A History of the World by Andrew Marr Page A

the history of dynasties, one succeeding another like the succession of kings and queens that British schoolchildren once memorized. Even if he was plucked from half-remembered oral traditions by later writers keen to proclaim one China, Da Yu is in at the start of all this. He was supposed to have divided central China into a neat series of parallel box-like zones. The centre of the nine
zhou
, or provinces, was the province of the king, leading eventually to a zone for foreigners and then to the wilderness beyond – all of which sounds like the Chinese version of the Middle Kingdom and therefore suspiciously like propaganda.
    So did the Xia kings even exist, never mind Da Yu himself? Until recently the general view was that this was an entirely mythic story –with, after all, a gap of almost two thousand years before it was written down. But the discovery of what seems to be a Longshan-culture capital city, at Erlitou, has changed minds. The Xia may not have been a big dynasty but they probably did exist on the banks of the Yellow River, and emerged from the Longshan culture itself. Erlitou, discovered in 1959 in Henan Province, has produced examples of beautiful bronze-cast wine vessels, or
jue
, which have the spindly delicacy of modernist designs. The city was centred on a large palace complex of rammed-down earth walls, a way of building that was very labour-intensive but produced rock-hard structures which still exist across China. 22
    Chinese archaeology is very exciting just now, because so much remains to be discovered: recent excavations of tombs have found beautiful vases, jade ornaments, bronze weapons, very early writing, evidence of the cultivation of silk and the worship of ancestors. Unlike Catalhoyuk, this was a hierarchical civilization, run by kings, or priest-kings, and able to mobilize large numbers of workers.
    We know that Chinese farming was heavily based on the rich alluvial plains of the Yellow River and its tributaries. In this, the early growth of human settlement was no different here than around the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile or the Indus – all of which produced cities, kings and complex religions. Rivers make rich soil, but they also bring danger. As we have seen, they flood, and their waters need to be unravelled and spread about for maximum farming success. As much as wild plants or wild animals, they need to be tamed. But the necessary work calls for leadership and organization, which in turn means hierarchy and rulers. Farming villages do not need to combine in large numbers simply to grow crops or tend animals. But they do if they want to divert rivers, create networks of irrigation channels and flood-protection systems. The role of civil engineering in human history is often overlooked.
    So Da Yu’s story is a kind of explanation for the growth of political authority. He becomes king of the Xia because he has earned it by organizing the people for their own good. It is hardly a radical proposition that, in general, kings and emperors bring oppression; they may start small with labour-gangs building dykes, but they progress to fortress walls and armies and tax-collectors. The underlying message of the Da Yu tale is that this imposition of authority is still better thandisorder – in this case, the chaos unleashed by rivers that change their direction, or floods that wipe away the livelihoods of millions. In other words, rulers are better than the alternative. It is a message that would have pharaohs and Babylonian priests nodding in agreement.
    But the fact that the story of Da Yu, and then the ups and downs of the dynasties that followed the Xia, were written down and made part of a national narrative matters almost as much. Authority, imposed early on because of the need to mobilize the masses to control nature, is then passed down, generation by generation. And as in the West, the Chinese rulers claim their authority not simply because they are good at organizing, or able to