大禹治水方法新探——兼议共工、鲧治水之域与战国之前不修堤防论

A Re-exploration of Yu the Great's Thinking of Taming the Waters——A Co-discussion on Gonggong's and Gun's Regions of Taming the Waters and the View of No Building the Dam in the Pre-Warring-Kingdoms Days

自汉以来的人们便把鲧禹父子治水一成功一失败归之于父子二人治水的方法不同,禹治水成功是因为采用疏导的方法,而鲧治水失败是因为用堵截的方法。这种说法实际上是对古文献的误读。在大洪水来临之初,不可能用疏导的方式去治理洪水,只能像鲧一样用修筑堤防的方式。禹治理洪水只能是在大洪水逐渐平息下来的后期,用疏导水道办法去治水。古史传说中说共工和鲧是修筑堤防堵截洪水,完全是因为地处黄河中游,而且共工、鲧皆为农业部族方国,实行定居的生活方式,在大洪水来临之际只有用建堤防拦截洪水,这样便给黄河下游的众多方国部族带来了大灾难,而共工、鲧遭到讨伐后被迫迁徙到边远地区。所有这些现象都说明战国之前的上古时期有一个重要现象:人们在大小江河之上并不建筑堤防。

It is not appropriate to simply think that Yu succeeded in taming the waters by dredging while Gun failed by blocking up. In fact, it was impossible to tame the waters by dredging at the beginning of the Great Flood. The only way possible then was to build dams as Gun did in his day. It was only in the late days when the flood began to recede that Yu was able to tame the waters by dredging. As the ancient legend has it, Gun and Gonggong were both chieftains of agricultural tribes which settled in the central reaches of the Huanghe River. When the flood came, they could only construct dams to defend their homeland, only to bring great disasters to those tribes in the lower reaches. As a consequence, they had to migrate to border regions after they were attacked. All this reveals an important phenomenon in the early days of Chinese history： People didn＇t build dams on rivers.