How did the short story about the zodiac come from?

First of all, according to the suggestion of Taibai Venus, he divided a day on earth into twelve hours on average as a reference standard for ordinary people's life. He felt that this was not enough, and a complete set of annual rings should be established to correspond to twelve hours. How to distinguish twelve years in a cycle? After careful consideration, we decided to choose twelve qualified animals as representatives. When the animals heard the news, they showed their magical powers one after another, and the truth rushed to the Paradise Pavilion to report. In the end, the smart mouse first came to heaven, occupied the position of children, and became the "King of the Twelve Zodiacs", followed by cattle, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, beasts, monkeys, chickens, dogs and pigs, occupying their respective corresponding hours, and were named as "smart mouse, ugly cow, Wei Yinhu, Uighur rabbit, and so on. The Jade Emperor announced the birth of the zodiac. From then on, the year of the rat began, the year of the pig ended, and so on. The zodiac is a cycle every twelve years, and it never stops on earth. With these norms, human order is more stable and people's lives are more harmonious. Of course, this is just a myth, which shows people's beautiful imagination and is not strictly scientific. In fact, the ancients also conducted relevant textual research and research, among which the highest degree of recognition is that the living habits of animals determine the zodiac.

Zodiac, also known as the zodiac, is a group of 12 animals that match the zodiac with the year of birth, including rats, cows, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs and pigs.

The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship. According to Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Land in Hubei Province and Fangmatan in Tianshui, Gansu Province, a relatively complete zodiac system existed as early as the pre-Qin period. The earliest handed down document that recorded the same Chinese zodiac as today was Lun Heng written by Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

The zodiac is an intuitive representation of the twelve earthly branches, namely, Zi (mouse), Ugly (ox), Yin (tiger), Mao (rabbit), Chen (dragon), Si (snake), Wu (horse), Wei (sheep), Shen (monkey), You (chicken) and Xu (chicken). In modern times, more people regard the zodiac as the mascot of the Spring Festival and become an entertainment and cultural activity.

As a symbol of folk culture with a long history, the zodiac has left a large number of poems, Spring Festival couplets, paintings, calligraphy and paintings and folk arts and crafts depicting the image and symbolic significance of the zodiac throughout the ages. Apart from China, many countries in the world issue stamps of the zodiac during the Spring Festival to express their wishes for the New Year in China.