was called the son of heaven. The HuangDi appointed CangJie as his own historian.
At the beginning, CangJie managed livestock under the hands of the HuangDi. At that time, people had begun to learn to domesticate wild animals, such as wild boar, wild horse and bison. After domesticating these animals into livestock, people didn't have to go out hunting.
At the beginning, there were very few domesticated animals, and Cangjie's work was relatively easy. However, with more and more livestock in the circle, CangJie felt a little difficult. In order to count the number of livestock, CangJie used the method of tying ropes to record events, sent a cow, and he tied a knot on the rope.
But over time, the knots on the rope became more and more, and it was impossible to tell how many cows and pigs there were. CangJie made a mistake all at once. When examining CangJie's work, the HuangDi also proposed that he could not continue to tie ropes to record events, and asked CangJie to invent a method to record events in detail.
CangJie then moved to a hillside and devoted himself to writing characters. Suddenly, something fell from the sky and hit him in front. CangJie picked it up and saw that it was the hoof of a beast. He looked into the sky again. It turned out to be a Phoenix.
It seems that the Phoenix preyed on the beast, and the indigestible hoof vomited out, but the hoof hit a mark on the ground. CangJie called the passing hunter and asked him what kind of beast it was.
The hunter smiled and replied, isn't this a dog! CangJie became interested and asked him how he could tell it at a glance. The hunter said he hunted all year round, and he had clear footprints of wild animals.
The hunter's words inspired CangJie. He thought that since he wanted to make records, it's best to let people see what it was at a glance. If we can grasp the characteristics of various animals and make words with this characteristic, wouldn't it be ok!
So CangJie drew a circle to represent the sun, and the moon was replaced by a crescent shape. He drew two wavy lines to represent the river. In this way, CangJie created thousands of hieroglyphs in a short time and was praised by the HuangDi.