How did Nian Beast come from?

Reporter Sun Yusheng was the first person to talk about "Nian Beast". "Scholar at Sea" is the nickname of Sun Yusheng, a famous Shanghai writer. He was born in 1864, 1, just 155 years ago. He is a native of Pudong, Shanghai, and his novel Dream of Flowers on the Sea is as famous as Han Bangqing's novel Biography of Flowers on the Sea.

1932, Sun Yusheng, a famous tabloid edited by Zheng, gave him a manuscript of "Talking about Old Records in Shanghai". Among them, Memories of Customs at the Age of 50 was serialized for more than 50 days, which was the most complete chronicle of festivals and customs in Shanghai during the Republic of China. "Said ZhuChunXiang.

1933,65438+10, 17 On this day, Jin Gangzuan serialized the essay "Old Talks and Customs Memories in Shanghai at the Age of Years". After talking about the custom of "dusting" in China's New Year, Sun Yusheng wrote: ... The house was clean with dust, but calligraphy and painting were hung, which were written by famous authors.

If there is a painting axis of Zixing, every time the painter draws a stone pillar, a beast that looks like a dog but is not a dog is locked on the pillar, or the cloud is a beast, that is, the dog star, or the cloud is the year of the beast, and it often eats people, so Zixing locks it up, so that people will not suffer evil in the lower world, so it is most appropriate to hang it in the New Year.

But Sun Yusheng didn't know where this allusion came from. "I'm too embarrassed to research it." Zhu Chunxiang said that this is the version that Sun Yusheng heard when he was a child, and it is the earliest document about the Year of the Animal that can be found at present. It should also be the source of the legend of "Nian Beast" that we are familiar with today.