The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors

After the Wu–Yao war, humankind came out again from the deep hills and valleys. The tribes were divided by long rivers, lakes and wastelands, and flood, sickness and wild beasts still took lives, so that each region raised up leaders who could conduct the sacrifices, settle quarrels and lead the people in migration.

When Fuxi died his true spirit passed into humankind and he was born at Chengji. Grown, he watched the courses of sun and moon, the tracks of birds and beasts and the patterns in the water, arranged the eight trigrams, and taught people to knot nets for fishing, to set snares for game, and to keep records by knotted cord.

Fuxi established the rites of the tribes in the country of Chen and set distant settlements to exchange marriages and goods. When his years of government were full, he handed down the seat of common ruler and passed as a human sovereign into the Fire Cloud Cave.

Shennong followed him in government, taught people to tell the seeds of millet from the hundred grains, cut wood for the share and bent wood for the plough, and opened terraced fields on the sunny slopes. As the seasons turned, the tribes sowed and reaped by the calendar he left, and the grain was stored in pits.

He also tasted the roots and leaves of plants himself and set down their different natures. Some leaves could stop bleeding and cool a fever; some roots brought stomach pain or unconsciousness at a mouthful. He told his people which were food and which medicine, and each settlement kept fields and a herb garden beside it.

After Shennong, the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan and Chi You with the Nine Li fought battle after battle at Zhuolu. Chi You raised a great fog, and companies and chariots lost their way in the mud; the Yellow Emperor’s side fixed its bearings with the south-pointing chariot, brought the tribes’ armies through the fog together, and at last beat Chi You at Zhuolu.

The Yellow Emperor had the scattered tribes keep one order of the year, established the names of offices, made carts and boats, and raised walled towns. After him Shaohao, Zhuanxu, Diku, Yao and Shun presided over the federation in turn: Shaohao governed the eastern tribes, Zhuanxu ordered the sacrifices and the clans, and Diku had men observe sun and moon to fix the seasons.

In Yao’s reign the flood covered the plains year after year, and he called the tribes of the four quarters to confer on it and set Gun over the work first. Gun blocked the water with earth and did not quell it in years; Yao afterwards yielded the seat of common ruler to Shun, and Shun sent Gun’s son Yu to continue.

Yu turned instead to channelling, followed the lie of the hills to survey the watercourses, cut open the choked places, and led the tributaries into the great rivers and to the sea. He travelled the rivers for years while the tribes built dykes, dug channels and moved settlements with him; when the flood withdrew, the people came down from the high ground to the plains, and the villages along the waterways grew into walled towns.

Shun handed the federation to Yu, and Yu assembled the lords and fixed the regions, the tribute routes and the boundaries of the mountains and rivers. After Yu, his son Qi succeeded him and the Xia began, and the ancient age in which gods and tribal leaders governed in turn passed into the reckoning of dynasties.