Chapter 32 Kingo

The Chinese have long recognized that the sun is the most important source of heat.In the earliest cosmic genealogy, the sun is the mother parent of all flames in the world.Because it is so hot, few animals can survive here.It is generally believed that the three-legged magical crow is the only animal that can thrive and reproduce in this scorching environment, and it has even been attached as a symbol of the sun.In fact, birds are not the only ones that can live on the sun.Jin Wu is one of them. There is no definite statement about where Jinwu belongs to in the animal classification.Some naturalists believe that Jinwu's head looks like a dragon, and there are special "reversed scales" under the neck, so there is evidence that it is another relic of a dragon besides the nine special ones, so it can be considered that Jinwu belongs to squamous animals.Some people disagreed, so Guo Pu pointed out that Jinwu has hooves and is covered with soft down, so it can be believed that Jinwu is some kind of herbivorous beast.He even goes so far as to point out that the head of the moose is very similar to that of a dragon because of its larger skull, fleshy horns, and longer snout.Therefore, Jinwu is probably some kind of beast that looks like a moose.Ma Yi, a poet in the mid-Tang Dynasty, mentioned in his notes a Jinwu painting scroll in his collection.Describing the painting, believed to be by Nei Shicheng, a Zhou historian, he said that Jinwu, despite being covered in hair, had a pair of fleshy wings capable of hovering between the flames of the sun.Nei Shicheng's painting clearly depicts the distribution of feathers on the edge of the meat wing, so we have reason to believe that Jinwu belongs to birds.

Many people, such as Guo Pu, believe that there are no more than 10 Jinwu living on the sun.They are all male and neither live nor die.According to this statement, Jin Wu is actually a group of guardian beasts specially created by the Emperor of Heaven.They are sent to the sun to watch over the treasures that slowly grow in the sun's flames. The ancient Chinese believed that flame was a special kind of substance.The process of their burning is the process of changing the physical form and generating other substances.By burning, fire dissipates itself into fine dust.The dust particles are attracted to each other by heat and regroup.New substances are thus produced, and they are called "the essence of the day".It is said that in the Kingdom of the Emperor of Heaven, all buildings and utensils are made of these natural warm, crystal clear and beautiful "Nisei".So this substance has become a symbol of royal power.

Emperors dream of getting a piece of equipment made by "Nissei" to show the natural legitimacy of their power.King Zhou Mu, the last holy king in China, once made this request to Queen Mother Xi when he visited her.The Queen Mother of the West refused his request, but told him how to make flying wings out of bird feathers and go to the sun to chisel out "Nichi Jing". Unfortunately, King Zhou Mu's army equipped with Toba was attacked by King Wu near the sun.The only survivor reported to the king that when the expeditionary force was about to land, the color of the sun suddenly turned purple.The temperature of the air rose suddenly, so that breathing became very difficult.Immediately, fireballs were released from all directions to attack the soldiers. The fireballs were huge and fast, making it impossible to guard against.Some people protected their wings to stabilize their position temporarily, but they didn't want to rush out a few sheep with wings, slammed left and right, and swallowed King Zhou's soldiers one by one.

It was only then that King Mu remembered that the Queen Mother of the West had warned him that Jinwu, the guardian beast of the "Spirit of the Sun and China", would be an insurmountable obstacle for mortals.So he sighed and pressed down the idea of ​​stealing "Nisei".Later, he named his guards Jinwu, hoping that they would guard the king's safety like divine beasts.In the Han Dynasty, Jin Wu was used to represent the military chief who guarded Kyoto.As a symbol of the emperor's power, this name has been used until the Yuan Dynasty.  