Abstract: The Night Ferry, an encyclopedia with materials taken from various sources and arranged according to subjects, was compiled by Zhang Dai, the late Ming and early Qing dynasty writer. This book covers extensive entries in different fields including all kinds of literatures from the pre-Qin period to the Ming Dynasty and idiomatic expressions (Chengyu) of different times. There are 548 four-character Chengyu in this book,among which 58 four-character Chengyu are about Chinese zodiac (a classification scheme that assigns an animal to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle). This paper summarizes and analyzes the four-character Chengyu of Chinese zodiac according to etymology so as to pinpoint the time and typification of the Chengyu of Chinese zodiac. Moreover, we selected certain Chengyu of Chinese zodiac for detailed study to trace their development and application in history. As a result, the summarization of Chengyu of Chinese zodiac in The Night Ferry is formed after multilevel analyses, laying a foundatin for future study on four-character Chengyu in The Night Ferry.

Key words: The Night Ferry, Chinese zodiac, four-character Chengyu, modern Chinese vocabulary, literary sketches, unofficial histories