Why can't we break ground on the "traditional head"?

To answer this question, we must first understand what Tai Sui means, and before explaining Tai Sui, we need to introduce another thing-Lao Xing.

In ancient China, the so-called Jupiter was the naked-eye planet Jupiter in the solar system. Because its period of revolution is 1 1.86 earth year, which is close to 12, the ancients divided the ecliptic into 12 equal parts, and dated it according to the position of the old star. However, the running direction of the old star is from west to east, which is just the opposite of the order in which the ancients divided the ecliptic into twelve branches.

In order to avoid this inconvenience, they assumed that a star corresponding to the old star was running in the opposite direction to the old star, so that the chronology could be carried out from east to west in the order of the assumed star positions. This imaginary star is Taisui, and its chronological method is called Taisui chronology. The biggest difference between this chronology and the familiar twelve earthly branches is that Jupiter's cycle is not real 12 years. Although the ancients set up a remedial algorithm that exceeded the time every 144 years, it was still inaccurate, so it was no longer commonly used after the Eastern Han Dynasty.

In the setting of Tai Sui period, the significance of stargazing for people is not only to observe the stars, but more importantly, the divination significance contained in the astrology. Sui has a special position, and it is a "human image", which is in charge of benevolence, morality and abundance. There is also a lofty background in the sky that "the most expensive god is Qinglong", so Tai Sui can be said to be a double symbol of the Arctic emperor and the human emperor. The taboo of opposition appeared very early, and Xunzi's Confucian Xiao Pian said: "The king of Wu attacked Zhou, and the Japanese soldiers were taboo, and the east welcomed Tai Sui." If you believe this, this is a long tradition that existed in the late Yin Dynasty and early Zhou Dynasty.

In the Han dynasty, we should not only avoid stepping into the army, but also prevent people from stepping into, migrating and building houses illegally, especially in the Tang dynasty. However, it is unrealistic to ask ordinary people without education and private astrology practice to understand and apply these rules. They accepted a more vivid myth and moved a part of Tai Sui underground.

Zhang's Reading Notes in the Tang Dynasty recorded: "I heard that I am too old to start a local affair. It is not known when people who have committed crimes will repair meat. " This creed has been very popular in the Tang Dynasty, and there are also corresponding case records in the Record of Wandering Monsters and the Miscellaneous Secrets of Wandering. For example, the brothers in Jimo County, Laizhou, did not believe in taboos when they were Thai, and the whole family died suddenly a few days later. This is the origin of "down to earth".

It is also from this time that the traditional folk image has become more and more divorced from its original identity, becoming more and more like a demon hiding in the soil and having a monster-like personality. "Tai Ping Guang Ji Chao" quoted Guang Yi Ji and Youyang Zaji to tell a story, saying that people with fresh personality are not afraid of ghosts. They dig a piece of meat every year, whip it hundreds of times, and send it to the thoroughfare. At night, people secretly observe it. After midnight, a rider came to ask this "Tai Sui". Tai Sui replied, "He is in Rong Sheng, so what can he do?" Tai sui here has no fairy color at all. He is a ghost.

After the Song Dynasty, the appearance of Tai Sui often has nothing to do with its position in the sky, and it is not necessarily a disaster to see it. In Guo Xun's "Walking in the Eyes" in the Southern Song Dynasty, some people dug up the meat of Tai Sui because "whenever there is a building, there will be no time." In Yuan Mei's "Wu Zi Yu" in the Qing Dynasty, Tai Sui was simply caught in the toilet, "flogging Tai Sui to get rid of misfortune and happiness", took a big stick and beat it with the servant, so the man who beat Tai Sui won the Jinshi of that year.

Of course, people who are afraid of putting their feet on the ground should still be in the majority, and the image of putting their feet on the ground is not so unbearable. The description of "Tai Sui Marshal Yin" in Painting Three Religions to Seek the Gods compiled in the Ming Dynasty is completely a modification of Nezha's story, and its name is also directly called Jin Nezha, because its publication is later than the Romance of the Gods, which is probably related to Nezha's description of jumping out of the meat ball.

Since the 1990s, there have been reports about digging Tai Sui everywhere. Because the sample first discovered in Weihe Beach, zhouzhi county, Shaanxi Province was identified as a "super-large and rare myxomycetes", many articles quoted this statement to explain all the "Tai sui" excavated underground in past dynasties, and linked it with "the meat", "seeing the meat" and "gathering the meat" recorded in Shan Hai Jing and Compendium of Materia Medica, thinking that this could solve the "Tai sui mystery".

This idea is not reliable. Besides "Myxomycete Complex", there are many identification results of higher fungi, so it is difficult to name them. Guo Yinglan, a researcher at the Institute of Microbiology, China Academy of Sciences, observed the so-called "Tai Sui" slices under a microscope, but could not see any cell structure or hyphae or spores of fungi.

The mystery of TCM is probably a false question at all. First of all, most of the original records about "stepping on the ground in a tiger's den" are fantastic books with notes, and it is not known how much truth there are in those stories. Then, ordinary people still know nothing about myxomycetes. Some media have introduced it as a close relative of mushrooms, which is more difficult to copy mechanically than saying it is a close relative of human beings. It is even more impossible for ancient scholars or ancient Chinese medicine practitioners who know little about biological classification to observe and describe accurately. Even if they record the truth, they can't provide much effective information to biologists today.

In fact, forced search has long been an international joke. If this joke is preserved, people will read it after thousands of years, and it may be regarded as a classic of Xiaolin.