The guy who was in charge of the ranking of the twelve Chinese zodiac signs was a corrupt official, who received huge benefits from the mouse and did the colorful business of trading power and money, and put the golden crown of the first place on the head of the little mouse who had no virtue and no talent. This is, of course, just a far-fetched joke. But what is true is that human beings have never found a convincing explanation for this. However, mankind is after all the most intelligent animals in the senior animals, in the twelve signs of the Chinese Zodiac to determine many years later, people finally made up a perhaps self-deceiving self-justifying folk tale to explain why the rat in the twelve signs of the Chinese Zodiac ranked first. This is called "the rat first big" story circulated in the central plains of Hunan and Hubei:
The rat and the ox, horse and sheep were elected twelve phases of the genus, the rat said: "I should be placed in the first place." Cow, horse, sheep they are not convinced, said: "What makes you in the first place?" The rat said, "I'm big, so I'll be first." The cow, horse and others couldn't help but laugh, "Are you as big as we are?" The mouse said, "It doesn't count if we argue, let someone else say it." The cow, the horse, the sheep and so on all agreed to let someone to comment. So they discussed a way: the cow led the way, and the horse, the sheep, and the mouse walked through the street one after another to see how people would comment.
On the street, the cow came by, and people said, "This cow is very strong." When the horse came by, people said, "This horse is tall." When the sheep came by, people said, "This sheep is fat." Finally, the rat came strutting along with its belly, and when people saw a big rat suddenly come out on the street, they all chased after it and shouted, "What a big rat, what a big rat!" In this way the cows, horses and sheep had nothing to say, and let the rat come in first place.
Also, there are similar folk stories about the ranking of the twelve genera.
On how the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac is arranged in order, said there is an interesting story:
The first division of chaos, the heavenly stems and earthly branches have just been fixed, the Jade Emperor ordered the universal call to the world's animals, according to the son, ugly, c, d, e, c, f, si, afternoon, not yet, shen, you, huxu, ohio twelve branches of the twelve earthly branches to choose twelve phases of the genus.
The news spread, alarmed the flower cat and the mouse this two good friends. The flower cat said to the mouse: "tomorrow five night to heaven should be selected, I have a sleepy problem, when you can shout me ah!" The mouse said repeatedly, "Yes, yes!"
But early the next morning, the untrustworthy mouse secretly got up and left without saying goodbye.
On this day, the beasts in the Temple of the Spirit Heavenly Palace Yunan set, began to respond to the election, the Jade Emperor, according to the difference between heaven and earth, singled out dragons, tigers, cows, horses, goats, monkeys, chickens, dogs, pigs, rabbits, snakes, rats twelve kinds of land and water beasts for the twelve phases of the genus. The rooster, with its two beautiful horns, was also included in the category of beasts.
The Jade Emperor was just about to rank them, only to see the black civet pig flashed out, do not look at it was born clumsy, but specializing in trouble, it played: "The Jade Emperor has already chosen a good leader, I would like to help the king to share the worry, as a fair person, for the brothers in order to rank." The Jade Emperor was overjoyed at this, and instructing the pig to be impartial, he retired from the court.
As soon as the Jade Emperor left, the twelve zodiac signs were in an uproar.
At the beginning, everyone unanimously chose the gentle, generous old bull to be the first, and even the mighty tiger and the dragon respected it a bit and agreed. However, the mouse, which was cowering in the corner, came out and protested. It said, "I'm the biggest in terms of number, if not, let's go to the earth to compete and listen to the people's comments." So, the old bull and the mouse came to the street market.
When the ox walked through the crowd, people did not react. At this time, the mouse "giggle" climbed to the back of the cow to play a stake, the people on the street have yelled: "What a big mouse!" When people took out their sticks and rushed to fight, the rat had already run away.
The rat came back to brag, all the animals are for the bull, only the black pig secretly happy, it feels that only this size is not divided, good and bad difficult to distinguish, in order to be able to fish eyes, they are also from the fish, so it is the brush first picked the rat, after the row of the old bull.
This can annoy the tiger and the dragon in the side, it two loud clamor, shocked the crowd of animals trembling. The animals made a pilgrimage to the dragon and the tiger and unanimously chose the tiger as the king of the mountains and the dragon as the king of the fishermen, who ruled the world. The monkey wrote the word "king" for the tiger and hung it on the tiger's forehead, and the rooster gave two horns to the dragon. From then on, the dragon wore the crown. Tiger and Canglong had the power on earth, and they were willing to take the place of mice and old cows. At this time, another nosy hare jumped out, it sneered and said: "Hey, hey! In terms of looks I'm about the same as a mouse, in terms of size I'm bigger than a mouse, and I'm the Mountain King's guard, so I should be in front of the Sea King."
Canglong was furious, said: "You don't have to mess around, don't want to be angry, let's try to compete." The black pig heard just what he wanted, and said, "It's a deal, you'll have a race, and let the hound be your referee."
The dog and the chicken were never at odds, and when it saw that the chicken was pleasing to the dragon, it wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to tease them a little, and it chose a thorny runway, and secretly said to the rabbit, "Your tail is too long, and it will get in the way of the race, so bear with it." He cut off a large portion of the rabbit's tail, leaving only a bit of the tail root.
The race began, Canglong pranced and flew ahead in a few moments, but when running into the bushes the horns were hung up by the vines, and could not be taken off. The hare leaped eighteen ridges, a breath of air to the end of the run.
The black pig ignored the objections of the animals and ranked the hare after the tiger before the dragon.
The dog went to congratulate the hare, and he sold it to the hare, saying, "If you hadn't chosen such a track, and if you hadn't cut off your tail, you wouldn't have won today." The hare is holding the thick tail regret, heard the dog's words, skimming the three-valve mouth, said: "Humph! I am based on the ability to win, without you, I can not lose this beautiful tail it!" When the dog heard that, his eyes were red with anger, and he said, "Since you have the ability, let's also walk around!" The hare said arrogantly, "What's so hard about that? I'll run first, and if you can catch up with me, I'll treat you to a bone." Said the hare and ran up proudly. The hound dog sharpened his claws and chased after him like an arrow. In a short time, it caught up with the hare, and it bit the hare's neck with its mouth, and said as it ate, "Well, it's my turn to gnaw on the bone now."
For this, too, the dog was disciplined and relegated to the end of the line.
After Canglong lost the race, he often complained behind his back that the pair of chicken horns were hanging up on him. The rooster heard this and was sorry and sad, and he came to the seashore and said to Canglong, "Brother Canglong, since these two horns are of no use to you, please give them back to me." The dragon said cunningly, "Though these two horns have harmed me, they can adorn my instrument, and it is not difficult to give them back to you, until the sun goes out of the western mountains and the moon goes down to the eastern sea." After saying this, he went down to the bottom of the sea with a jerk. Naive rooster believe it, it every day before dawn to get up, looking forward to the sun out of the western mountains, but also from time to time to stretch his neck, to the sea call: "Dragon brother - brother! Horns--return--me ......"
From then on, the rooster lost his two horns and was also relegated to the back of the line.
Only Monkey, Snake, Horse, Goat, and Pig remained undecided about their ranking. The pig incited again with ulterior motives, "Monkey brother is the king of juggling on land, Snake brother is the swimmer in the water, which one of you is first and which one is last?" After much discussion, they decided to take another folk test on earth and perform acrobatics. Green Snake invited Red Horse, and Monkey invited Goat, and asked both of them to help with the costume props.
At that time, the snake had twelve legs under its belly, and walked clumsily and slowly. The red horse is a helpful doer, it does not say a word to the snake with a thin skin to do a go tube dragon clothes, dragon clothes above the horsehair braided chevron pattern, it is very beautiful. The red horse double from the underbelly scraped a layer of grease painted on the dragon coat, so that the dragon coat is very slippery. Green Snake put on the Dragon Clothes, covering his clumsy legs, and slithering instead of walking, which was both sensitive and beautiful.
The goat usually hated the monkey, smacked it all day jumping up and down, giving it trampled grass, so the monkey's help was not so enthusiastic, the monkey wanted to make up for the defects of the bare buttocks, the body of the goat to ask for help: "Goat big brother, please shear me a bit of fluffy hair, so that I can make up for the back buttocks it." Goat unhappy said: "the day to be cold, you know I all rely on this body of precious clothes it!" The monkey had no choice but to remain butt-naked.
On the day of the competition, the green snake, clad in its dragon's clothes, was coiled like a vine on the branches of a tree, and glided like a shuttle on the surface of the water. It raised its head and neck, only with the tip of the tail on the ground, performing a variety of acrobatics, people applauded. The turn of the monkey show, only to see it climbing bar, swinging, also won a lot of applause, when the show to "hanging upside down bamboo curtain", the monkey with the tail tip rolled on the branch, head down to do a variety of thrilling action, suddenly heard someone shout: "Look ah! Monkey butt eye on fire!" People laughed loudly. The monkey has always been protective, it blushed and panicked, busy with the tail to cover the buttocks, only to hear the "thud", head first down a face full of flowers.
The green snake and the red horse were in the front, and the goat and the monkey were in the back.
After lining up all the animals, the black pig put himself at the top and said: "This time it is the time for me to be promoted and get rich and famous! It came to the Spirit Temple, see the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor took the seating plan, took a look at it, and without saying a word, ticked off the name of the black pig in the front and filled in the last. Then, the Jade Emperor let Tai Bai Jin Xing according to the earth's branches row written: sub-mouse, ugly cattle, c tiger, rabbit, chenlong, snakes, afternoon horse, ungoat, Shen monkey, You chicken, 11th dog, Ohio pig twelve birthdays table, and descended an oracle, so that the duty of the day Gongcao to the earth to release.
Ranking has been determined, the Jade Emperor's anger has not disappeared, and give the black pig approved a few words:
Useless fools, inverting black and white.
Punished to eat repeatedly, a year a slaughter.
The black pig was depreciated, all of a sudden angry a big belly. It lies in the nest all day, no longer lazy meddling. However, sometimes the heart is still itchy, can't hold back, with the mouth of the arch this and that, to make right and wrong.
The mouse returned home, happily stroked three and a half whiskers dance, the sleeping cat woke up. The cat asked, "Is it time yet?" Mouse said: "Early over, we also competed for the first it!" The mouse bragged to the cat about how well behaved he was. The cat was annoyed and said, "I've told you again and again, why don't you call me?" The mouse, however, snubbed the cat and said, "You don't have ears? I told you to go, you still Xing stole my place!" When the cat heard this, it was so angry that its long whiskers stood on end and its almond eyes were wide open; it opened its sharp claws and pounced on the mouse with an arrow step and ate it.
From then on, the cat and the mouse became generations of enemies.