The Eastern Hero that I have selected is Yu, also known as Yu the Great. According to traditional accounts, Yu combated the flood by following the examples found in nature. Draining fields, dredging rivers, and cutting passes through the mountains, he thus succeeded where his father, Kun, who used dikes to restrain the floods and block their course, had failed. Credited with the shaping of China's waterways and irrigation systems, he became the patron saint of all hydraulic engineering. According to Seidel, Yu is one of the legendary model sovereigns upon whom the Yellow River and the Luo River deities bestowed the mystical diagrams Hetu ("river chart") and Luoshu ("Lo writing"). In Daoist traditions, these sacred emblems were reinterpreted
