Du Kang, the king of the Xia Dynasty in ancient Chinese legends, had the surname Si. The son of Xia Wangxiang, his mother was from the Youjing family (now Weishan County, Shandong Province). According to folklore and historical records, Shaokang, also known as Du Kang, was a native of Ruyang, Henan Province, and a native of the Xia Dynasty. He was the fifth king of the Xia Dynasty. Dukang is the originator of grain-based wine making in China, and later became the synonym for fine wine. Du Kang is the "ancestor of winemaking" in Chinese history. According to folklore in different regions, the winemaking saint Du Kang is also said to be a minister of the Yellow Emperor, a king of the Xia Dynasty, a winemaking saint in the Zhou Dynasty, and Du Kang in the Han Dynasty.
It is said that during the time of the Yellow Emperor, there was a man named Du Kang who was responsible for managing grain. At that time, with the development of farming, there was a bumper harvest of food every year. However, there was too much food to eat, so they could only store it in caves. The caves were dark and damp, and over time, all the food rotted. Seeing this, Du Kang began to think hard about ways to store grain.
On this day, Du Kang went for a walk in the woods and found several dead trees, leaving only thick and empty trunks. Du Kang had an idea and poured all the grain into the dry tree trunk. After a while, Du Kang came to the woods to check the grain. He was surprised to find that in front of the dead trees where the grain was stored, some wild boars, goats and rabbits were lying in a mess, motionless, as if they were dead. He quickly came closer to see what was going on: it turned out that the trunk of the tree containing food had cracked several cracks, and water was seeping from the inside out. It seems that these animals licked the water before lying down. But what kind of water is this? Du Kang went over and smelled it, and felt a fresh fragrance coming to his face. He couldn't help but take a few sips of the strong perfume and felt refreshed. Later, Du Kang took the concentrated perfume home and asked everyone to taste it. Everyone said it tasted good when you took a sip and I took a sip. In this way, wine gradually became popular among the people, and Du Kang was also revered as the "God of Wine".