Yu is the greatest of gods that participated in taming floods. That is why Chinese love to assign him almost all good virtues of man.

Wave upon wave of flood fighters emerged until the great Yu appeared, who finally brought the great floods under control.

Before a detailed account of his heroic feats, a recap of the flood fighters mentioned before is necessary and useful.

Nuwa fought the flood caused by Gonggong who, in the desperation of defeat, knocked down a corner of the sky bringing incessant downpours and underground water eruptions.

Her strategy for flood control was blocking. She burnt all the reeds available and used the ashes to fill and block.

Clearly, this approach was not the best, nor was it the thorough and final solution to the problem.

The flood was kept in check, but the threat of it was not removed.

It turned out that Gonggong made trouble again when the great Yu set about taming floods.

Once, the water god of the Huanghe turned into a dragon and stirred up floods. He was subdued by the heroic Yi, who had been so well known for shooting down nine of the 10 suns.

Yi shot this water god in the eye. The flood receded. But since he was not killed, who dare say that he would not make trouble again.

With this background in mind, we know how difficult it was for the gods to control floods.

Once, Heaven decided to punish man for his evils. Gonggong the water god was made to teach man a lesson. Continuous rains drowned almost the whole world. To save man from this doomsday, generations of gods fought against the flood to the best of their ability. Many failed, many died, only Yu the Great succeeded. What a protracted war against floods!

 
Editor: Catherine