Using fighting each other in the cockfight is like fighting for territory and killing each other.Chicken training and cockfighting are no longer seen today, but there is a piece of music "Bamboo Chicken Play Fighting" in Xiangxi, which is performed by many people with gongs, and the sound of music imitates the sound of cockfighting, which is very vivid. Elephant opera and rhinoceros opera also developed greatly in the Tang Dynasty.The technology of elephant taming in ancient my country has a long history. Legend has it that elephants and birds plowed fields in the era of Shun and Yu.Wang Chong, a native of the Eastern Han Dynasty, recorded in "Lunheng·Shuxu":

Since the Han Dynasty, the elephant has been regarded as a mascot, and there is a saying that "the elephant comes out of the mountain, and the auspicious car is also".In Buddhism, Puxian Bodhisattva is called "Sammanduobaduoluo" in Sanskrit. He and Manjushri Bodhisattva, which are called "Manjushri" in Sanskrit, are both the two men of Sakyamuni Buddha. Puxian Bodhisattva often rides on a The "Six-tusk White Elephant King" ("Tian Pin Miao Dharma Lotus Sutra · Pu Xian Bodhisattva Encouragement") travels in the world.According to the records of "Avatamsaka Sutra", "Pu Xian rides on the fragrance of the king, and the preface of his appearance is the reason for his mighty virtue." Buddhism respects him very much. "Book of Jin Yufu Zhi" records that after Emperor Wu of Jin Dynasty Sima Yan pacified Soochow, people from "Nanyue" (now Guangdong and Guangxi) offered "taming elephants". He was very happy and made them make elephant carts. At the "Congress", he let dozens of people "enter the court" in an "elephant car" with blows and blows, and performed wonderful performances.

Elephant opera was the most developed in the Tang Dynasty, and there were a lot of tribute elephants from foreign vassal states. In the time of Emperor Wenzong of Tang Dynasty alone, 32 elephants were donated by the vassal states.During Emperor Muzong of the Tang Dynasty, he ordered people to release these elephants to the south of Jingshan Mountain.Minister Dugu Shou wrote "Fu on Elephant Training" to record the incident, which was praised by Mu Zong.The poet Lu Guimeng has a poem "Acrobatics" about taming elephants and rhinos, saying: Rhinoceros taming drama was also developed in the Tang Dynasty. The great poet Bai Juyi recorded its grand occasion in his poem "Taming Rhinoceros":

It describes the situation of rhinoceros taming contributed by Haiman to Chang'an and performing dances in Daming Palace. It shows that rhinoceros taming and elephant taming in Tang Dynasty are a kind of acrobatics just like horse taming, cockfighting and monkey playing. Both elephants and rhinos are huge animals, much larger than ligers and tigers.Lu Guimeng called it "Jiao Da Hao" in his poem "Acrobatics", which probably refers to artists training elephants and rhinos to perform horn-diving movements, which is similar to today's Western bullfighting games, but it is not a fight between man and beast, but A wrestling game between elephant and elephant, rhino and rhino.

The acrobatics of elephant taming still had some development during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. According to volume 10 of "Tokyo Menghualu", the Song Dynasty taught the car elephant to perform in the capital when it was a great gift. , once in a while."Generally, there are seven elephants, dozens of red flags in the front, and dozens of copper gongs (pi skin) drums. The flag bearers wear purple shirts and hats, and hold short-handled copper gongs and sharp blades to tame the elephants.During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, elephant taming was still flourishing. Xu Wei, a great painter and dramatist in the Ming Dynasty, and Shuo Ting, a poet in the Qing Dynasty, all wrote poems about it.But the rhinoceros taming has gradually been lost, and no one can inherit this skill so far.