Chinese weren’t really brilliant astronomists, but their knowledge was good enough for them to name stars, establish constellations and celestial card, and more importantly, foresee the moon cycle and eclipse.

With this knowledge, they created both the lunar calendar measuring the luck of each day and a solar farming calender for the people.

We can note that astrological science give birth to mathematics.

Constellations

The first occurrence of zodiac cycle came from the 1st century. At the time, the twelve animals already existed, but the cycle and the classification were different.

First the animals were separated in two groups, the domesticate animals and the wild ones.

Domesticate	Wild
Dog Sheep Horse Cock Ox Hog	Dragon Tiger Monkey Snake Rat Hare

Then we count 28 Mansions (or zodiac section) who correspond to the Moon’s Orbit.

The mansions are separated in Celestial Palace or Celestial Court. Five exactly, even if the fifth one is slightly different of the other four. Each palace had its direction, principal totem, element, season and planet

		North Palace Dark Turtle Hog, rat, ox Winter (when the turtle hibernates) Water Mercury
	West Palace White Tiger (or Kirin, Chinese unicorn) Dog, hare, tiger Autumn (when the tiger comes to plains for food) Metal Venus	Center Palace Home of the Polaris, the big and little dipper constellations	East Palace Blue Dragon Monkey, cock, dragon Spring (the dragon is resurrected and brings rain) Wood Jupiter
		South Palace Red bird (phoenix or Pheasant) Sheep, horse, snake Summer (when birds from Nepal and Tibet migrated to china China) Fire Mars

Remind you of anything? Yup, the Four Gods ^^ In the XI before common area, another cycle was common, the Tenth Celestial trunk and the Twelve Celestial but I won’t rest on this one cause I don’t even understand it @_@

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