The story of Yu the Great begins not with his birth, but with the despair of a world submerged. During the reign of the legendary Emperor Yao, the heavens opened and the earth fractured, releasing a deluge so vast that the mountain peaks were like tiny islands in an endless, churning sea. The Great Flood was not merely a seasonal overflow; it was a cosmic catastrophe that threatened to erase the progress of humanity. For years, the people lived in the high branches of trees or in damp caves on the highest ridges, their crops rotted, and their livestock drowned. Yao, the sage king, felt the weight of his people's suffering like a physical burden. He called upon his advisors, the Four Mountains, to find a man capable of taming the waters. After much deliberation, they suggested Gun, the Count of Chong.
Gun was a man of immense strength and even greater ambition, a descendant of the Yellow Emperor himself. He accepted the monumental task with a solemn vow to restore order to the world. However, Gun’s approach was one of resistance. He believed that the only way to conquer the flood was to build barriers so high and so strong that the water would have no choice but to retreat. To accomplish this, Gun resorted to a desperate measure: he stole the Xirang, the Breathing Earth or Swell-soil, from the Celestial Emperor’s heavenly treasury. The Xirang was a magical substance that possessed the power of infinite growth. A single handful, when cast upon the waters, would swell into a massive dike, growing faster than the rising tide.
For nine long years, Gun labored with the Xirang. He traversed the flooded valleys, casting the magical soil into the depths. Wherever he went, massive dams and embankments rose from the silt, temporarily pushing back the waves. The people initially hailed him as a savior, for they could finally descend from the mountains and attempt to rebuild their homes. But the victory was hollow and short-lived. The waters of the Great Flood were not natural; they were driven by a divine turbulence. The more Gun dammed the rivers, the more the pressure built. Eventually, the weight of the water became too great for even the magical soil to withstand. The dams burst with a violence that surpassed the original flood, sweeping away the newly built villages and claiming more lives than before.
The failure of Gun was not merely a matter of engineering but a transgression against the natural order and the divine will. The Celestial Emperor was furious that his sacred soil had been stolen and misused. Emperor Yao, now aging and weary, saw that Gun’s methods had only worsened the disaster. When Yao abdicated the throne to the virtuous Shun, one of Shun’s first acts of governance was to address the failure of the flood control. He toured the empire and witnessed the devastation caused by the collapsed dikes. Gun was held responsible for his failure and his theft of the divine soil. He was sent into exile and ultimately executed or imprisoned on Mount Yushan, also known as Feather Mountain, located in the far east.
It is here that the myth transitions from a tragedy into a miracle. Gun was executed by Zhurong, the god of fire, acting on the orders of Emperor Shun. Yet, even in death, Gun’s spirit refused to depart, and his body remained miraculously preserved. For three years, the corpse of Gun lay upon the slopes of Feather Mountain, exposed to the sun and the rain, yet it did not rot or wither. It remained as fresh as the day he died, and many whispered that he was still guarding the Xirang within him or that his obsession with the flood had granted him a strange form of immortality. The mountain itself became a place of mystery, wreathed in clouds and avoided by the common folk.
After three years had passed, a celestial omen appeared over the mountain. The heavens signaled that the cycle of Gun’s penance was complete and that a new era must begin. A divine officer was sent armed with a Wu sword, a blade of supernatural sharpness. With a single, precise stroke, the officer cut open the belly of Gun’s preserved body. From the opening, instead of death and decay, there emerged a magnificent being. This was Yu, the son of Gun. In some versions of the tale, Yu emerged in the form of a majestic dragon, shimmering with scales of gold and jade, before taking the shape of a man. In others, he was born as a full-grown hero, eyes bright with the wisdom that his father had lacked.