In the later period of clan commune, the leaders of clans and tribes took advantage of their position and took the surplus products as their private property and became nobles of clans. War broke out between tribes, captured prisoners, turned them into slaves and worked for nobles. In this way, the two classes of slaves and slave owners gradually formed, and the clan commune began to collapse.
Later, the nobles of the Xia tribe where Yu lived supported Yu's son Qi to inherit Yu's throne. In this way, the tribal alliance election system in the clan commune period was officially abolished and became the hereditary system of the throne.
Dayu's contribution is to control water first. At that time, when the tribes were divided, he put forward the water control policy of "the world is unified" and creatively adopted the method of "diverting Shan Zhi Mountain". Legend has it that he arranged for his assistant Boyi to compile The Classic of Mountains and Seas, which recorded the mountains, rivers, personnel and bird language in China for the first time.