What is the origin of the Year of the Ox?

In ancient times, cows were servants in front of the Jade Emperor's palace, and they often traveled to and from the Heaven Palace and the earth. One day, the farmer sent a message to the Jade Emperor, saying that nothing grows on the earth, and the earth is bare and ugly. He asked the Jade Emperor to bring some mother grass seeds to the earth to make it look better. When the Jade Emperor heard this, he found it reasonable, so he asked His Highness who would like to plant grass on earth.

Niu Wang volunteered to go. His original rule was to take three steps and sprinkle a handful of grass seeds. However, when it walked out of the Heavenly Palace and stepped out of the worse gate, it accidentally fell down. After covering the world, it was dizzy and mistakenly thought that the jade emperor's will was to spread three grass seeds one step at a time. As a result, many grass seeds were scattered on the ground.

The next year, there were so many weeds that farmers couldn't grow crops at all. They asked the Kitchen God to tell the Jade Emperor that there were too many weeds to grow crops. The jade emperor knew the bad thing and called Niu Wang to know that the careless Niu Wang had sown three straws at a time, which ruined a good thing.

The jade emperor was very angry when he learned about it. He flew up and kicked the old cow, and the cow king fell from the sky to the ground with a somersault. As a result, cows have been working as coolies for farmers all their lives and have not stopped eating grass.

When arranging the zodiac, people unanimously recommended him as the zodiac, so there was the Year of the Ox.

Extended data:

The Year of the Ox is counted from beginning of spring in the twenty-four solar terms, because the year of the Zodiac is attached to the calendar year of the main branch, and the calendar year of the main branch is the calendar year method of the main branch. The official almanac of past dynasties is like this. There is no doubt that the lunar calendar only uses branches to mark the year, which ranges from the first day of the first month to New Year's Eve.

Lunar calendar and trunk calendar are two different calendars, which are different in the starting point of a year, the division rules of months and the number of days in each year. Due to the use of the Gregorian calendar after the Republic of China, many people, including a few so-called experts, lack calendar knowledge, so the two are often confused.

The calendars marked by 60 different groups of heavenly stems and earthly branches marked the year, month, day and hour, which is a unique solar calendar in China. It takes beginning of spring as the beginning of the year, and divides the year into twelve months with twenty-four solar terms. Every month contains two solar terms, and there is no leap month. The dry calendar is related to the periodic movement of the earth around the sun, which can reflect the climate change throughout the year.