Hello and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Beibei.
In our last episode, Emperor Yao passed his throne to Shun instead of to his own son, though the process took decades.
We also mentioned that Shun, in turn, also passed on his throne to a hero named Yu instead of to his own son.
Why did Shun trust Yu so much?
The man was most well-known for containing massive floods.
And every child in China grew up hearing his stories, which we will talk about soon.
But we have to backtrack a little bit to start with Yu's father, whose name was Gun.
And be prepared.
A man is about to give birth in this one.
Shun's father, Gun, lived during Emperor Yao's reign.
Yao was a virtuous emperor, but a lot of bad things still happened while he was on the throne.
Do you remember the story when ten suns went up to the sky at the same time?
That happened today. when Yao was the emperor.
But in case you missed it, there were ten suns at that time and only one was supposed to go up in the sky every day.
But one day, the ten suns decided to have some fun and change the routine a little bit.
That was a total disaster for poor humans.
It was the hero Hou Yi who saved the day by shooting down nine of the sons.
That was one major disaster recorded in history.
Another was the great floods.
The floods engulfed everything inside.
Land, houses, and hills, and of course, people. who couldn't run away fast enough.
Seeing the damage, Emperor Yao was greatly worried.
He consulted his ministers, and they all recommended someone named Gun.
The man Gun came from a tribe that lived by a river, which was plagued by frequent flooding.
The experience of dealing with floods was passed down from his ancestors.
In fact, his name meant big fish in ancient Chinese.
Guan answered the call of duty and set about attacking the problem.
What Guan learned from his ancestors was basically building dams.
The higher the water level, the higher the dam, trapping the water inside as best as they could.
But the flooding got worse and worse, and erupted all the dams.
Gun spent nine years building dams, but the floods kept coming back.
Did the methods from the old times not work anymore?
Day after day, Gun sat by the river and thought about what to do.
One day, as Gun was sitting by the river, a giant tortoise swam to his side.
By giant, I mean the size of an island.
The tortoise started speaking and asked Gun, You've been battling with floods for all these years, but you kept failing.
Have you ever thought of using another method?
Gun wasn't used to hearing animals talk.
It was definitely some heavenly deity giving him a sign.
He bowed to the tortoise and asked what other method would he recommend.
The tortoise replied that he should look for a kind of magical mud that would grow on its own.
Wouldn't that be better for building a dam?
But where could one find this kind of mud?
The tortoise replied that the god of fire, Zhu Rong, was in charge of this mud.
But it was only for the gods. not to be used by humans.
Before Gun could ask any more, the tortoise sank back into the river.
Gun was desperate to try anything.
He was going to get that mud.
We'll skip the details, but Gun did manage to steal a tiny lump of the magical mud.
And, just as the tortoise had said, the mud could grow and grow all the way into the highest dam that people had ever seen.
The flood was finally contained, but only on the east side.
The trapped water reversed its direction.
It had to go somewhere.
And back it all went. erasing farmland and everything else on its path in the other direction.
Run through a little lump of the magical mud to the west, hoping to contain the water the other way.
Day after day, run through the magical mud this way and that, following the flow of the flood water.
But this just wouldn't do.
The water had to go somewhere, like a wild beast that's ready to swallow anything on its way.
Kun was out of ideas.
He didn't know what to do now.
Stopping the water with dams just didn't work anymore, magical mud or not.
After nine years of failed attempts to tame the floods, Emperor Yao wasn't happy with Guan's work anymore.
He banished the old man to a desolate mountain area as punishment.
Thinking of all these years of hard work, Guan was sad and ashamed and soon fell sick.
One day, when Gun was almost fading away in cold and darkness, he saw a dazzling flame walking towards him.
It was the God of Fire, from which Gun had stolen the magical mud.
Gun should have been terrified, but he was near the end of his life anyway.
He was happy with the warmth that the god of fire brought and he said to him I stole the magical mud to help the people, but I failed.
My life is coming to an end, but my son will continue with the battle.
It's not over yet.
With this, he passed away. and his soul turned into a yellow dragon that flew up to the sky.
His body, however, kept expanding, as if something was growing inside.
The god of fire lifted his sword and slid open Gwen's body, and something fell out.
This something turned out to be a baby. and his name was Yu.
He was born to continue his father's endeavor of containing the floods, and contain it he would.
How did Yu do it?
He had to find a method, different from his father's, for sure.
And we will get to that in our next episode.
Hope to see you then, and bye for now.
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