He Yinghe, Shahe and Jia Luhe meet in Zhoukou City. The river here is wide and deep, and most of the fish are fat. A long time ago, people rested here, or moved goods, or fished shrimps, and lived a beautiful life in peace and contentment.
Later, there was a flamingo fish that had been refined for thousands of years in Shangtianhe, and took a fancy to this geomantic treasure. One night, it left Tianhe and came here, which brought disaster to people on both sides of the strait. First, it swallowed a lot of fish and shrimp in the river and killed the fishermen. When the fish and shrimp are finished, they will give the land a dream, call themselves the river god, and ask people on both sides of the strait to give it whole pigs and sheep every 3, 6 and 9 days. What's more, every July 13, a girl will be his bride. Otherwise, it will capsize and flood the farmland. In order to survive, people have to do it one after another.
There was a local rich man named Zhou who saw that offering sacrifices to the river god and marrying a wife could make money, so he took the job with his own property. He deducted a lot of money by sending money to every household to buy pigs and sheep for He Shen. Choose a girl for the river god. If you can't bear to let your daughter die, you can pay twice as much for the body and get a lot of dirty money from the rich man of Zhou.
How to choose a wife for the river god every year? It is agreed that all girls aged 16 to 20 will be arrested and castrated together, and whoever catches them will be unlucky. Coincidentally, it was the precious daughter of the rich Zhou family who was castrated this year. Zhou's rich man refused to let his daughter send a column and spend money on a pair of clothes. He made up his mind to let his prostitute Lotus take the place of his daughter, which made him anxious for a young man. It turns out that Zhou's rich man has a cow at home. He found a cowherd with no name. Everyone calls him Niu Wa. Furong and Niuwa are both poor, and they are in the same situation. Niu Wa often helps Lotus to do heavy work, and Lotus often washes and mendes Niu Wa's clothes. Over time, they fell in love. Niu Wa heard that Cai Zhou asked Lotus to be the wife of the river god mainly for his daughter, which was overwhelming, angry and urgent.
Seeing that the day of marrying the river god is getting closer and closer, Zhou's rich man locked the lotus in the house and sent people to watch it day and night, which made him very uneasy. On this day, Niu Wa went to the river beach to herd cattle. Thinking of this worrying thing, she was so worried that she sat on the river bank and let the tour guide cry. He was crying when an old man with white hair and silver beard came by. The old man was none other than a white Venus. He came down to inspect the people's feelings and passed by here. Hearing Niu Wa's crying, he came to ask why. When he heard Niu Wa talking about his difficulties, he comforted him and said, "You don't have to be too sad. As the saying goes, people don't deserve to die or have a savior. Then someone came to save the lotus girl. " Say and float away.
Zhou's rich man knew that he was secretly in love with Lotus and was afraid of getting into trouble after marrying the river god, so he wanted to get rid of it first. In the middle of the night, he sneaked into the cowshed and stole a cow. Next morning, he collected it and sold it. Then he went to the county government to accuse Niu Wa of stealing his cattle and bribed the county magistrate with money, asking him to put Niu Wa in prison. The squad leader led the leader to catch it, but it was rejected. The rich man of Zhou counted the cows on the spot. Unexpectedly, there are many cows. Bantou stared at the rich man Zhou and led the leaders away.
That night, when the cattle came back, Zhou's rich man refused to give up. He counted the cows again, and one was missing. Without further ado, he locked Niu Wa up first and complained to the county government the next day. Bantou led the leader to catch Niu Wa for the second time, and Niu Wa cried injustice. Zhou's rich man can count cattle on the spot, and the result is no more or less. Bantou said that the rich man of Zhou teased the government, scolded him and left angrily. Zhou's rich man was very confused and had to let him go.
Niu Wa also felt very strange about it. He went to the cowshed to have a look. A cow came up to him and bowed its head. Suddenly, he said, "Don't be afraid, Niu Wa. I am a god cow in the sky, and I am here to help you relieve your pain. " Then it tells the story of its origin. It turned out that Taibai Venus left Niu Wa that day and went to Tianhe to find Cowherd, telling the unfortunate experience of Niu Wa and asking Cowherd to save Niu Wa and Lianhua. The Cowherd felt that Niu Wa's misfortune was similar to what happened to him in those years, so he was particularly sympathetic. Therefore, he sent his men to the earth to kill people and complete the marriage between Niu Wa and Lotus. Finally, the bull said to Niu Wa, "When you marry the river god, I will help you save the Lotus Girl from the first summer harvest. You should hide her first. I'll find a way to deal with them.
In a blink of an eye, in July of 13, it began to marry the river god. Zhou's rich man ordered people to dress up the lotus, carry it to the river in a sedan chair, and then burn incense to offer sacrifices. After the wedding, the bride was put into a leaky wooden trough and pushed to the center of the river. After a while, the wooden trough gradually sank into the water, and suddenly the river rolled and set off huge waves. About a meal, I suddenly saw a huge buffalo emerge from the water, only to see it open its mouth to drink water. After a while, I drank up the river. At this moment, I saw a strange salamander at the bottom of the river, panting and rolling. The buffalo stamped its front hoof three times, and the salamander was suddenly raw and turned over and died. The buffalo immediately bent down, held its head high and twisted its tail into the air. When I passed the rich man's house in Zhou, my back hoof bounced and turned his house into a big puddle. Then it turns into smoke and flies into the sky. At the same time, with a bang, the river filled up again. Since then, people on both sides of the strait have lived a happy life again. Needless to say, Niu Wa and Furong are also married. Now there are Niuxing Street and Hehua Road in Zhoukou City.
In order to mourn the favour of the god cow, people cast a lying iron buffalo with pig iron, built a platform on the river bank, and put the hot metal cow head on the platform facing west. Over time, the iron buffalo has been damaged. In recent years, it has been newly cast as it is, and now it is still lying peacefully on the cement platform on the half slope of Xihe River at the northern end of the new bridge. There is also a small iron cow, but she is the most authentic iron cow with a long history!
Tieniu Tieniu was originally located at the intersection of Shahe, Yinghe and Jia Luhe, and now it is located at the upstream bridge head of the old bridge on the north bank of Shahe River. Built in the 4th year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1878), it is a sign to record the fluctuation of Shahe water level and give an alarm in flood season. Zhoukou Shahe Bridge was built in 1935, and Tieniu moved from the intersection of Shahe, Heying and Jia Luhe to its present position, which is still used as a symbol to record river fluctuation. During the ten-year turmoil, the iron cow built in the Qing Dynasty was regarded as the "four old" and turned into iron juice. 1July, 982, with the approval of the provincial government, the original iron cow was changed to iron cow.