YU, also known as Yu the Great; demiurge who rid China of a great flood, legendary founder of the Xia dynasty, and oldest pan-Chinese culture hero. (Huangdi, Yao, and Shun are in fact of later origin.) According to traditional accounts, Yu combated the flood by following the examples found in nature. Draining fields, dredging rivers, and cutting passes through the mountains, he thus succeeded where his father, Kun, who used dikes to restrain the floods and block their course, had failed (Shu jing, Yu gong; Shi ji). Credited with the shaping of China's waterways and irrigation systems, he became the patron saint of all hydraulic engineering (Shi zi, Huainanzi). Yu also was a miner and a master of metals. He invented bronze weapons and cast the Nine Caldrons of Xia, symbols of his sovereignty, on which the various regions of his empire were pictured (Zuo zhuan). The famous...