page_title: Yu the Great
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Yu the Great / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: The Five Kings of the Water Immortals: Yu the Great, Xiang Yu, Ao the son of Han Zhuo, Wu Zixu, and Qu Yuan. 中文（繁體）‎: 安平開臺天后宮水仙尊王
context_page_description: Yu the Great 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 prominently in the Chinese legend of "Great Yu Who Controlled the Waters".
  The dates which have been proposed for Yu's reign predate the oldest-known written records in China, the oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty, by nearly a millennium. Yu's name was not inscribed on any artifacts which were produced during the proposed era in which he lived, nor was it inscribed on the later oracle bones; his name was first inscribed on vessels which date back to the Western Zhou period.
  The lack of anything which is remotely close to contemporary documentary evidence has caused some controversy over Yu's historicity.
context_section_description: Yu was long regarded as an ideal ruler and kind of philosopher King by the ancient Chinese. Beichuan, Wenchuan, and Dujiangyan in Sichuan have all made claims to be his birthplace.
  Owing to his involvement in China's mythical Great Flood, Yu also came to be regarded as a water deity in Taoism and the Chinese folk religions. He is the head of the "Five Kings of the Water Immortals" honored in shrines in Matsu temples as protectors of ships in transit.
  His personal name eventually became a Chinese surname. The name was a simplification of minor kingdom 鄅, in modern-day Shandong. After its conquest by a larger state, its subjects adopted Yu as a surname.
caption: Yu and his fellow kings of the water immortals in a shrine at the Anping Tianhou Temple in Tainan on Taiwan
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