Gonggong is the water god of ancient myths and legends in China, because he failed to compete for the throne with Huan Huan, and in anger, he knocked down Mount Buzhou and caused the pillar of heaven to collapse. But in fact, Gonggong is not an individual, but the personification of the powerful tribal Gonggong clan in ancient times.
According to the "Zuo Biography", the Gonggong clan was a tribe that was good at controlling water as early as the Yellow Emperor. However, in the Yao Shun period, the Gonggong clan suddenly became a scourge to the princes of the world, and was listed by Emperor Shun as the "four evils" of the world, and together with Sanmiao and others, they were expelled by the Huaxia tribal alliance, and the Gonggong clan was forcibly migrated from the Yellow River to Youzhou.
"Flowing together in Youzhou" has also been confirmed by archaeology.
Yao Shun's era is the Longshan culture era at the end of China's primitive society, which is divided into two types: the Central Plains Longshan Culture and the Shandong Longshan Culture, representing the descendants of the Yanhuang tribe (Yao Shun) living in the Central Plains and the descendants of the Dongyi ethnic group in Shandong.
In the narrow Yellow River belt between the Longshan culture in the Central Plains and the Longshan culture in Shandong, there is a special cultural type - Hougang Phase II culture. Hougang Phase II also belongs to the Longshan cultural system, but it shows some of its own characteristics.
However, when the Longshan culture transitioned to the Erlitou culture of the early Xia Dynasty, the Hougang Ii culture in northern Henan suddenly disappeared, and at the same time, the xiajiadian lower culture suddenly appeared in the western Liaoning area, and it was completely different from the archaeological type of the contemporaneous period south of Yanshan, but it was instead a inheritance relationship with the Hougang phase II culture.
This shows that during the transition from the Yao Shunyu tribal era to the Xia Dynasty, a tribe living in the northern Henan region migrated to the western Liaoning region, which is the Youzhou of the Nine Prefectures under the Heavens, which coincides with the record that the Gonggong clan was exiled to Youzhou. It also confirms the record of "Yufa Gonggong" in the Warring States Policy.
So the question is, the Gonggong clan was originally a descendant of the Yan Emperor, and because it was good at controlling water, it was mythologized as a water god by later generations, why was it suddenly attacked by the Chinese tribe and the Dongyi tribe, and was forced to leave Youzhou? What historical events are alluded to behind the co-foreman's collision with Zhou Shan?
As mentioned above, the area where the Gonggong tribe is located is the middle zone between the Yanhuang Group and the Dongyi Group, in the 1990s, Henan archaeologically found a Neolithic city site with an area of 4500 square meters in the Mengzhuang area of Hui County, and the remnants of the second phase of the Longshan culture Hougang are extremely rich, and the name of the Gonggong clan is indeed derived from the common land of Hui County, Henan. This shows that the settlement of the Gonggong tribe was in the area of Hui County.
However, Mengzhuang archaeology found a thickness of 2-3 meters of late Silt of the Longshan culture, and trenches 6-8 meters wide were also found in the city walls, and in the lower reaches of Hui County, in the heze area of southwest Lu, a large number of pottery net pendants, pottery spinning wheels, snail shells, fish bones, and stone shovels were unearthed.
In other words, the southwestern region of Lu in the lower reaches of Hui County was the area where the Great Flood of ancient times was, that is, the place where Dayu ruled the water later. Previously, the Gonggong clan, which was also deeply affected by the flood, built a deep ditch and a high ravine, which aggravated the flooding downstream. This corroborates the "Chinese" recorded that "the joint work to defend the hundred rivers, fall to the high, in order to harm the world", this kind of self-interested way of water control, caused great harm to the neighboring tribes, which also triggered the joint conquest and expulsion of the tribes.
From the Dawenkou culture to the Longshan culture, the Dongyi people, who originally created more developed than the Central Plains civilization, were faulted due to the extraordinary flood. After that, the leader of the Xia Hou tribe, Dayu, was ordered to start controlling the water, and in the process of dredging the waterway, through the unified deployment of manpower from different tribes, Dayu established supreme authority in the tribal alliance and laid the foundation for the Xia Dynasty's family world.
Mr. Yu Weichao, a famous archaeologist, once said: If this great flood had not occurred more than 4,000 years ago, China's first dynasty might and should have been established by Dongyi, not the later Xia Dynasty.