Why should the five elements be sorted by fire, water and soil in Jin Mu?

Because this is based on the life experience of the ancients, who found that drilling wood can make a fire. After the torch wood was burned, the ashes turned into soil, which contained metal minerals. Metal minerals eventually melt and become water, which can nourish trees.

From ancient times to the present, we all believe that everything is complementary, but everything is constantly circulating. The world is basically composed of five basic substances, namely, Jin Mu, fire, water and earth. It means that these five things are interrelated but contradictory.

It is because Zou Yan, a Yin-Yang scholar in the Warring States Period, once put forward the viewpoint of five virtues. In fact, these five virtues refer to Jin Mu's fire, water and earth, representing five attributes respectively. He believes that wood can overcome soil, gold can overcome wood, fire can overcome gold, and water can overcome fire. This is what we often know later: Jin Kemu, Wood, Tuke Water, Water and Fire. It is also based on the experience of ancient life, because tools made of metal can destroy trees, but trees are rooted in the soil and waterproof, and fire will go out when it meets water, but fire can melt metal. So the five are complementary.

This theory and concept of five elements has always had a far-reaching impact on the present. Now the theory of five elements is applied to the medical field, and some physiological phenomena are explained by the principle of mutual generation and mutual resistance, so as to master some treatment methods for patients through this operation. For example, some people have a bad temper, which is a virtual fire.

And since ancient times, we all know that some fortune tellers can find something missing from a person's five elements and infer that this person will encounter disaster in the future, while people often find something missing in their lives, so they will take this word in their names to make up for it. For example, the leap soil written by Lu Xun is called leap soil because the five elements lack soil.

Why is it specially called golden wood fire, water and earth? Perhaps among these substances, gold is the most tenacious, or the easiest to read. But it doesn't really mean much, and it doesn't say who is better than who.