The ''Yu Gong'' () or ''Tribute of Yu'' is a chapter of the ''Book of Xia'' (夏書/夏书) section of the ''

Book of Documents The ''Book of Documents'' (''Shūjīng'', earlier ''Shu King'') or ''Classic of History'', also known as the ''Shangshu'' (“Venerated Documents”), is one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature. It is a collection of rhetoric ...

'', one of the

Five Classics The Four Books and Five Classics () are the authoritative books of Confucianism, written in China before 300 BCE. The Four Books and the Five Classics are the most important classics of Chinese Confucianism. Four Books The Four Books () are ...

of ancient Chinese literature. The chapter describes the legendary

Yu the Great Yu the Great (大禹) was a legendary king in ancient China who was famed for his introduction of flood control, his establishment of the Xia dynasty which inaugurated dynastic rule in China, and his upright moral character. He figures promine ...

and the provinces of his time. Most modern scholars believe it was written in the fifth century BCE or later.

Contents and significance

The chapter can be divided into two parts. The first describes the

nine provinces The term Nine Provinces or Nine Regions (), is used in ancient Chinese histories to refer to territorial divisions or islands during the Xia and Shang dynasties and has now come to symbolically represent China. "Province" is the word used to ...

of Ji (冀), Yan (兗),

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

(青), Xu (徐), Yang (揚), Jing (荊), Yu (豫), Liang (梁), and Yong (雍), with the improvement works conducted by Yu in each province. The second enumerates Yu's surveys of the rivers of the empire, followed by an idealized description of five concentric domains of five hundred li each, from the royal domain (甸服 ''Diānfú'') around the capital to the remote wild domain (荒服 ''Huāngfú''). Later, this would become important in the justification for the concept of ''

Tianxia ''Tianxia'' (), literally meaning "(all) under Heaven", is a Chinese term for a historical Chinese cultural concept that denoted either the entire geographical world or the metaphysical realm of mortals, and later became associated with poli ...

'' or "All Under Heaven" as a means to back up the territorial and other claims of successive Chinese dynasties.

Origin and versions

Although the ''Yu Gong'' is traditionally dated to the

Xia Dynasty The Xia dynasty () is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese historiography. According to tradition, the Xia dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great, after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors, gave the throne to him. In tradit ...

(c. 2070 – c. 1600 BCE), most modern scholars agree that the work is considerably more recent. Tradition dictates that

Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...

(551–479 BCE) compiled the ''Book of Documents'' and included the ''Yu Gong'', although it is more likely that this was done later.

Wang Guowei Wang Guowei (; 2 December 18772 June 1927) or Wang Kuo-wei, courtesy name Jing'an () or Boyu (), was a Chinese historian and poet. A versatile and original scholar, he made important contributions to the studies of ancient history, epigraphy, ph ...

suggested in his ''New Confirmation of Ancient History'' (古史新证) that the ''Yu Gong'' was written at the start of the

Zhou Dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by th ...

, but most scholars now agree with the view of

Gu Jiegang Gu Jiegang (8 May 189325 December 1980) was a Chinese historian best known for his seven-volume work '' Gushi Bian'' (, or ''Debates on Ancient History''). He was a co-founder and the leading force of the Doubting Antiquity School, and was hig ...

that it is a product of the

Warring States The Warring States period () was an era in ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the Qin wars of conquest ...

, Qin or Early Han periods. References to maritime history in the ''

Analects of Confucius The ''Analects'' (; ; Old Chinese: '' ŋ(r)aʔ''; meaning "Selected Sayings"), also known as the ''Analects of Confucius'', the ''Sayings of Confucius'', or the ''Lun Yu'', is an ancient Chinese book composed of a large collection of sayings a ...

'' and the ''Yu Gong'' suggest their origin in a single culture while the appearance of the West River (西河) and South River (南河) in the latter indicate that the author came from the

State of Wei Wei (; ; Old Chinese: *') was one of the seven major states during the Warring States period of ancient China. It was created from the three-way Partition of Jin, together with Han and Zhao. Its territory lay between the states of Qin and ...

. In the preface to his ''Commentary on the Yu Gong Map'' (禹贡图注),

Ming Dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

Scholar Ài Nányīng (艾南英) (1583－1646) considered the ''Yu Gong '' the "progenitor of all geographic texts both ancient and modern."

Commentaries

Over the centuries numerous scholars have written interpretations of and commentaries on the ''Yu Gong''. In 2006 the Xi'an Map Publishing Agency (西安地圖出版社) published a compilation of 55 titles dating from the

Song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...

to the

Qing Dynasties The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

. Notable amongst the volumes included in the collection are: * Mao Huang (毛晃)'' Yugong Zhinan'' (禹貢指南). * Cheng Dachang (程大昌) ''Yugong Lun'' (禹貢論) and ''Yugong Shanchuan Dili Tu'' (禹貢山川地理圖) . * Hu Wei (胡渭) ''Yugong Zhuizhi (禹貢錐指).

Notes and references

:''This article is partly based on a translation of 禹貢 in the Chinese Wikipedia''

External links

禹貢 - Tribute of Yu
at the

Chinese Text Project The Chinese Text Project (CTP; ) is a digital library project that assembles collections of early Chinese texts. The name of the project in Chinese literally means "The Chinese Philosophical Book Digitization Project", showing its focus on books ...

: Chinese text with

James Legge James Legge (; 20 December 181529 November 1897) was a Scottish linguist, missionary, sinologist, and translator who was best known as an early translator of Classical Chinese texts into English. Legge served as a representative of the Londo ...

's English translation (amended to employ pinyin) {{Authority control Chinese history texts Chinese classic texts Confucian texts Geographic history of China Book of Documents