Da Yu’s Management of Mountains and Rivers and the Formation of the World Order—— Discussing from “Suishan Junchuan (随山濬川)” in Bingongxu(豳公盨)

The deeds of Da Yu (“大禹”) are of pivotal significance in the process of the origin of Chinese civilization.The phrase “Suishan Junchuan”,which used to summarize Da Yu’s achievements in Bingongxu,should be analyzed in terms of the verb-object parallel structure.Similar to the meaning of “濬”,which is dredging watercourses and restoring the river to its original state,the character “随” originally means removing ramparts and restoring the mountains to its original appearance.In this case,the “阜” part in the character “随” actually implies the key distinction between Yu and Gun (“鲧”) ’s way of taming the water,which is building and destroying the rampart,respectively.Thus,we can understand the ancient China’s unification process in the historical perspective of the Zhou Dynasty.Along with the communication among the ancient decentralized tribes,the fights also came.The extreme of this type of struggle was the involvement of the tribal guardian gods,which was expressed by rivers that had changed their direction of flow by human intervention.Gonggongshi (“共工氏”) and Gun suggested forming an independent state without communicating to avoid fighting by “blocking rivers”.On the contrary,Yu’s implementation is “Suishan Junchuan”,which is to face up to the fighting between tribal deities and to seek a solution.With the ideology of restoring the natural appearance of mountains and rivers,Chinese civilization started the construction of the world order.