Hello, and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Beibei.
Last time, we talked about the Yellow Emperor and how he ascended to heaven on the back of a dragon.
So, who was the emperor after him?
Was he a human, a god, a monster, or something in between?
And you probably also sensed this gradual transition from supernatural figures to more realistic ones in our series so far.
Well, let's see if this trend continues.
The one who succeeded the Yellow Emperor was one of his offsprings, whose name was Zhuan Xu.
His most well-known action was separating the heaven and the earth.
Wait, I thought Pangu the giant was the one who did that.
Remember from the first episode?
Why did Emperor Zhuan Xu do it again?
Well, let's see why and how.
During the reign of the Yellow Emperor, there were still exchanges and communication between heaven and earth.
Human beings and celestial beings went back and forth.
How did they do that?
Well, there was a ladder that connected heaven and earth.
That's how.
For anyone on Earth who was brave and strong enough, they could climb onto the ladder all the way to heaven.
I'm not sure what they would do once they get there, but human beings are known to be pretty curious.
It's no easy task for sure, but there was a clear path of ascension if that's what you desired.
So where was this ladder?
If you have been following our episodes, the name should sound pretty familiar.
It's the Kunlun Mountain where the Yellow Emperor and the Queen, Mother of the West resided in their respective palace and cave.
The mountain was so tall that it went all the way into the sky.
The ladder, supposedly, was made from a special kind of magical tree that was super tall.
One could not see its top at all.
It was through this ladder that the Yellow Emperor traversed between heaven and earth.
When it was Zhuanshu's turn to rule the world, he was not very happy with this ladder, and not just in the physical sense.
He felt that this mixing of the heavenly and the earthly could get a bit out of control.
There might come another Chi You who could have friends with out-of-this-world powers.
He did not want trouble of that kind.
So he found two men of unusual strength and patience and gave them each a very simple task.
One was to push the sky up, up, and up.
The other was to push the earth down, down, and down.
That's it, but just keep doing it until the Kunlun Mountain could no longer touch the skies and the latter was left poking and pointing without reaching anything.
It was since then that there came a clear demarcation of what belonged to the earthly realm and what belonged to the heavens.
For me, it's like telling people who made up stories that hey, no more weird creatures with heads of a human and bodies of tigers.
People are people, and gods are gods.
But of course, it was not that absolute.
Celestial beings could sneak down to the earth, but people could no longer ascend to the sky.
The gods belonged to the heavens, to be worshipped and admired by the humans down below.
Not everyone liked this change of events.
People wanted choices, you know, a visa to heaven.
So some started making up stories about Zhuan Xu, or maybe they were based on true stories.
Some said that Zhuan Xu didn't do a good job disciplining his children, especially one of his sons named Tao Wu.
Tao Wu was one stubborn child.
He said no to everything, no matter what people said to him.
In fact, his name means a wooden club.
Really not much of a compliment.
He was also known for his explosive temper.
When he wanted attention from his father, he would make trouble till he was noticed.
But I guess that's what kids are like.
Except he was an adult.
People hated him, but couldn't do much about him.
Since he was the son of the emperor, but they could make up stories about him.
And soon Tao came to be known as a monster with a body of a tiger and furs of a dog and tusks sticking out from his mouth like a wild hog.
Here we go again.
But one can certainly tell how much he was detested from these stories.
Despite the reputation of his son.
Some other important accomplishments were also attributed to Emperor Zhuanshu.
For example, he divided his kingdom into different regions so they could be administered more efficiently.
He also issued the calendar, which was used all the way till the start of the Han Dynasty, and with the unification of the country by Emperor Qin Shi, Huang Zhuanshu's calendar became the national standard.
It's different from the ones we use today, with every year starting in January and with each year starting in the spring by the lunar calendar.
At Emperor Zhuanshu's time, each year started in October, or the start of winter.
The issuance of the calendar was of special significance because they were like the schedule book for farmers.
The Zhuanshu calendar was very accurate and worked for the entire nation back then.
In a way, it set up a uniform order for the world known to the Chinese people at that time.
As I mentioned in the beginning, the story of Zhuanshu separating the earth and heaven for good had special connotations.
In a way, it meant that the equality that existed in the primitive society ended.
Few prominent tribal leaders now ruled over a large portion of the population.
They became the Lords of Heaven with supreme powers.
The records about the Lords of Heaven were scattered and messy at first, maybe because there were more than one Lord of Heaven.
Gradually, the stories sorted out, and the gods ascended further into the celestial realm.
Zhuanshu was only one of the five major emperors in ancient China.
We will get to the rest in future episodes.
Hope to see you then, and bye for now.
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