Book Description

Yu Gong (Lord Yu''s Tributes; Tribute of Yu), which talked about Lord Yu''s flood control and zoning of the nine prefectures, was the cornerstone on which the Sinitic nation, with the three successive dynasties of Xia, Shang and Zhou from the same big family, was founded, and the blueprint according to which the imperial administrative layout was mapped throughout the past millennia. Yu Gong was purportedly a chapter among Xia Shu (book of the Xia dynasty) in the post-Confucius Confucian Classic Shang-shu (remotely ancient history; book of documents), that was seen in Sima Qian''s Shi-ji (historian''s records; historic records). It was taken to be a pseudepigrapha, i.e., written by Lord Yu (r. ? 2207-2198 BC per Lu Jinggui; ? 1989-1982 per the forgery bamboo annals) and his assistant Bo-yi during the era of flood-control, i.e., about 2200-2300 B.C.E. The book, however, could not have been written earlier than the Warring States time period (475-221 B.C.), and might not be part of Confucius'' abridged Shang-shu commandments, oaths, mottos and promulgations from the three dynasties of Xia, Shang and Zhou. Yu Gong neither belonged to the forgery set of the ancient version Shang-shu that was submitted to the Eastern Jinn dynasty court by Mei Yi, a series of books written by Huangfu Mi but pretentiously attributed to the long-lost Kong An''guo-collected version from the double-walls of Confucius'' mansion. Lord Yu''s flood quelling activity, which was touted in Shi-jing (Book of Poems), is corroborated by the Sui4-gong Xu bronzeware on which Yu''s flood quelling activity was inscribed with words similar to Yu Gong (Lord Yu''s Tributes). Zuo Zhuan, in Lu Lord Zhaogong''s 12th year or 530 B.C., claimed that absent Lord Yu everybody would become fish in the water. Numerous ancient classics, such as Li Zheng of Shang-shu, repeatedly talked about ''Yu ji'', i.e., Lord Yu''s footprints. Some Shang bronzeware called Xiang3ru2 (offer to Ru2/Yu) was recently discovered in Hejin of Shanxi, talking about the Shang king''s making sacrifice to Lord Yu. Namely, the oldest artifact proving Lord Yu and Xia dynasty''s existence. Additionally, there are numerous pieces of bronzeware that specifically talked about Lord Yu''s footsteps, such as Qin-gong Gui (Qin Lord Xianggong''s ''gui'' vessel), and the high lord''s overlooking the Xia land (i.e., ''nao''), such as Shi-qiang Pan bronzeware that was dated to Zhou King Gongwang''s reign. The caveat is that the original Xia people''s land could be very much restricted to the You-Xia-zhi-ju land near today''s Luoyang of Henan and on the southern bank of the Yellow River and that the famed nine prefectures could be actually the mountain area to the south of Luoyang and to the west of the Nanyang basin. This is an area eulogized by poem Song Gao as at least three fiefs of the four ordained ministers for the four tall mountains of China, , i.e., Shen-guo, Fuguo (i.e., Lv-guo), Qi and Xu3-guo states. The book could be used to debunk myths in mythogeography. While Kunlun, or Ji-shi (piled-up rocks), was not seen in The Spring & Autumn Annals, Sinitic China long ago talked about Lord Yu''s footsteps across the land and the accomplishments of flood control that averted the fate of people becoming fish on a grand scale, and on a micro scale talked about the nine ancient prefectures that were the mountain area south of the West-to-East flowing Yellow River -which implied that the Xia people had origin there before embarking on a nation-wide flood control work. The central place of Mount Kunlun, i.e., what Richard E. Strassberg claimed as axis mundi or pillar of the sky, had a much older denotation in Yu Gong as a tribe, not a mountain, and was not taken to be the center of world or the paramount sky-propping pillar of the earth till the Han-Jinn dynasties.