Gun — Gůn (鯀) — is the tragic flood-fighter of Chinese mythology: the father of Yu the Great, who first attempted to control the catastrophic Great Flood by stealing magic self-expanding soil from Heaven to dam the waters — and who, failing, was executed, only for his son Yu to be born from his body and succeed where he had failed. The doomed predecessor, Gun is the flood-fighter whose failure prepared his son’s triumph.
The First Flood-Fighter
In the time of the sage-emperors Yao and Shun, the catastrophic Great Flood drowned the land of China for generations. Gun was the first appointed to control it — a minister (and, in some accounts, a relative of the gods or a being of divine descent) charged by the emperor with the colossal task of mastering the floodwaters and saving the people. Gun laboured at the task for nine years.
The Stolen Soil and the Failed Dams
Gun’s method was to dam and block the waters — to build dikes, barriers, and walls to hold back the flood. To do this, he needed a special, miraculous material: the “xirang” (息壤), the “self-expanding soil” or “living earth” — a magic soil that grew and swelled of its own accord, so that a tiny amount could grow into great dikes and dams. This precious soil belonged to Heaven (to the high god). Gun, in his determination to save the people, stole the self-expanding soil from Heaven and used it to build his dams against the flood. But his method was flawed: blocking and damming the waters only made the flood worse in the long run — the dams held for a time but eventually burst, and the pent-up waters broke through in even greater catastrophe. After nine years, Gun’s flood-control had failed, and the waters still ravaged the land.
The Execution and the Birth of Yu
For his failure (and his theft of the heavenly soil), Gun was executed — put to death (by the order of the emperor Shun, or by the high god) at Feather Mountain. But the myth takes a strange and wondrous turn: Gun’s body did not decay, and after three years, when his body was cut open (by a sword), his son Yu was born from Gun’s belly (in some versions Gun transformed into a yellow dragon or a bear). And it was this son, Yu the Great, who took up his dead father’s task — and, learning from Gun’s failure, succeeded where Gun had failed: instead of damming the waters, Yu channelled and dredged them to the sea, mastering the flood at last. Thus Gun’s failure and death prepared and gave rise to his son’s triumph.
The Tragic Predecessor
Gun embodies the tragic, well-meaning predecessor whose failure teaches and enables the successor’s success — the father who dared to steal from Heaven to save the people, whose flawed method (blocking the water) failed and cost him his life, but from whose very body sprang the son who would master the flood by the opposite method (guiding the water). His story is also a parable of method: blocking versus channelling, force versus working-with-nature — Gun’s damming failed where Yu’s dredging succeeded. The first flood-fighter, who stole the self-expanding soil from Heaven to dam the Great Flood, failed, was executed, and from whose body his son Yu the Great was born — Gun is the tragic flood-fighter of Chinese mythology, the failed father of the great success.
