Shennong, also called Yan Emperor, was the god who invented farming in the mythology of
ancient China. He taught people how to cultivate crops and to establish markets
for trading.
Shennong was also regarded as the god of Chinese medicine.
Legend says he tasted all kinds of herbs. Once he identified poisonous plants
more than 70 times in a day. It was because of his practice that people learned that medical
herbs could cure diseases.
According to "Baihutong" by Ban Gu of the Han Dynasty, in ancient times, people only ate animal meat.
By Shennong's time, there were too many people and animals were insufficient.
Thus Shennong taught people to do farming. People benefited a great deal from it.
So they called him Shennong, which means the god of farming.
In "Stories of Gods" by Gan Bao of the Jin Dynasty, Shennong used a reddish brown whip
to beat all kinds of plants to test their properties as drugs and identify those suitable
for crop growing.
Because of his contribution to Chinese civilization,
he and Huangdi are generally regarded as the ancestors of
the Huaxia race.
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