How did the ancients in China express constellations in classical Chinese?

In ancient China, the sky was divided by star officials. The earliest record of star officials is Sima Qian's Book of Historical Records, which contains 9 1 star officials and more than 500 stars. By the Sui Dynasty, there were 283 star officials recorded in Song of Heaven, belonging to one of the three yuan or twenty-eight lodging houses. Sanyuan refers to the three regions surrounding the Arctic sky, namely Ziweiyuan, Taiweiyuan and Tianshiyuan, which are divided into four elephants around the ecliptic and the celestial equator, and each elephant is subdivided into seven regions of the four elephants, collectively called 28 nights. In ancient China, the lunar calendar was used as a calendar year. Because the moon rotates once around the earth on the 28th of every month, it is called a "shelter" or "shed" when it passes through an area every day. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to the influence of western learning spreading to the east, Xu Guangqi compiled the almanac of Chongzhen with reference to the data of European astronomy, adding 23 star officials near Invivo.

There are different opinions about the order in which the starry sky is divided into three walls, four images and twenty-eight nights. Gaul, an astronomer in the Republic of China, thought in his book Notes on Astrology that three walls appeared first, then four elephants, and finally appeared for 28 nights. Chen Zungui, an astronomer who was the first curator of the Beijing Planetarium, thinks in his works that these four images appeared earlier, and then they were divided into twenty-eight lodges, with Sanyuan being the last one, and points out that the name of Sanyuan only appeared in the Song of Dan Deng Tian in the Sui Dynasty, and the shape of Sanyuan and Twenty-eight lodges was also formed and used here.

Sanyuanli includes Taiwei Courtyard on the upper wall, Ziwei Courtyard on the middle wall and Tianshi City on the lower wall. As star officials, the names of Zi Weiyuan and Tian Shiyuan first appeared in the Star Classic of Kaiyuan, and the name of Tai Weiyuan did not appear until Xuanxiang Poetry in the early Tang Dynasty. Each wall is a relatively large sky area, which contains several (small) stars (or constellations). According to the records in Qing Hui Dian, the division of liver, stone and Wu (liver, stone and Wu) is different. There are stars in the east and west on every wall, which are arranged in a circle around and shaped like a wall, so it is called "wall". Star officials equivalent to these three walls can also be seen in Historical Records of Heaven, but their names are different from asterisks. It can be seen that the formation of ternary once had a process of evolution and adjustment. In Song of Heaven, Sanyuan becomes the main body of three celestial bodies, and these celestial bodies are also named after Sanyuan. Purple element includes the sky area near the north celestial pole, which is roughly equivalent to the area of arch star; Taiwei Courtyard contains some constellations such as Maiden, Houfa and Lion. Tianshi source includes snake man, five immortals, giant snake, skyhawk and other constellations.

In ancient China, the sky was divided into four regions: east, north, west, south and middle, which were called "four elephants": black dragon elephant in the east, Xuanwu (tortoise and snake) elephant in the north, white tiger elephant in the west and suzaku elephant in the south. This "four elephants" is the image of four animals imagined by the ancients by connecting seven nights in each direction. For example, in the Oriental Black Dragon, the horns are like dragon horns, the rafters are like dragons, and the tails are like dragon tails. The southern rosefinch is like a bird of hibiscus, with a beak, a star for its neck, a piece of zinc and a feather purlin for its wings. Later, the ancients matched it with yin and yang, five elements, five parties and five colors, so there were Oriental Dragon, Western White Tiger, Southern Suzaku and Northern Xuanwu.

The most common is 28 stars.

Twenty-eight stars:

Seven Nights of the Oriental Black Dragon: Jiao, Kang, Bian, Fang, Xin, Wei and Ji (jο).

Seven nights in northern Xuanwu: fighting (dǒu), cows, women, emptiness, danger, houses and walls.

Seven Nights of the West White Tiger: Kui, Lou, Chang, Bi, Gou and Shen.

Seven Nights in South Suzaku: Well, Ghost, Willow, Star, Zhang, Wing and Zhu.

The above is for reference only, I hope it will help you.