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When Prefect Mao Bao 毛宝 was stationed in the city of Wuchang 武昌, Hebei province, during the Jin dynasty (晋 265-420), there was a story about a white <a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/motifs-symbols/tortoise/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tortoise </a>who repays its benefactor by saving his life.
One day, one of Mao Bao’s soldiers went to market for groceries and returned to the camp with an extra white tortoise. The tortoise was about four or five inches long and still young and vulnerable. So the soldier took the responsibility to feed it. When the tortoise grew to be too large to be living in a tub, the soldier set it free to the Yangtze River. Later, the army that the soldier belonged to was defeated in a battle. In despair, the soldier put on his full armour and threw himself into the river with his cleaver in the hand. Curiously, he found himself landed on a rock unhurt. To his amazement, it was none other than the very white-backed tortoise he had raised! Now it turned out to be a giant fellow, 6 to 7 feet long. The tortoise carried the solider to the east shore and he survived the enemy’s slaughter.
image identification and literature research by Dr <a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/about-us/dr-yibin-ni/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yibin Ni</a> 
Another story relating to ‘Repaying Gratitude’:
<a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/figures-stories/the-dream-by-the-qiantang-river/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The dream by the Qiantang river</a>

White-backed tortoise repaying gratitude

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Father&#8217;s Day was set up to honour fatherhood and secure paternal bonds. One very potent motif in the repertoire of traditional Chinese pictorial culture in this regard is the image of a magnificent brawny <a href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/motifs-symbols/dragon/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dragon </a>facing a smaller young dragon in the background of cloud and waves. It symbolises the passing of knowledge and experience from one generation to another, which shows how the society and dominant ideology treasure the paternal advice.

Venerable dragon teaching his son

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The fifth creature of the Chinese zodiac, the long dragon is one of the most complex and multilayered of all Chinese symbols. Its ferocious energy binds together all the phenomena of nature: bringing benevolent rain, but also typhoons; shaping the landscape, and causing earthquakes. One of the guardian creatures of the cardinal directions, the long dragon stands in the east, the source of the sun, spring rain and fertility.
Long dragons appear in several different forms in Chinese mythology – those with scales are called jiao long 蛟龙, those with wings ying long 应龙, those with horns are qiu long 虬龙, and small-sized ones are chi long 螭龙. Despite their ferocity, these mighty beasts are also fundamentally beneficent, the most auspicious of all creatures and embodiments of masculine vigour and the concept of yang 阳. Because of these associations, the dragon, particularly one with five claws, was the symbol par excellence of the Chinese emperor, the Son of Heaven, and is often found embroidered on imperial robes. It is also the embodiment of the land – quite literally at times, for the features of the landscape were seen by some to be the features of an enormous dragon. This dragon would sleep under the earth during the winter, then ascend to the skies on the second day of the second month, bringing the first spring thunder and rain. For masters of feng shui, underground currents are the veins of this great dragon, and therefore ought not to be disturbed by human builders.
literature research by Dr <a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/about-us/dr-yibin-ni/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yibin Ni</a> 
Related motifs: 
<a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/motifs-symbols/phoenix/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Phoenix</a>
<a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/motifs-symbols/tiger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tiger</a>

Dragon

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The feng phoenix, or feng huang 凤凰, which is often portrayed to resemble a peacock or golden <a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/motifs-symbols/pheasant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pheasant</a>, is the second of China’s Four Sacred Creatures (the others being the long <a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/motifs-symbols/dragon/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dragon </a>龙, the qilin 麒麟 and the <a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/motifs-symbols/tortoise/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tortoise</a>). Except in its mythic status, this creature is not related to the fabulous fire-born bird of Mediterranean and Near Eastern mythology. However, the feng phoenix is linked with heat, since it is the guardian of the south, and therefore a symbol of the sun, summer warmth and harvest.
The Chinese phoenix is sometimes interpreted as a male (yang) animal, but when accompanying the (male) dragon it represents a wife, and pictures of a dragon and phoenix together symbolise marital bliss. As the imperial dragon was a symbol for the emperor, the phoenix was the particular emblem of the empress, and a woman on her wedding day might wear a dress adorned with the phoenix to show that she was ‘empress for the day’.
In Chinese literature, the body of the phoenix is sometimes said to represent the Five Good Qualities: virtue (the bird’s head); humanity (the breast); reliability (the stomach); duty (the wings); and proper ritual conduct (the back). Like the dragon, the phoenix has important imperial associations. It was said to appear only during the reign of good, just emperors; and, unsurprisingly, artists and poets commonly flattered their imperial masters by declaring that a phoenix had been spotted on their land. Confucius, on the other hand, in his day bemoaned the absence of the phoenix and other auspicious celestial signs.
literature research by Dr <a data-internal-link="true" href="https://tutuhaoyi.com/about-us/dr-yibin-ni/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yibin Ni</a>

Phoenix

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