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Hero of legend turns back the tide of ravaging floodwaters
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ONE year after Yu the Great defeated Gonggong, the nine-headed snake monster who tried to thwart local flood control projects, he was charged with the task of devising a method to control floodwaters that frequently ravaged the region.
Yu led his followers through steep mountain terrain to inspect the flood situation.
Yu stood on the cliff of Mount Hukou (壶口) in Jizhou (冀州) and listened to the sound of waterfalls, like the whimpering of the Yellow River, the mother of rivers in China.
It was about 160 li, or 80 kilometers, from Mount Hukou to Mount Liang (梁山) — the southern part of Mount Longmen, or “Dragon Gate” — located on the border of Jizhou and Yongzhou (雍州). This deep cliff was the first neck of the Yellow River.
As the wide river narrowed sharply there, torrents of water crashed through cliffs, forming waterfalls, and the water flowed directly to Mount Liang, which was collapsing. As a result, the Yellow River was flooding.
Jizhou was key to taming the Yellow River, Yu told his people. Dragon Ying said, “My hard scales and big wings have their place!”
When the hard work at “Hukou-Longmen” began, a river spirit with a white face and the body of a fish jumped out of the river, bowed to Yu and presented him a tone before disappearing into the river again.
Yu discovered that the snaking lines on the stone were, in fact, a map of river flows. It confirmed a map he had received from his father Gun, who had been charged with devising flood control but failed in his strategy of dikes and dams to control the river waters.
Comparing the two maps, Yu abandoned his father’s strategy and instead choose to use irrigation canals to channel the water and riverbed dredging to smooth water flow. He commanded the mighty Dragon Ying to dredge side channels to divert floodwaters that threatened the capital.
After moving the old, the weak and children to higher ground, Yu took up command on the top of Mount Hukou.
Seeing the signal flag waving, Dragon Ying flew to the narrow part of Mount Hukou and stretched and flapped his great wings. Giant rocks tumbled down, widening the mountain pass.
People screamed when Dragon Ying fell down into the river along the waterfall. With a loud rolling, he dropped to the bottom of the valley, splashing waves to the top of Hukou.
Dragon Ying stretched all its big scales to scrape the cliffs on both sides, then hunched its head, fanned its wings and swung its tail as shovel and broom to clear away the debris from the waterway.
People also helped clear the mud and stones with their hands. The Sacred Tortoise, which had helped Gun steal some Magic Soil from heaven, came to assist. The tortoise followed Dragon Ying, plugged gaping holes on the cliffs with the Magic Soil, which could propagate dikes and hills when thrown into water.
The channel was widened. Dragon Ying was about to bump into Mount Liang when Yu shouted: “Wait a moment!”
As Mount Liang collapsed, Yu was considering where to locate the outlet for the floodwaters and connect with the riverbed east of Mount Liang. He ordered the sacred tortoise to lay out the Magic Soil to prevent the water rising while he jumped into the river to examine the situation.
Yu lit a torch under the river and found a cave that hadn’t been marked on the map. As he went deep inside, it became darker and darker. At one turn, a golden light blinded his eyes.
He saw a god with dragon body and human face sitting in the middle of the cave. It was Fuxi, the God of Creativity. His eyebrows and hair had turned white, with a long beard fluttering at his chest.
“Young man, I have one thing for you,” Fuxi said and closed his eyes.
Yu kneeled to accept a gift called yujian, a jade slip that could measure time and space. It was to help him to find the proper location to start the dredging of Mount Longmen.
Yu emerged from the cave. Using yujian, Yu marked the rocks with his magic axe for Dragon Ying to follow.
Mount Longmen was dredged with a great thundering noise. Raging water flowed down swiftly, and thousands of carp swam against the current, struggling to reach the Dragon Gate.
A magic fireball flew down from the heavens and burnt the tails of the fish. People were surprised when they saw the carp turned into dragons, flying west with their heads held high. Yu was amazed. “Maybe they were sent by god to celebrate our first victory,” he proclaimed.
Every late spring, carp gathered there. But only 72 managed to jumped over the Dragon Gate and turn into dragons.
In the Tang dynasty, scholars who passed the imperial examination were said to be “jumping over the Dragon Gate.” The phrase “carp jumping over the Dragon Gate” has survived to mean striving against the odds to make progress.
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