Yu the Great
Mythological Narrative
Yu was the son of Gun. In the age of Yao the floodwaters mounted to the sky; Gun was commissioned to control them, but after nine years of futile dike-building he was executed at Feather Mountain, and Shun appointed Yu to finish his father's work. The Records of the Grand Historian says Yu wore out his body and burned his thoughts, living away from home for thirteen years and not daring to enter his own gate though he passed it — three times, in the famous telling. Reversing his father's method, he dredged channels and cut through hills so the waters found their courses to the four seas, and the people came down from the hills to farm the plains.
Midway through the labor he married a daughter of the Tushan clan and left her days after the wedding; his son Qi was born in his absence. With the flood subdued, Yu divided the realm into Nine Provinces, each described with its mountains, soils, and tribute in the 'Tribute of Yu' chapter of the Book of Documents, China's earliest systematic geography. He gathered the metals of the nine regions and cast the Nine Tripods, thereafter the very emblem of legitimate rule.
Succeeding Shun as sovereign, he assembled the lords at Kuaiji, where the late-arriving chief of Fangfeng was executed. Yu was buried at Kuaiji, near present-day Shaoxing, and his son Qi's succession began the hereditary Xia dynasty. His mausoleum there has been maintained for centuries.
Academic Discussion & Critique
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