Taihang and Wangwu mountains, seven hundred miles across and
seven or eight thousand feet high, were originally located in the south of
Jizhou and the north of the Yellow River.
There is a man named Yu Gong under Beishan. He is nearly ninety
years old and lives facing the mountain. He suffered from the blockage
in the northern part of the mountain area and had to go around in
tortuous ways. So he gathered the whole family and said, "I will do my
best to eradicate the steep mountains and make the road go all the way
to the south of Yuzhou and reach the South Bank of Hanshui, will you?"
Everyone agreed. His wife questioned him and said, "With your
strength, even the Queen Father's hill can't be leveled. What about
Taihang and the Royal House?" Besides, where are the earth and
stones dug down? They said, "Throw it on the edge of the Bohai Sea,
north of the hidden earth." So Yu Gong led three of his children and
grandchildren to go up the mountain, chisel stones, dig earth, and
transport them to the Bohai Sea with dustpans. The widow of the
neighbour Jingcheng had a child who had just changed her teeth and
jumped to help him. Only when winter and summer change seasons
can we go back and forth once.
The wise old man in the Bay laughed at the fool and prevented him from
doing it. He said, "You are really foolish! What about the earth and stone
that you can't move even a grass on the hill with your remaining years
and strength? Beishan Yu Gong sighed and said, "You are stubborn,
stubborn to an unchangeable extent, even orphans and widows are not
comparable. Even if I die, there are still sons; sons have grandsons,
and grandsons have sons; sons have sons, and sons have grandsons;
descendants are endless, but the mountains will not increase and
increase, still afraid of unemployment?" The wise man in Hequ had
nothing to answer.
The Mountain God with a snake in his hand heard about it, and feared
that he would keep on doing it, he reported it to the Emperor of Heaven.
The Emperor of Heaven was moved by Yu Gong's sincerity, and
ordered his two sons to carry away the two mountains, one in the east
of Shuofang and the other in the south of Yongzhou. From then on,
there were no mountains in the south of Jizhou until the South Bank of
Hanshui.