"Yu Gong" relied on the geographical divisions after Dayu's flood control, and for the first time the country was divided into nine states: Jizhou, Yanzhou, Qingzhou, Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Yuzhou, Liangzhou and Yongzhou, and recorded the history of the nine states. Mountains, rivers, soil, products, etc., and also describes the directions of major mountain ranges and rivers.
"Yu Gong" divided the country into nine states, which was the pioneer of primitive geographical division and had a profound impact on my country's geographical concepts for thousands of years.
According to legend, a huge flood occurred in the Xia tribe. The tribal alliance tried to control the flood with Gun, but failed. Gun's son Yu succeeded his father.
Yu summed up the lessons from his father's failure in water control, reformed the water control method, and used the natural tendency of water to flow to lower areas to dredge the nine rivers.
Yu personally led the people to eat and sleep in the open, soaking in muddy water all day long to dredge rivers, channeling the accumulated water from the plains into rivers, and then into the ocean. Yu's perseverance and pioneering spirit finally succeeded in eliminating the disaster of flooding in the Central Plains after 13 years of governance.
In the process of controlling floods, Yu traveled all over the world and knew the topography, customs, and products of each place very well. At that time, floods flowed across the country without distinguishing between regions. In order to facilitate flood control, Yu reorganized the world into nine states, namely Jizhou, Yanzhou, Qingzhou, Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Yuzhou, Liangzhou and Yongzhou.
Yu also visited the south and invited the princes to meet at Tushan. In order to commemorate this grand event, Yu cast the bronzes sent by the tribal chiefs from all over the world into nine tripods, and carved the figures of the Nine States on them, symbolizing the unification of the nine states in the world.
There is an article "Yu Gong" in "Shangshu", which records the legend of Dayu's division of the nine states. Kyushu is the earliest administrative division in my country. Regardless of its credibility, people are always accustomed to calling our country "Jiuzhou". Because it was Dayu who divided the nine states, ancient people often called our country "Yu's domain".
In fact, the content of "Yu Gong" goes far beyond introducing the process of Dayu's flood control. "Yu Gong" explains the orientation and direction of mountains and rivers, soil properties, product distribution, tribute levels and items in each state, as well as the tribute route.
Not only does it reflect Yu’s great achievements in the process of water control, but more importantly, the geographical information contained in it has made it a work with a systematic geographical concept in ancient Chinese literature. It is also an extremely ancient pioneer of regional geography in the world.
Since the content of "Yu Gong" mainly focuses on Dayu's flood control, it has always been listed in Yu Xia's books, and it was even considered to be Dayu's own handwriting in ancient times. It has been confirmed by recent research that "Yu Gong" was probably written in the late Spring and Autumn Period and the early Warring States Period. It was basically compiled based on the geographical scope and geographical knowledge learned during the Confucius period.
The geographical territory of my country at that time mentioned in "Yu Gong" mainly included the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and the plains between these two rivers and the Shandong Peninsula, reaching the Weishui River and Han Dynasty in the west. The upper reaches of the water include the central and southern parts of Shanxi and Shaanxi.
The whole text of "Yu Gong" is only about 1,200 words and consists of four parts: "Jiuzhou", "Daoshan", "Daishui" and "Five Services".
The "Jiuzhou" part mainly divides the described areas into Hebei, Yan, Qing, Xu, Yang, Jing, Yu, Liang, and Yong based on the natural boundaries of rivers, mountains, and seas in natural conditions. Waiting for Kyushu.
For example, the area east of the Yellow River at the junction of Shanxi and Shaanxi, north of the Yellow River in Henan, and west of the Yellow River in Hebei is classified as Jizhou; the area between Jishui, Shandong and the Yellow River in Hebei is classified as Yanzhou; Jingzhou, Hubei The area between the mountains and the Yellow River in Henan is divided into Yuzhou and so on.
This distinction has obvious geographical significance and contains the germination of the idea of ??natural division. However, the boundaries of Kyushu were not very clear at that time and only provided a rough range.
According to the route that Yu took to control the floods, "Yu Gong" describes the natural conditions such as mountains, rivers, lakes, soil, vegetation, special products, farmland and transportation routes in each state, which reflects more realistically. geographical characteristics of each region.
Such as the description of Jizhou and Yanzhou. It was pointed out that Jizhou has loose white soil, and the farmland is of high quality, while some places are poor and the fields are of medium quality.
After Yanzhou was governed by Yu, the nine tributaries of the Yellow River all flowed into their own rivers, and Leixia became a swamp. This state uses mulberry fields to raise silkworms. The soil is black loam, the vegetation is lush, the trees are tall, and the fields are medium-sized. The tributes were lacquer and silk, and the tribute baskets contained fabrics of various patterns and colors.
Another example is that some places in Yanzhou produce lacquer, silk, and exquisite bamboo handicrafts. The handicraft industry and silk weaving industry are developed. The level of craftsmanship is high and it can weave patterned brocade.
For example, Yangzhou produces three-color copper and "Yao"