The zodiac signs are composed of 12 animals: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. Everyone has their own corresponding zodiac signs, and people with different zodiac signs will attach great importance to their own zodiac signs.

The zodiac signs are composed of 12 animals: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. Everyone has their own corresponding zodiac signs, and people with different zodiac signs will attach great importance to their own zodiac signs. Moreover, the zodiac signs are not only popular among the Han people, but also among ethnic minorities, and even popular in India and Greece. It's just that the twelve zodiac signs defined by the Han people are slightly different from those of ethnic minorities and other countries.

So, how are the twelve zodiac animals produced? There are thousands of kinds of animals, why are only these 12 animals chosen as the zodiac signs of people? Who decided to use these 12 animals?

There are different opinions on the answers to these questions, but none of them can be based on exact scientific research, only folklore that has been passed down to this day.

Legend 1: The first and second zodiac signs are tokens assigned by the Jade Emperor to human beings as commemorations. The Jade Emperor is the legendary "heavenly" emperor. He has great power. He is in charge of heaven, earth, yin, yang, gods, immortals, ghosts and people. In a word, he is in charge of everything in heaven and earth.

Once, the Jade Emperor was sitting in the main hall of the Heavenly Palace and wanted to do something meaningful to the world. After much deliberation, he finally decided to give a souvenir to everyone in the world, that is, 12 kinds of animals. So he ordered all animals to participate in the election, and the animals also responded positively to Emperor Yucheng's call. There were hundreds of animals registered, but he only needed 12, so he came up with a plan to select 12 species from largest to smallest based on size as mascots. The ones selected at that time were ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog, pig and cat. The size of the rat was naturally not as big as that of the previous animals, so of course it was defeated. However, it was unwilling to fail and cleverly said to the Jade Emperor: "Compared with size, I must be bigger than the cow. Since it is a mascot for the human world, people should decide the size. If Jade Emperor doesn't believe it, I will go to the human world with the cow and listen to people's evaluation." The Jade Emperor thought that the mouse was reasonable, so he agreed that the cow and the mouse would go to the human world together.

The market where cows come to earth is very popular. Suddenly a big mouse jumped on the back of the cow. The people present were startled and immediately exclaimed: "This mouse is so big!" And no one said that the cow was big.

After returning to the Heavenly Palace, the Rat reported the situation to the Jade Emperor, and the Ox acknowledged the situation. True to his word, the Jade Emperor not only selected the rat as the mascot, but also ranked it first in front of the cow. As for the cat, which was originally ranked 12th, its position was naturally squeezed out of the queue by the mouse.

Legend 2: The zodiac is a tribute given by Buddhism to the Jade Emperor. Buddha was treated kindly by the Jade Emperor in the Heavenly Palace for 12 days (12 years in the human world). In order to thank the Jade Emperor for his hospitality, Buddha assigned his beloved disciple Guanyin to select 12 animals to present to the Jade Emperor as mascots. After receiving the order from Tathagata Buddha, Guanshiyin immediately conveyed the order to listen to animals. When the animals learned that they had the opportunity to work for the Jade Emperor, they all actively participated, and finally decided on the winning plan, that is, all registered animals will participate in a long-distance race. Whoever runs faster and reaches the finish line first will be ranked first until 12th place. After the race starts, in order of final arrival, those running in front are ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, lion, etc. However, the old genus had been lying on the back of the cow without being discovered. At the critical moment when the finish line was approaching, the mouse jumped up from the back of the cow and reached the finish line first. As a result, 12 animals including rat, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog and pig were selected. The mouse easily ranked first in the zodiac.

There is also an episode in the legend. The cat and the mouse were originally good friends. They participated in the competition together and lived in the same room. The night before, the cat said to the mouse, "There will be a game tomorrow morning. I'm afraid I'll miss something if I fall asleep. If you wake up, you must call me." The mouse replied, "No problem at all." The cat went to sleep peacefully. After daybreak, the mouse woke up and saw that the cat was still sleeping soundly. It thought that one more participant would mean one more competitor, so it did not keep its promise and ran to participate in the competition by itself.The cat missed the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When he woke up, he learned that the mouse was not only selected, but also ranked first. From then on, he hated the mouse and turned against his friends. The mouse hides when it sees the cat, and the cat catches the mouse when it sees it. The legend began from then on.

Legend three: The Yellow Emperor entrusted it to people as tokens of their zodiac signs. The Yellow Emperor is the ancestor of the Chinese nation and the first ancient emperor in our country. He is in charge of major and minor affairs in the country. Huangdi wanted to do something commemorative for people, so he thought of using animals as animal signs as tokens for everyone. Having this idea, he immediately ordered the animals to respond. After learning about it, the animals enthusiastically signed up. There were hundreds of animals that came to sign up at that time.

But at this time, Huang Di's ideas were not mature enough. For example, he was not sure how many animals to send and how to choose them. He invited courtiers to discuss, and based on the laws of yin and yang and the five elements, he decided to let 12 animals race and arrange them in the order in which they arrived at the designated place. As a result, the order is ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog, pig, and cat. The mouse did not enter the top 12 because he arrived late. It thought that it had no chance anyway, and it was tired and hungry, so it did not attend the celebration and secretly went to the backyard of the banquet hall to find food. The mouse searched for a long time but didn't find any meat. Instead, he saw a pair of big red candles (prepared for the celebration), and mistook them for food. He ran over and opened his mouth to chew. After chewing for a while, he felt that there was no taste, so he gave up.

At this time, an official came to get the candles and found that they were full of explosives. It turned out that the pair of big red candles were sent by the Chiyou tribe. Although the Chiyou tribe surrendered to the Yellow Emperor after being defeated by the coalition forces of Huangdi and Yandi, they were dissatisfied and always wanted to find opportunities to retaliate against the Yellow Emperor, so they sent a pair of candles filled with explosives, hoping to blow him up at the celebration meeting. However, the pair of candles were chewed by rats and revealed the Chiyou tribe's conspiracy. Huangdi and everyone saved the day. After Huangdi learned of this important situation, he believed that the rat had made a great contribution and directly ranked the rat as the first animal in the zodiac. The cat, which was originally ranked 12th, was also squeezed out.

Of course, the above legends are all made up by people. How the twelve zodiac signs came about has not yet been verified. You may wonder, why not use the "cow" who works hard and toils all his life, or the "tiger" of , the king of beasts, , or the "dragon" that soars in the clouds as the first place, but use an unknown mouse that everyone shouts and beats when crossing the street as the first place?

In addition to the above three legends, there are many other theories. There is a saying that rats bring light to humans. Legend has it that the universe was originally a state of chaos. Later, rats chewed through the sky and the sun shone into the world. Only then did light appear and all things grow. Therefore, people respect it. There is also a saying that humans originally lived on weeds, wild fruits, and wild animal meat. There was no food. It was rats that stole grain seeds for humans, so humans could live a happy life of eating cereals. Therefore, people are grateful to rats. The third theory is that rats are the ancestors of some nations. In addition, there are also many ancient legends about worshiping and beautifying rats, which I will not introduce in detail here. Since there are so many legends about rats, it is not surprising that rats are ranked first among the twelve zodiac animals.