The legend of Shennong

Hello everyone, today let me introduce you the legend of Shen Nong. Yan Emperor was a legendary ancient Chinese ruler in pre-dynastic times. Both Huan Emperor and Yan Emperor are considered as the ancestors of Chinese culture and people. So the Chinese people often identified themselves as the descendants of the Yan and Huan Emperors. It was these two emperors were the sons of Shaodian, the first Chinese recorded in the history book. Huan Emperor lived in the Jishui area, so his surname was Ji, while Yan Emperor was in the area of Jiangshui, so his surname was Zhang. Yan Emperor was endowed with strength, wisdom and bravery. He was the inventor of lace, finding the seeds of five grains and establishing the regular market days. Besides, he also taught ancient people to use linen for making clothes and preserve stored seeds by using boiled horse urine. It was because of his contributions to the agriculture that the Chinese Agricultural Society began. So he was also known as Shen Nong. It was believed that Shen Nong had taught the ancient Chinese not only their practices of agriculture but also the use of herbal drugs. It is said in San Huang, Three Mythical Gods, that Shen Nong had the divine rod which could elicit the plant's medicinal quality by whipping them. However, in order to test their medical value and what kind of diseases they could treat, Shen Nong tasted the medical and toxic herbs personally. He finally distinguished between those the edible from the inedible and what could be used as herbal drugs. The best known work attributed to Shen Nong is Shen Nong's Herbal Classics, first compiled during the end of the Western Han Dynasty. This work, considered to be the earliest Chinese pharmacopoeia, lists various medical herbs and their properties, including 365 medicines derived from mineral, plants and animals, which was crucial to development of traditional Chinese medicine. Therefore, Shen Nong is venerated as a father of Chinese medicine. According to the records of Shen Nong's Herbal Classics, Shen Nong once suffered 72 poisons in trying herbal medicines and got detoxified with tea, which is the earliest recorded use of tea by our ancestor. It was said that one day Shen Nong was boiling water under a tree. When the water was about to boil, some leaves from the tree fluttered into his pottery pot. After drinking the slightly bitter soup made from these green leaves, Shen Nong felt very refreshed and comfortable. He carefully collected the leaves and named them cha, which came to be known as tea. The Yan Emperor created rich and splendid material and spiritual civilization in the Shen Nong era, subsequently forming the culture of Yan Emperor. This integration of culture of Yan Emperor and the culture of Huan Emperor produced the Yanfang culture, which was the source of Chinese culture. It was not only inspired generations of Chinese people to strive for the rise of China, but also becomes a great spiritual source to maintain the patriotic feelings of the Chinese people at home and abroad.