Yellow River was both China’s pride and China’s sorrow. Yellow River was a blessing because it provided water and fertile soil for agriculture and made it possible to build cities along the river. Yellow River was a pain to Chinese people because it was prone to flooding. Historical documents recorded that in last 3000 years, Yellow River has flooded for more than one thousand and five hundred times, a flood every two years！Millions of people had been killed and hundreds of cities had been ruined by Yellow River floods.
In about 2100 BC, that is more than 4000 years ago, Yellow River flooded greatly and frequently. At that time, in the area of present China lived numerous tribes and they allied together. The floods caused great suffering to people.
Gun, chief of a tribe, was initially selected to lead people of all tribes to manage the river. Gun led people fighting floods for nine years but didn't succeed. Gun's method was building dams and levees to block the floods. The dams and levees were built higher and higher, but flooding water was also getting higher and higher; eventually water overflowed the dams and destroyed them.
Gun was dismissed after his failure. Yu, Gun’s son, was then assigned as chief to continue leading people to fight floods. Yu got the lessons from his father. He first made a thorough survey on the geographic features along the entire river and the flooding courses. Then he assembled people dredging rivers making water flow faster and building new rivers based on the natural flooding courses and led the flooding water into the sea.
It is said Yu assembled and put 270,000 people into action; and they worked hard for 13 years. Finally the floods were subdued.
Yu was a dedicated leader. He was just married when he was appointed as the chief. In 13 years, he never entered his home even though he passed his home for three times.
By harnessing Yellow River, Yu not only subdued the floods, but also united people. Later, he founded the first dynasty of China, Xia.
Yu was arguably the first king of China. People respectfully call him DaYu , which means Yu, the great.
Today, I tell the story about Yu. It is not because he was the founder of first dynasty of China, nor because he had a great influence in the development of Chinese civilization, but because of his method of fighting floods.
Facing rampant flooding water, Yu's method was not to block it but channel it. This is something worth remembering and thinking.
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This is one of my Toastmasters' Speeches; and this speech is based on a project titled "Bringing History to Life".
