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“The flood occurred in roughly 1920 BC, which is several centuries later than traditionally thought – meaning the Xia dynasty, and its renowned Emperor Yu, likely had a later start than Chinese historians have thought,” Dr. Wu and co-authors said.
According to Chinese legend, Emperor Yu gained notoriety through his handling of the Great Flood.
He tamed this flood by dredging, earning him the divine mandate to establish the Xia dynasty and marking the beginning of Chinese civilization.
“China’s earliest historiographies, including Shujing (Book of Documents) and Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian), tell of the Great Flood, a lengthy, devastating flood of the Yellow River,” the scientists explained.
“According to the Shiji, Yu’s father labored unsuccessfully for 9 years to tame the flood before Yu took over for 13 more years. Yu’s success led to his mandate to become founding king of the Xia 22 years after the flood started.”
“Because these accounts laid the ideological foundations for the Confucian rulership system, they had been taken as truth for more than 2,500 years until challenged by the ‘Doubting Antiquity School’ in the 1920s.”
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