The discovery of the
In 2002, experts from the Poly Art Museum in Beijing stumbled upon a bronze cup at the Hong Kong antique market. What is a cup? This kind of container is used to hold food such as millet and millet, and the whole body is made of rounded rectangles and has a lid. Bronze cups first appeared early in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, flourished in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, and were rare by the early Spring and Autumn Period.
At that time, the lid of this cup had been lost, only the body of the vessel remained, and most of it was covered with rust, and the inscription displayed was also esoteric, so it had not been paid attention to by the world before. But the experts noticed the cup with a keen eye and invited some experts and scholars to repair and study it.
Scholars have the same basic understanding of this cup: first, this cup table is decorated with a week of phoenix patterns and tile ribs, and there are a bunch of animal head-shaped ears on both sides of the mouth, which has the style of typical bronzes in the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty; second, the 10-line 98-character inscription engraved on it records the contents of Dayu Zhishui and The virtue of government, etc. The style of the inscription is unprecedented, which is of great academic value for discussing ancient history, intellectual history, geography and the formation of ancient books.
Overall, this cup is a bronze artifact from the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty. However, there is still some controversy among scholars about the identity of the mysterious master.
Li Xueqin believed that this instrument lord was called "Sui Gong" and was the monarch of sui in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Suiguo was after Yu Shun, in the area of present-day Ningyang, Shandong. In 681 BC, the overlord Qi Huan Duke at that time summoned the monarchs of various countries to meet in Beixing, but the Sui people did not come, and in that year, the Duke of Qi Huan destroyed the Sui State and sent an army to defend it. But the people were not willing to destroy the country in this way. Four years later, the Sui people entertained the Qi army with wine and food, and killed them all after getting drunk. The history books do not explain the end of the people, and it is expected that they were brutally retaliated against by Qi Huangong.
However, Mr. Qiu Xigui believed that this instrument owner should be called "Gong Gong", the monarch of the State of Feng in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty. In present-day Binzhou, Shaanxi, it was the place where Liu, the ancestor of the Zhou people, settled, and there is also the "Feng Feng" in the Book of Poetry. However, after King Tai of Zhou moved the capital to Qishan, this place was submerged in the annals of history. The peak turned around that a word appeared in the Western Zhou Jinwen discovered later, which was a strategic place at that time, and the late Qing Dynasty scholar Pan Zuyin interpreted this word as "豳". Zhu Fenghan and Mr. Li Zero did not interpret this word, but they also believed that it was related to the strategic location here.
The author believes that the "Feng" in the Zongzhou region is more likely than the "Sui" in the Shandong Peninsula. However, whether it is "Gong Gong" or "Sui Gong" is actually not the focus of scholars' attention. The most attractive thing about this inscription is actually the first sentence: "The Mandate of Heaven Yu lays the soil, follows the mountains and rivers." "It probably means that the Heavenly Destiny Dayu subordinates and plans the land under the heavens, conforms to the mountain trend, and dredges the rivers.
This phrase is not unfamiliar. The Shang Shu Yu Gong says: "Yu Shi Soil, follow the mountains and publish wood, and lay the foundation of the mountains and rivers." The Shang Shu Yu Gong Preface also says: "Yu Bei Kyushu, follow the mountains and rivers." The seven words "YuShiki" and "Suishan Junchuan" actually have it. However, yugong is generally considered to be a work from the late Warring States period. Although the discovery of this bronze vessel cannot prove that Dayu Zhishui is a historical fact, it also advances the legend to the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
The Zhou dynasty epic Poems also mention the records of Dayu Zhishui many times, such as the "Shang Song Changfa" saying "Flood Mangmang, Yu Shi under the earth", "Daya Wenwang Voice" says "Fengshui Dongzhu, Weiyu's achievements", Daya Hanyi says "Yiyi Liangshan, Weiyu Dianzhi", "Xiaoya Xinnanshan" also says "Believe in Pinan Mountain, Wei Yu Dian Zhi", and the records are relatively short. It is worth noting that in this most reliable early document, Yu is also regarded as the oldest and most important figure, and does not involve the Three Emperors and Five Emperors before Yu, which shows that Dayu's status in the minds of the Zhou people is extraordinary.
The history of Da Yu Zhi Shui
After the Gongyu and the Book of Poetry, the legend of Dayu Zhishui in later generations gradually became rich and full, so there was a detailed record of Dayu Zhishui in the "History of Xia Benji".
It is said that during the reign of Emperor Yao, the flood was terrible. Emperor Yao heeded the recommendation of the princes of the Four Directions and used Dayu's father, Cang, to rule the water, but he did not succeed for nine years. After Emperor Shun's regency, he executed him in Yushan in the east on the grounds that He had failed to rule the water, but still promoted Dayu and let him inherit his father's cause of controlling water. After Emperor Shun officially ascended the throne, the princes of the four sides recommended Dayu again, so Emperor Shun appointed Dayu as Sikong as the general head of water control. Therefore, Dayu, together with Boyi, Houji, and others, ordered the princes and hundreds of officials to recruit people and officially began to rule the water and soil.
Dayu Zhishui started from Jizhou and then reached Yanzhou, Qingzhou, Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Yuzhou, Liangzhou, and Yongzhou, and all the water and soil in these places were well managed, and then their taxes and tributes were determined separately. These nine states are the so-called "Kyushu", which is roughly equivalent to the map of China in the late Warring States period, so later generations also used "Kyushu" to represent China. In some other ancient books, there is also the saying of "Kyushu", but the specific prefecture is slightly different from here, such as "Lü's Spring and Autumn" has Youzhou but no Liangzhou, "Zhou Li" has a state without Xuzhou, and "Erya" has Youzhou and Yingzhou without Liangzhou and Qingzhou.
Dayu's clothing, food, shelter and transportation are very simple, but he can work diligently, and it is said that he reigned for thirteen years, passed through the door of the house many times without entering, and finally managed the water and soil. At the same time, Dayu dispatched Boyi to distribute rice so that the people could grow it in wet places; after dispatching Houji, he distributed food and replenished the surplus grain in places that were insufficient, so that the abundance and balance of the regions were balanced.
Dayu also implemented the "five services" system throughout the country, specifically, it was set up in the area of five hundred miles outside the capital, and the dianfu was divided into five grades according to the distance of each hundred miles; the five hundred miles outside the dianfu were houfu, the five hundred miles outside the houfu were suifu, the five hundred miles outside the suifu were to be served, the five hundred miles outside the suifu were the barren clothes, and the hou, sui, yao, and huang were divided into two classes according to the distance. "Obedience" means obedience and service, and different "obedience" assume different obligations for the Son of Heaven. In general, from near to far, the obligations vary from heavy to light.
At this time, the territory of The Emperor Shun stretched from the sea in the east to the quicksand in the west, and the north and south were bounded by the areas that could be reached, and the prestige of China spread throughout the seas. Emperor Shun therefore rewarded Dayu with a Xuan Gui and announced to the world that Dayu had completed his efforts to control water. Because Dayu's merits were too high, he later accepted Emperor Shun's Zen concessions and established the Xia Dynasty.
The records of the Xia Benji are mainly derived from the YuGong, but its content is difficult to say that it is entirely historical. Taking the "five services" as an example, in the past dynasties and dynasties, the tributes stipulated by the central government to the localities could not be so uniform. Moreover, since the tribute of Kyushu is listed as the ninth class, and the "five services" similar to concentric circles are set up to stipulate different tributes, there is a contradiction between the two.
In contrast, "Kyushu" is nine areas bordering each other, similar to the current provinces, and the design is more reasonable than the "five services". The "Left Biography" has the saying that "the vast Yu traces are painted as Kyushu", and its source is earlier than the "five clothes". However, the "Kyushu" of Yugong is already a map of China in the late Warring States period, reflecting mainly the concepts of the Warring States people.
The myth of The Great Yu Zhi Shui
At the same time that Dayu Zhishui was ancientized, many interesting myths and legends appeared in later generations.
In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, The Overseas North Classic, and the Great Wilderness North Classic, the story of Dayu killing Xiangliu is mentioned. Xiang Liu is a courtier of the water god, with nine human heads and a green snake body, and everywhere he passes is a swamp, and birds and beasts cannot coexist with it. When Da Yu ruled the water, he killed Xiang Liu. Xiang Liu's blood was very smelly, and the place where he died could not grow food. In the movie "Fantastic Night at the Museum", there is a phase willow appears.
"Lü's Spring and Autumn Qiuren" records that Dayu Zhishui reached some foreign countries, among which there was the "country of black teeth" in the east, where people had black teeth; in the south there were "places where the naked people of Yuren" and "the land of the immortals", where people grew wings, did not wear clothes, and did not die; in the west there were "people who drank and inhaled", "the land of three sides of their humerus and arms", where people did not have to eat grain and had three faces with one arm; in the north there was "the country of inuyasha", and the people here had dog-headed people... This is very similar to the content of the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
Liu Xin of the Western Han Dynasty believed in the "Shangshan Hai Jing Table" that the "Shan Hai Jing" was the experience of Dayu Zhishui, and Bo Yi named these divine beasts and strange people, and Yi Jian recorded them one by one.
Sun Wukong is also associated with the legend of Dayu Zhishui.
According to the "Chu Ci Tianwen" commentary on "Huainanzi", when Dayu excavated the Xuanyuan Mountain, because the mountain was hard, Dayu turned into a bear. He sent someone to his wife Tu Shan and said, "If you want to bring food, come back when you hear the drums!" Unexpectedly, when Dayu was digging the mountain stone, he accidentally touched the drum. Tu Shan rushed over, saw Dayu transformed into a bear, and left in shame. Walking to the bottom of Song Mountain, it turned into stone. Dayu followed and shouted, "To my son!" "Then the stone cracked, and Kai was born out of the stone. In "Journey to the West", Sun Wukong jumps out of the stone crack, which obviously borrows from the way Qi was born. The golden hoop stick is also said to have been used to measure the depth of the river and sea when Dayu ruled the water.
The Taiping Guangji quotes the Rong Curtain Gossip to mention the legend of the Water God Wuzhi Qi of Huaishui.
Da Yu zhi shui, passed through Tongbai Mountain three times, but each time he was frightened by the wind and thunder, and the stone horn was sounding, which was difficult to manage. After investigation, Dayu found that Wuzhi qi was at work. Wuzhi Qi looked like an ape, with a high forehead, a white head and a green body, golden eyes and snow teeth, a neck that could reach a hundred feet long, a strength that could surpass nine elephants, and a rapid and agile movement, and soon disappeared without a trace. Dayu ordered Zhang Lu to attack him, but could not win; he also ordered Torigi to attack him and could not win; and finally ordered Gengchen to subdue him. Gengchen locked Wuzhiqi with chains around his neck and golden bells around his nose, under the Guishan Mountain downstream of the Huai River.
From the image of Wuzhiqi, the shadow of Sun Wukong can be seen in the future. In Yang Jingxian's "Journey to the West Miscellaneous Drama" of the Yuan Dynasty, Sun Xingzhi claims to be the Great Sage of Tongtian, and he has four brothers and sisters, the second sister is called "Our Lady of Wuzhi", and "Wuzhiqi" is obviously Wuzhi qi; and his eldest brother is called Qitian Dasheng. It can be seen that in "Journey to the West", Sun Wukong integrates the images of several brothers and sisters to create a new image.