Legendary hero who tamed China's great floods by digging channels instead of building dams, 大禹治水, and founded the Xia dynasty. Legend says he passed his own door three times without going in.
The story of Yu the Great controlling the floods is known to everyone.
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history
His father 鲧 had tried first, walling the rivers in with dykes for nine years while the flood kept rising; he was banished to 羽山 and died there. Yu's own work took thirteen years.
culture
Tradition also has him divide the land into 九州, the Nine Provinces, which became a name for China itself, and cast nine bronze cauldrons, 九鼎, as emblems of rule. Hence 一言九鼎: words that weigh as much as the nine cauldrons.
