Research On Dayu's Flood Control And Its Influence

The success of Dayu's flood control in the ways of diversion and leading has formed and important traditional concept, which has affected all aspects of political societies in China for thousands of years. The legend of Dayu's flood control, which was far-off before being recorded down in the Chunqiu and Warring States periods, contains plenty of inconsistency and interpretations. In addition, the partly legendary content as a result of the worship for Dayu caused much suspicion to the historical event—Dayu's flood control since modern times. There are even various views about the orgin of Dayu, the national hero who made enormous contribution to the great flood control. He was said to be a fish, a worm, or god, clan totem, etc. After arrangement of the historical data as well as the analysis of the era background, an animated Dayu is gradually shown out.The flood in Dayu's time is mainly caused by natural and man-made disaster. In terms of the natural disaster, or natural reasons of the flood, the assembling of the nine planets is of the most influence, at that moment, not only the great flood, but also the temperature drop by a wide margin , and great natural calamity such as freeze injury, aridity, earthquakes, disasters caused by hail, which appeared together. The main reason of the man-made calamity ,which is also the social reasons of the flood, is the destruction of the ecology such as the forests and grassland by the primitive agriculture in ancient times, which led to the absense of storage carrier for water resources, and brought the flood,thus gave priority to flood control.Dayu's flood control can be divided into two aspects, one is dredging up the great rivers; the other is the excavating and management of channels.It would be of no use to control flood merely in one place, so it should be all-around water control. The region that Da Yu harnessed the river at that time is in low reaches of the Yellow River , the midstream and downstream of the Changjiang River and Huaihe River, the focal point of water control should be in places like ancient Yanzhou , ancient Yuzhou , ancient Jizhou , ancient Jing Zhou and ancient Yongzhou.Effective tools are needed to control the water, and modern unearthed archaeological study has showed that people were able to produce the tools needed at that time.The flood control became the common cardinal task of vital importance of various nationalities' clan since flood was so harmful at that time. So every clan should not only work in concert but also need a powerful leader and a regular leading organ to organize the manpower and materials to struggle the huge flood. Therefore the leader that every clan recommends conformably obtained unprecedented power in the clan alliance at this moment. At first, such a leading organ at first is for resisting the flood and guaranteeing people's life and the development of agricultural production. Once this group was mobilized, it must bear the responsibility of commanding and allocating members of the masses of clans and it can realize overall control of the lower rank. The production of this kind of group organization makes the incidental power relation between people be stabilized and strengthened. Country became an organic concomitant of the water control project and water control organizaton changed into a state machine, thus started the slave society and formed the starting point of Chinese civilization.The principles of managing state affairs is the same as that of water control, Dayu's water control principle has far-reaching impacts on persons who harness the river in later age. The series of concepts and moral standards formed in the course of Dayu's water control progressively incorporate in the social life of history of our country and became an important part of Chinese nation's outstanding tradition.