The gods were well pleased because he was loved by them. One day, as Yu stood on the banks of the River Ho, gazing at the water, a god appeared as a tall, white-faced man, with the body of a fish, like the Babylonian Ea. He addressed Yu and said: “I am the spirit of the Ho. Wan-ming shall regulate the waters.”
The god then gave Yu a plan of the Ho, which gave full details regarding the regulating of the waters, and sank into the river.
A good deal of controversy has been engaged in as to what Yu was supposed to have done. In the Shu King (“The Tribute of Yu” chapter) it is stated: “Yu divided the land, following the course of the hills, he cut down the trees. He determined the highest hills and largest rivers (in the several regions).… The (waters of the) Hang and Wei were brought to their proper channels.” Other rivers were similarly controlled.[8]
In another section Yu says: “When the floods were lifted to the heavens, spreading far and wide, surrounding the hills and submerging the mounds, so that the common people were bewildered and dismayed, I availed myself of four vehicles,[9] and going up the hills I felled the trees.… After that I drained off the nine channels, directing them into the four seas; I dug out ditches and canals and brought them into rivers.”[10] [[284]]
In the fourth book of the Shu King, “The Great Plan”, it is said: “I have heard that in old time Khwan dammed up the inundating waters, and thereby threw into disorder the arrangement of the five elements. God was consequently roused to anger, and did not give him the Great Plan with its nine divisions, and thus the unvarying principles (of Heaven’s method) were allowed to go to ruin.”[11]
In one of the Odes it is stated that “when the waters of the Deluge spread vast abroad, Yu arranged and divided the regions of the land”.[12]
It has been suggested by some that Yu constructed a great embankment to prevent the Yellow River changing its course—a task even greater than constructing the Great Wall, and that he formed dams and opened irrigating channels. It may be that he did much work in reclaiming land and regulating the government of the Empire. But there can be little doubt that the traditions surviving from his age were mixed with the older traditions regarding the Babylonian flood. Yu is no mere canal cutter. He hews the rocks and forms chasms between the mountains, like Pʼan Ku, the Chinese Ptah or Indra, he constructs the embankments of lakes, and makes channels for the great rivers, and he drains the marshes. The grounds are made habitable and fit for cultivation. There are even faint echoes of the Osirian legend in the stories regarding his achievements.
After Yu had finished his work, Heaven presented him with a dark-coloured mace.[13] He was destined to become Emperor of the nine provinces, we are told, but it is doubtful if the Empire was really so large during his reign. After Shun resigned, Yu ascended the throne. [[285]]The vegetation then became luxuriant, and green dragons lay on the borders of the Empire. Yellow dragons rose from the rivers when Yu crossed them. His reign lasted for forty-five years.
The sixth Emperor of the Hea Dynasty was another famous man. This was Shao-Kʼang. His father had been murdered, and his mother took flight and concealed herself. She gave birth to her son during her reign in Shan-tung, when he became a herdsman. Like Horus, he was searched for by the monarch who had usurped the throne, and he had to take to flight and become a cook. In time he was able to collect an army and win a great victory, which enabled him to regain the throne of his father.
The last few Emperors of the Dynasty of Hea were weak and licentious men. It is told of Kʼung-Kea, the fourteenth of his line, that he was the cause of much misfortune, and caused the government to decay. Among the terrible things he did was to eat a female dragon which had been slain and pickled for him. Kwei, the seventeenth Emperor, was the first to introduce men-drawn carriages, but the omens of his reign foretold the approaching doom of the dynasty; the five planets wandered from their courses, and stars fell like rain in his tenth year. He was overthrown by Tʼang, the founder of the Dynasty of Shang.