Emperor Yan, the leader of the tribe alliance with the surname Jiang in the Central Plains in ancient China, was named Shennong. Emperor Yan and Huangdi Xuanyuan were the leaders of the tribal alliance at the same time. They both had great historical achievements and were respected as the cultural ancestors of the Chinese nation. Since ancient times, Chinese people like to call themselves “descendants of Yanhuang”, “Huang” refers to the Yellow Emperor, and “Yan” refers to the Shennong Yan Emperor.
Emperor Yan is not only a hero and leader in ancient China, but also one of the important figures in Taoist myths. He has many myths and legends. The following is the story of Emperor Yan’s four daughters. Let’s have a look!
Yandi’s eldest daughter
Yan Emperor’s eldest daughter has no name and is sometimes called “Yan Emperor’s Maiden”. It is said that she fell in love with a fairy, chisongzi, in the process of planting grains. Unfortunately, chisongzi refused her because she was eager for Tao.
Yan Emperor’s eldest daughter was rejected in her courtship. She was so sad and desperate that she almost wanted to commit suicide. Seeing that the other party was so infatuated, Akamatsu had to promise her and took her to become an immortal.
The biography of immortals, the first biography in China to systematically describe immortals, records that “the red pine nut man was a rain master when Shennong was working. He dressed in water jade to teach Shennong that he could burn himself in the fire. He often went to the Kunlun Mountain, often stopped in the stone chamber of the West Queen Mother, and went up and down with the wind and rain. The girl of the Yan Emperor chased him, and all the immortals went away.”
Yan Di’s second daughter
Yan Emperor’s second daughter, some books call her “emperor female sang”, some books call her “Red Emperor female”. Since childhood, she envied her sister and longed to become an immortal.
Yan Di, the second daughter, spent 15 days to build a big bird’s nest on a big mulberry tree from the first day of the first month of a certain year. From then on, she has lived here to practice Buddhism.
Yan Di’s eldest daughter has already become an immortal. Yan Di was already very sad. Now he felt even more sad to see his second daughter become like this again. He tried all means to get her down. Unfortunately, he failed. The second daughter refused to go down the tree.
In a fit of pique, Emperor Yan decided to make a “Yan Emperor” worthy of the name. He ordered people to put wood under the tree, and then set a fire to force his second daughter to take the initiative to jump down.
Unexpectedly, the second daughter still didn’t come down, because she turned into a white magpie and became an immortal in the fire.
The book of Taiping imperial survey, volume 921, cites Guangyi Ji: “the female of the southern Red Emperor learned Taoism and became immortal. She lived on the mulberry tree in the Guyan mountain of Nanyang. On the first day of the first lunar month, she took firewood to make her nest. She became a white Magpie or a woman. The Red Emperor saw that she was sad and could not be lured. If she burned it with fire, the female would rise to heaven, which is called the emperor female mulberry.”
Yan Emperor’s third daughter
The third daughter of the Yan Emperor was named Yaoji. She had no interest in becoming an immortal. She just asked the Yan Emperor curiously, “why do girls marry?”
I don’t know whether the answer given to her by the Yan Emperor has solved her doubts. Anyway, yao ji didn’t have any interest in marriage. Finally, she died without marriage and was buried in the sun of Wushan.
In ancient times, girls died before they got married, which is also called “premature death”, so it is called “three women of Yan Emperor died early”.
However, it is interesting that Yan Di, the third daughter who did not like becoming an immortal, finally became an immortal. After her death, she became the Goddess Peak among the twelve peaks of Wushan, that is, the “goddess of Wushan”.
In Song Yu’s famous work “Fu on goddess”, a writer of Ci and Fu in the Chu state during the Warring States period, the allusion that “the king of Xiang intended, but the goddess was merciless” tells the story of the third daughter of the Yan Emperor.
Under the influence of the goddess Fu, yao ji often used it as a metaphor for beautiful women, which has been passed down through the ages. The myth of Yao Ji has led to a series of literary works such as poems, verses and songs in the past dynasties, forming a literary corridor to describe and chant the goddess. After Song Yu, there were many poems about yao ji:
Cao Zhi, who lived in the Wei Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms, clearly stated in the preface to his representative work “Fu on the goddess of Luo”: “in the third year of the early Yellow Emperor, the capital of the Yu Dynasty returned to Luochuan. The ancients said that the God of Si water was named Mi Fei. He felt that Song Yu had done something about the goddess of the king of Chu, so he wrote this Fu.”
Yuan Zhen, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in his “five pieces of missing, four of them” that “it is difficult for water to survive the sea, but Wushan is not a cloud.”
In Ganxing, Li Bai, the “poetry immortal” of the Tang Dynasty, praised: “yao ji, the daughter of the Heavenly Emperor, turned into a wonderful morning cloud. She turned into a dream in the sky and had no intention of turning to the Chu king.”
Meng Jiao, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, also mentioned in the Wushan Opera: “when the king of Jing hunts, it rains at dusk, and he sleeps on a high hill at night, dreaming of a goddess. His eyes are too wide to see, and apes cry three times in tears.”
Liu Yuxi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, expressed his feelings when visiting Wushan mountain. He also said in the Wushan Goddess Temple: “there are twelve gloomy mountains in Wushan mountain, and there are many stone pavilions. At dawn, the mist suddenly opens, and the mountain flowers are like residual makeup. The stars and rivers smell their admiration on a good night, and the clouds and rain bring strange fragrance when they return. Why are the nine immortals in the sky? The king of Chu and Xiang comes from the world.”
Volume 29 of the Taiping imperial survey cites the old stories of Xiangyang as follows: “our emperor’s Ji Nu, named Yaoji, died before she left. She was granted the platform of Wushan mountain. Her soul depended on the grass and was supported as a stem. She was flattered and dressed as a lady. That’s the time.”
Yandi’s fourth daughter
The youngest four daughters of Yan Emperor are the heroine in the myth of “Jingwei reclaiming the sea”.
When Nvwa was a little girl, she liked to play at the seaside. To Yan Emperor’s grief, Nvwa was swallowed by the sea and drowned one day when she was playing at the seaside. After the girl died, she became a bird and brought rocks, plants and trees to fill the sea every day.
It is recorded in the Shanhaijing – beishanjing that “the mountain of hatching turtledoves is covered with Zhegu trees and birds. Its shape is like black, with a white beak and bare feet. It is called” Jingwei “and its sound comes from Chen. It is the girl of Yan Emperor, named Nvwa. The girl swam in the East China Sea, drowned and never returned, so she was called Jingwei. She often took the wood and stone from the west mountain to the East China Sea. Zhang water flows out of Yan, and flows eastward into the river. ” Disclaimer: the above content originates from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author. Please inform us if your original copyright is infringed, and we will delete the relevant content as soon as possible.