China Popular Itineraries |
|
|
|
|
2.8 Yu Gong Wanted to Move the Two Mountains |
The story is recorded in Lie Zi, a collection of the ancient Chinese leg ends.
"Taihang Mountains and Wangwu Mountains covered a circumference of seven hundred li, and ran as high as thousands of meters. Originally they were located in the south of Jizhou and the north of Heyang. Once an old man named Yu Gong and his family lived in the valley of these mountains. Due to isolation by the mountains, he and his family had to go a long way to have contact with the outside world. One day, he called all his family members into the hall and said. ' Could you all devote your lives with me to moving away the huge barriers, open a road to Yunan and Hanshui River?' They all agreed with him but his wife asked him with doubt: 'With your strength you could not even move the tomb of Kui Fu, how could you move these Taihang and Wangwu Mountains? And even if you can, where could you pile rocks and earth?' The other members said: 'Dump them to the Bay of Bohai Sea. ' So, Yu Gong led his sons and grandsons with three loads on their shoulders to the side of the mountains, digging earth and crushing rocks, then carrying them with dustpans to the Bay of Bohai Sea. The son of his neighbor came to help them. A wise thin man from Hequ came with a ridiculing smile on his face to stop him. He said- 'You are the most foolish man I've ever seen. With your strength in your dying age you cannot even move a rock from the mountains. How can you move all those huge rocks and earth?' With a long sigh answered Yu Gong: ' Your mind is so stubborn as the hardest rock. You are not so wise as my neighbour and her young baby. Although I would die, I have my sons. And my sons will have their sons and grandsons, and they too will have sons and grandsons. And this will go on endlessly, but the mountains will not grow higher. Why can we not level them down?' The wise thin man had no words to reply. When the god who dealt with snakes had heard of this he reported it to the God. The God was so touched by Yu Gong's faith that he ordered the two sons of Kua E to carry the two mountains, one to the East of Shuozhou, the other to the south of Yongzhou. From then on, in the south of Jizhou and north of the Hanshui River there were no longer any blockades." |
|
