The God of Wealth we worship actually has so many identities!

It is the day to welcome the God of Wealth on the fifth day of the first lunar month. As the old saying goes: "I feel like crying when I go to school and I feel like vomiting when I go to work. How can I relieve my worries? Only by getting rich!" Among all the stars and gods in the sky, the God of Wealth is undoubtedly the most popular.

To be honest, the God of Wealth is probably too popular, so much so that there are at least a dozen completely different Gods of Wealth in Chinese folk beliefs. Today, I will tell you the stories of the most famous Gods of Wealth in folk culture, and wish you great fortune in the new year.

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The earliest god of wealth was a little devil

In ancient people’s beliefs, various gods and ancestors often had the ability to make people rich. However, the “God of Wealth” who was specifically responsible for making people rich did not appear until after the Song Dynasty .

The earliest God of Wealth should be Wutong God . The legend about Wutong God has existed since at least the Tang Dynasty, but at that time, they were basically small seductive goblins under the King of Hell, similar to the Ox-Headed and Horse-Faced ones. They had a bad relationship with people and were disliked by everyone.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a folk legend in Wuyuan, Jiangxi Province, saying that there were five gods in Wuyuan who protected the place and helped people. The title of the five gods all contained the word "Tong", so the place where they were worshipped was called "Wutong Temple".

Book image of the Jiaqing edition of "(Chunxi) Xin'an Chronicles".

There is Wutong God in front and Wutong Temple in the back. The names are so similar that even the ancients were confused.

Gradually, the legends of these two groups of gods were mixed together.

For example, there is a book called "Nenggai Zhai Manlu" in the early Southern Song Dynasty. There is a story in the book that there was a young man named Wu Shiba who sold hats at the door of the house of the great poet Yan Shu. This guy was very good at playing football. One day, Wu saw five people playing football on the side of the road, and he wanted to play too.

The five people praised Xiao Wu's ball skills and liked him very much. They invited him to dinner and invited him to be their guest. They also gave him a "sticker" which could be used to withdraw a large sum of money from a store. The place where they hosted Xiao Wu had three rooms, one with lights and two dark rooms.

The eldest brother of the five told Xiao Wu to stay in the room with the light and not to look into the other two rooms because they were scary. At night, Xiao Wu couldn't resist his curiosity and decided to take a peek. He was really scared: a group of slaves were being beaten in one room; the walls of another room were covered with the flesh of women and children.

After reading it, Xiao Wu went back to his room and fell asleep. When he woke up in the morning, he found that he was sleeping on a big rock. Fortunately, the loan was real, and he became rich.

The book says that the five people playing football are actually the Five Gods. You see, they beat people, eat people, and make people rich. They are both good gods and evil gods .

There are mainly three types of five gods in various dynasties and regions in later generations: one is a good god who can do all kinds of good things, especially making people rich; one is an evil god, and is often a demon god who seduces people with his beauty; and there is another kind that is similar to what is written in "Nenggai Zhai Manlu", which is both good and bad, and very strange.

The statue of the God of Wealth in Suzhou during the Qing Dynasty is in the Complete Works of Chinese Folk Art·Painting Volume, Jilin Fine Arts Publishing House, 2002, page 91. The God of Wealth is often painted as five gods gathered together, which may be related to the ancient belief in the "Five Gods".

The most famous god of wealth was actually the god of plague

The worship of the God of Wealth was still common until the Republic of China (at least in the Jiangnan region), but it is rarely heard of in modern times. When contemporary sources talk about the question of who the God of Wealth is, the first name given is usually Zhao Gongming .

Zhao Gongming actually appeared in the ancient book "Soushen Ji" from the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The book said that he and Zhong Shiji were two of the three ghost generals sent by God to the human world, specializing in making people sick and taking their lives.

If you love to read "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", you may have an impression of the name "Zhong Shiji". When the Wei Kingdom conquered Shu, there were two generals, one named Deng Ai and the other named Zhong Hui, whose courtesy name was Shiji. After the conquest of Shu, Zhong and Deng "competed for merit" and both died.

From this, it can be inferred that the "Zhao Gongming" might also be a general who died a violent death. In ancient times, when fighting, the army was defeated and the generals were killed, and there were often great plagues after the war. It is indeed reasonable to regard the generals who died in the war as ghost generals and plague gods.

For nearly a thousand years after the Jin Dynasty, Zhao Gongming was basically always a terrible plague god. It was not until the Song Dynasty that some Taoist documents finally incorporated plague gods like Zhao Gongming and Zhong Shiji into good gods.

For example, there is a book called "Yu Tang Da Fa", which says that "Taishang Taiqing Laojun" subdued the five plague gods and appointed Zhao Gongming among them as the "Xuan Tan General".

There is also a book called "Three Caverns Divine Mantras" which contains a mantra called "Summoning Xuantan Mantra", which says that "Marshal Xuantan" "burns the evil plague with red fire, and drives away the ghost plague with flying smoke", "leads his troops to the mortal world to save all living beings", and has completely changed his ways and become a god again.

Image of the book "Yu Tang Da Fa" in the "Orthodox Taoist Canon".

As the old saying goes, "It is easy to do good, but difficult to do evil." It is easy to learn bad things, but difficult to learn good things. However, the good immortal Zhao Gongming did not follow this rule, and he managed more and more good things. At least during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, he had already begun to manage good things that made people rich, such as "fair trade, seeking wealth and profit in harmony."

In the Ming Dynasty, there was a belief that Zhao Gongming was the God of Wealth. The famous novel about gods and demons, Investiture of the Gods, used this setting, and most modern reference books accepted the statement in Investiture of the Gods. Therefore, most popular references now say that the God of Wealth is called Zhao Gongming.

The most popular God of Wealth does not love money

The God of Wealth mentioned in books is usually the great general Zhao Gongming, but the one worshipped more often in stores today is another great general - Guan Yu.

This is really strange. The "Records of the Three Kingdoms·Shu Shu·Biography of Guan Yu" describes Guan Yu as a person who values ​​righteousness over profit. The book says that when Guan Yu killed Yan Liang and Wen Chou, Cao Cao gave him a lot of money to reward and win him over. But Guan Yu was loyal to Liu Bei. Not only did he not accept Cao Cao's solicitation, he even refused the bonus he gave him. It is said that Cao Cao gave Guan Yu money to reward him for his meritorious service, and Guan Yu took it all without any moral debt, and it did not affect his loyalty to Liu Bei. But he did not take a penny, which clearly shows that he does not love money! Why choose such a person as the God of Wealth?

This is actually related to the spread of the Three Kingdoms story. The Three Kingdoms story was very popular during the Tang and Song dynasties. Li Shangyin, a great Tang Dynasty poet, wrote in his Poems of a Proud Child that his baby was cute and smart. When playing, he would "make fun of Zhang Fei's beard or laugh at Deng Ai's eating." He would talk about the stories of the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms when he had nothing to do. How did the children know these stories? Dongpo Zhilin records that during the Northern Song Dynasty, people would give their children some money to go out and listen to storytellers telling stories about the Three Kingdoms. The children were very into the story and disliked Wei and loved Shu . They cried when they heard that Liu Bei lost and laughed when they heard that Cao Cao lost.

A photo of the book "Dongpo Zhilin" published in "Xuejin Taoyuan".

These children represent the general mentality of citizen culture since the Song Dynasty. People like Liu Bei and his men, and Guan Yu's popularity is increasing. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" became popular, and the wave of worshipping Guan Yu became more fanatical. From the emperor to the common people, Guan Yu's fans are numerous.

According to statistics from Ma Shutian's book "Chinese Taoist Gods", during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the largest number of temples in Beijing were Guanyu temples, with a total of 116; the second largest number was Guanyin temples, with 108. The two together accounted for about two-thirds of all temples. Guanyu and Guanyin can be regarded as the two superstars in folk beliefs in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Since the Tang Dynasty, Guanyin has been popular in Han Buddhism mainly in the form of a woman. The ancients were conservative in their thinking, and Guanyin worship was mostly carried out in the boudoir. Shops and opera troupes displayed more Guanyu. Of course, the shops wanted to make a fortune, so Guanyu became the god of wealth.

The strangest god of wealth is a corrupt official

Many shops also display a big toad with money on it. This toad is not an ordinary toad, it comes from the allusion of "Liu Hai playing with the golden toad".

Liu Hai was a famous Taoist priest during the Five Dynasties. His real name was Liu Cao, also known as Liu Xuanying. He had a very elegant nickname called Haichanzi , so he could also be called Liu Haichan . The ancients thought that the craters on the moon looked like toads, and "Haichan" means the moon.

The Haichanzi depicted in the "Xianyuan Xiangchuan" in the "Orthodox Taoist Canon" is an elegant Taoist. Scroll up and down to see more.

According to the Taoist book "The Legend of Immortals", Liu Haichan was an official at first. One day, a Taoist priest found him and performed a unique trick: the Taoist priest placed a copper coin on the table, and stacked ten eggs on the coin. Liu Haichan was frightened: the eggs are dangerous! But the Taoist priest said: life based on worldly wealth is more dangerous than these eggs! Liu Haichan suddenly realized, and then he resigned from his official position by pretending to be crazy and stupid , and became a monk.

Later generations split "Liu Haichan" into "Liu Hai" and "Chan", and picked up the three elements of "money", "tricks" and "madness" in the story, and re-developed them to create a lot of "Liu Hai Xi Jinchan" themed stories. There are too many versions of these stories. For example, in "Mindu Bieji", it is said that Liu Hai's father is a corrupt official who embezzles and perverts the law and does all kinds of bad things. The King of Hell was very angry and turned his father into a big toad in the sea. After Liu Hai became a monk, he learned magic to save his father. He used money as bait, tied a fishing line, and fished his father back from the sea.

The painting "Yunfan Paper Color Liu Hai Xi Chan Zhongtang" from the Qing Dynasty in the collection of Xuzhou Museum, from the official website of Xuzhou Museum. Scroll up and down to see more.

In the Taoist story, Liu Haichan was just a man who pretended to be crazy and stupid when he resigned from his post, but later generations drew him with his hair loose and played with the golden toad in a crazy way. People today call the hair hanging down from the forehead "Liu Hai", which is derived from the bangs hairstyle in folk paintings.

In folk culture, Liu Haichan, who originally didn't like money, was always associated with money, and ended up becoming one of the gods of wealth. People often just put a big toad with money to represent him. This is the origin of the big toad in restaurants.

No matter which god of wealth it is, it represents the people's simple yearning for a better life. In the new year, I wish you all great wealth and a happy life!

Planning and production

This article is a work of Science Popularization China-Starry Sky Project

Produced by: Science Popularization Department of China Association for Science and Technology

Producer｜China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhongke Xinghe Culture Media Co., Ltd.

Author: Cleaner, PhD student in Exegesis at Nankai University

Reviewer: Wang Hongzhi, Associate Professor, School of Humanities, Shanghai Normal University

Planning｜He Tong

Editor: He Tong