August 15th this year is the second National Ecological Day. People today are well aware that humans and nature form a community of life, and civilization thrives when ecology thrives.

Spanning three thousand years, in the vast oracle bone inscriptions, wind, rain, and snow change romantically, flowers, grass, and trees are full of vitality, fish, birds, and beasts live in a diverse manner, modern people shake hands with ancient people, and the beautiful picture of harmonious coexistence between man and nature lasts forever.

Neighbors of Rain

The records of weather phenomena in oracle bone inscriptions are very complete, including major categories such as precipitation, sky conditions, clouds, fog, thunder and lightning, as well as detailed categories such as rain, snow, hail, and frost.

The Shang kings attached great importance to the prediction and recording of weather conditions, so there are detailed and detailed weather records in the oracle bone inscriptions. The weather condition that the Shang people paid the most attention to was precipitation. In the oracle bone inscriptions, we can often see divination records about rain. The divination conclusion is like a "weather forecast", including information such as whether it will rain and when it will rain.

There is an oracle bone unearthed in Yinxu, which records the following: "Will the fields rain heavily? Will it rain from dawn to the day of the food festival? Will it rain from the day of the food festival to noon? Will it rain from noon to dusk?" This is a divination about the weather conditions on the day when the Shang king went out hunting. First, the divination asked whether it would rain heavily, and then asked whether it would rain in the morning, afternoon, and afternoon. This shows that the Shang people not only had a "weather forecast", but also made the "forecast" accurate to a certain time period.

The upper part of the character "雨" in oracle bone script represents the sky, and the several small dots in the lower part symbolize raindrops falling from the sky, meaning rain.

Snow and hail are both precipitation. In the existing Chinese characters at that time, the only word for precipitation was "rain", so the ancients used "rain" as a radical to represent the meaning. The upper part of the character "snow" is "rain", and the lower part is the shape of "feather". The falling snow is like feathers, and the dots are like falling snowflakes. The upper part of the character "hail" is "rain", which means falling, and the diamond outlines below are the pictographic patterns of hail.

Before a heavy rain, there are often winds, lightning and thunder, and these phenomena were also recorded by the ancients. In the oracle bone script, the character "wind" is represented by the character "phoenix", and the prototype of "phoenix" is generally believed to be a peacock. In early ancient characters, the character "申" was used to represent "lightning", and the shape of the character "申" looks like a flashing and twisting lightning in the air. Lightning is always accompanied by thunder, and the thunder that follows the lightning is like countless wheels rolling over, so the original shape of "thunder" is to add a few wheels in the middle of the character "申" that represents lightning.

The characters for "rain", "snow" and "hail" in oracle bone inscriptions.

The past and present of "wood"

During the Shang Dynasty, the Central Plains had good vegetation. In the oracle bone script, there are a large number of characters with the characters of "屮", "艹", "木", "林" and "森". Among these forest trees, some are familiar to people, such as willow, Chinese toon, mulberry, cypress, fir, etc. In addition, in order to protect forest resources and ensure people's production and life, the Shang Dynasty also had special officials in charge of harvest matters and forest management.

There was a close relationship between merchants and trees, as can be seen from the oracle bone inscriptions related to "wood".

"木" is the name of a type of woody plant. The oracle bone script of "木" looks like a tree with branches and roots. Chinese characters use "木、林、森" to represent the community form of woody plants, and "朱、本、末" to represent the parts of trees.

As a pictophonetic Chinese character, the oracle bone script for "林" looks like a series of trees; the oracle bone script for "森" is "大林", which means "many".

The four characters in ancient Chinese characters, "本、末、朱、未", are all indicative characters composed of the character "木". The character "本" has three indicative symbols at the root of the tree, indicating the tree's nutritional organs underground; the character "末" has a dot indicative symbol at the top of the tree, indicating the end; the character "朱" has a dot in the main body, indicating the trunk; the character "未" has a branch in the upper part of the treetop, indicating lush branches and leaves.

It is worth mentioning that in terms of land utilization and development, the Shang Dynasty also promoted the crop rotation system of agricultural farming, planting different crops at different times and places to maintain soil fertility and control the spread of pests and diseases, protect land resources, and improve land utilization efficiency.

The all-encompassing nature of the Internet

During the Shang Dynasty, the climate was warm, the forests were dense, and there were wild animals such as elephants, tigers, elks, and tortoises. The ancients obtained animals for meat through hunting.

The invention and use of the net played an important role in helping ancient people obtain wild fish, animals, birds and other prey.

The oracle bone script "网" is a pictograph, with a vertical line on each side, representing two wooden sticks stuck in the ground, and a varying number of diagonal cross lines in the middle, representing a net woven with hemp ropes and other materials. The material and shape of the net will vary depending on its purpose, so there are several different ways to write the word "网" in oracle bone script, with more or less net lines in the middle, vertical or diagonal wooden sticks on both sides, and some even have an additional wooden stick above and below.

"禽" is the original character for "抓", which means to catch flying birds with a net. The oracle character for "渔" means to catch fish with a net.

The oracle bone script characters for "禽" and "渔".

Over a long period of time, the capture of wild animals led to the domestication and domestication of animals, and the development of livestock and poultry. Some data show that dogs and pigs were the earliest domesticated and raised livestock. The oracle bone script "家" (home) looks like raising pigs in a house, while the original meaning of "畜" (livestock) is to tie animals in a pen and feed them with grains to meet people's needs for meat.

The oracle bone script for "为" means to lead an elephant, tame its wildness, and make it serve its master. According to the oracle bone script, there were activities such as hunting elephants, training elephants, using elephants, and using elephants for sacrifice in the Central Plains at that time. Henan was described as a place where elephants were led, which is the origin of the word "豫", and also the origin of Henan's abbreviation "豫".