In China, people are familiar with the story of "Dayu controlling water". Tang Yao appointed Da Yu's father Gun to be in charge of water control, and Gun adopted the method of damming to curb rapids and rivers, which not only failed to control the flood, but made the dike burst and destroyed, causing even greater disasters. From then on, Dayu inherited his father's footsteps to control water.

Dayu paid attention to absorbing the experience and lessons of predecessors, especially Nian, in water control, and formulated comprehensive measures to control floods mainly by dredging rivers and supplemented by building dams, and the floods were effectively controlled. Later generations attributed the failure of Gun's water control to the success of Dayu's water control: blocking and dredging.

Dayu adopted the method of persuasion, not containment. For the flood problem, blocking is not the way, blocking will intensify contradictions and turn small things into big things. Sparse methods are desirable.

Extended data

Strong evidence shows that "Dayu's water control" is not a legend.

A Sino-American joint archaeological team published a paper in Science magazine, saying that there was indeed a big flood in China's history, but the time was around 1920 BC, not around 2200 BC as previously thought. This is several centuries later than the traditional historical thought, which means that the Xia Dynasty ruled by Dayu was delayed for several centuries. This discovery may rewrite history.

The article points out that the "great flood" in China was the flood in the Yellow River basin 4000 years ago, from which the Xia Dynasty and modern China civilization were born. China's early historical documents, such as Historical Records, Historical Records and so on, all recorded the story of "Dayu controlling water" and spread it for a long time.

Wu Qinglong, a professor at the School of Geographical Sciences of Nanjing Normal University, who is in charge of the research, said that the success of water control, calming down chaos and restoring order made Dayu win prestige and established the Xia Dynasty, which was the first dynasty in the history of China.

It is speculated that the dammed lake completely blocked the Yellow River for six to nine months, and finally burst its banks. The peak flow is about 400,000 cubic meters per second, which is equivalent to 500 times of the average flow of the Jishixia Yellow River. "This is a disaster for anyone living in the lower reaches of the Yellow River." Derel Granger, a professor of geology at Purdue University in the United States, said that the flood was one of the biggest floods on earth in the past 10,000 years.

Radiocarbon dating of three children's bones found in Lajia site shows that they died around 1920 BC, which is an important cultural transition period in China history.

People's Network-Dayu Harnesses Water to Resolve Contradictions