Hello, and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Beibei.
We talked a lot about Xun in the past two episodes and he seemed like it was a sure thing that he would become the next emperor.
I mean, he did, eventually, but it took some time.
Emperor Yao the older emperor had to answer the question of why he wasn't passing his throne to his son named Dan Zhu.
And this, supposedly, was what Emperor Yao had said.
If I pass the throne to Shun, then all the people under heaven would benefit from it.
The only one who would not would be my son, Dan Zhu.
But if I pass the throne to Dan Zhu, then he would be the only one who would benefit and everyone else will suffer.
I cannot do that.
How is that for a glowing recommendation for one's son?
But of course, Emperor Yao wouldn't just take off his crown and put it on the head of Shun.
The young man needed to overcome a lot more challenges and grow into the position.
For example, to test and maybe to train Xuan's courage.
He was asked to walk through a forest during a heavy thunderstorm at night, all by himself.
It might not sound like that big of a challenge until you were put through it yourself.
Can you imagine groping your way in the dark with vines and branches waving at you like arms of monsters?
You need to be smart and strong too, to fend off beasts lurking behind bushes and find the way out.
Shun, though, had dealt with a lot worse, and came out of the forest unscathed.
There were, of course, all sorts of other tests and trials, and Shun never let Emperor Yao down.
He was first recommended to the emperor at the age of 30 and started helping out with matters big and small.
This lasted for 20 years.
When Shun was 50 years old, Emperor Yao retired and finally handed over the crown to Shun, who by that time should have grown comfortable with the heavy responsibilities.
Well, as comfortable as that position allowed.
But he was still not the emperor yet.
When Shun was 58, Emperor Yao passed away.
And three years later, Shun formally became the emperor.
Also worth mentioning were 16 other men who were descendants from previous emperors.
They were known for their talents and high morals.
Shun did not give them government posts.
But he did put them in other crucial positions, in charge of land management and education, and others.
There are, of course, always plenty of bad guys, besides the father and the half-brother.
There were four men known for their viciousness during his reign.
They were also descendants from previous emperors and grew up thinking that laws didn't apply to special people like them.
They colluded with each other and committed so much evil that the people called them the Four Evils.
This was a tricky challenge for Shun, but he managed.
He appointed them the very important task of fending off wild beasts and demons in remote areas, preferably one in each corner of the land, so they could not join their forces and do any serious damage.
With the good talents in rightful places and the evil ones flung to faraway lands, There was peace under the heaven.
But Shun was not someone who would sit back and feel good about himself.
He thought about how to win over the allegiance of distant tribes.
Some of his ministers suggested that he could appoint the talented tribal leaders as government officials and keep the superficial ones away.
So Shun appointed 22 tribal leaders from foreign, distant tribes, among which are some names that will become very important in Chinese history.
Yu is the first one to come to mind, then Gaoyao and Xie and Houji.
I think we've mentioned Xie and Houji, two sons of the emperor Di Ku.
Houji was the one who was dedicated to farming, so Shun put him in charge of agriculture so that people would not go hungry.
As of Xie, who was known as a fair and just judge, Shun put him in charge of supervising all officials, so they could work together in harmony.
And there was another man of imperial descent named Bo Yi.
He was put in charge of rites and etiquettes, which were very important back in the ancient times.
These important appointments weren't for life.
They all had to pass exams every three years and would be promoted or demoted according to their performances.
One man really stood out among these 22 great talents.
His name was Yu, which for Chinese people might be an even more familiar historical character than Shun.
Because every Chinese knows the story of King Yu combating the floods.
And we will get to that story later.
Some of you might ask, what about Shun's own sons?
Did they do anything important?
Shun had a son named Shang Jun.
But Shun didn't think he had a serious enough disposition for leadership.
He loved to dance and sing and had no interest in governing.
Eventually, Shun was to pass his crown to Yu, the hero who tamed the floods.
A bit of a spoiler here.
Xuan was getting old, but he still journeyed to the south to tour the land.
His health failed him, and he passed away on the tour.
As we mentioned, Emperor Yao married his two daughters to Xuan and they were touring the south with him.
They were so grieved by Xuan's passing that they cried and cried their tears staining the bamboos on the way.
When the two women came to a river in Hunan province, their boat was overturned during a violent storm and they died in that river.
Ever since then, they became the goddesses of that river, and the bamboos on which their tears had fallen came to be called by their names too.
So, we've covered the five emperors in ancient China.
The Yellow Emperor, Zhuanshu, Diku, Yao, and Shun.
Yu, the man we mentioned today, came after Shun, and his story is worth a chapter of its own.
So we'll get to that in our next episode.
Hope to see you then.
Bye for now.
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