The differences between flood stories goes far beyond just using different languages. The stories involve different people, different miracles, different God's etc.
This runs contrary to your statement that they "agree on all the details".
"Upon the insistence of Four Mountains, and over Yao's initial hesitation, the person Yao finally consented to appoint in charge of controlling the flood was
Gun, the Prince of Chong, who was a distant relative of Yao's through common descent from the Yellow Emperor.
[12]"
"According to the main mythological tradition, Gun's plan of flood control was through the use of a miraculously continuously self-expanding soil,
Xirang.
[13] Gun chose to obtain the Xirang by stealing it from the
Supreme Divinity, which he did; however, the Supreme Divinity became quite angered at this importunity..
[14] Year in and year out, many times, and to great extents; Gun applied the magical Xirang earth in attempt to block and barricade the flood waters with dams, dikes, and embankments (which he built with the special powers of the magic soil). However, Gun was never able to abate the problems of the Great Flood. Whether his failure to abate the flood was due to divine wrath or to engineering defects remains an unanswered question – although one pointed out over two thousand years ago by Qu Yuan, in his "
Heavenly Questions".
[15]"
"
Even after nine years of the efforts of Gun, the flood continued to rage on, leading to the increase of all sorts of social disorders. The administration of the empire was becoming increasingly difficult; so, accordingly, at this point, Yao offered to resign the throne in favor of his special adviser(s), Four Mountains: however, Four Mountains declined, and instead recommended
Shun – another distant relative to Yao through the Yellow Emperor; but one who was living in obscurity, despite his royal lineage.
[16]
Yao proceeded to put Shun through a series of tests, beginning with marrying his two daughters to Shun and ending by sending him down from the mountains to the plains below where Shun had to face fierce winds, thunder, and rain.
[17] After passing all of Yao's tests, not the least of which being establishing and continuing a state of marital harmony together with
Yao's two daughters, Shun took on administrative responsibilities as co-emperor.
[18] Among these responsibilities, Shun had to deal with the Great Flood and its associated disruptions, especially in light of the fact that Yao's reluctant decision to appoint Gun to handle the problem had failed to fix the situation, despite having been working on it for the previous nine years. Shun took steps over the next four years to reorganize the empire, in such a way as to solve immediate problems and to put the imperial authority in a better position to deal with the flood and its effects.
Although Shun's organization (or reorganization) of the flooded and increasingly flooded lands into
zhouor islands (the political ancestors of the modern
zhouor provinces, both of which may be written with the same character,
州) alleviated some of the administrative difficulties as a work around to various problems, the fact remained that despite the additional four years of effort, Gun still had not only failed to achieve any success towards solving the main problem of the ongoing flooding, but the water even kept on rising. Gun insisted on staying the course with the dikes, insisting that despite the overwhelming failure so far that the people work even harder and to continue to build more and higher.
[19]Not only that, but Gun questioned the legitimacy of Shun as a ruler due to his modest background.
[20]"
"
Gun's demiseEdit
With Gun's overwhelming failure to control the flood waters and his questioning of the legitimacy of Shun's rule, he became labeled as an intransigent. Accordingly, as part of his administrative reforms, Shun had Gun banished to
Feather Mountain. Accounts vary considerably about the details of Gun's demise; but, in any case, the sources seem to agree that he met the end of his human existence at Feather Mountain (although again accounts vary as to whether this end was death, through execution by
Zhurong, or through a metamorphic transformation into — depending on account — a yellow bear, a three-footed tortoise, or a yellow dragon.
[29])"
"Yu tried a different approach to the project of flood control; which in the end having achieved success, earned Yu renown throughout Chinese history, in which the Gun-Yu Great Flood is commonly referred to as "Great Yu Controls the Waters" (
Chinese: 大禹治水;
pinyin:
Dà Yǔ Zhì Shuǐ). Yu's approach seems to have involved an approach more oriented toward drainage and less towards containment with dams and dikes. According to the more fancily embellished versions of the story it was also necessary for him to subdue various supernatural beings as well as recruit the assistance of others, for instance a channel-digging dragon and a giant mud-hauling tortoise (or turtle)."
This story is far different from the Christian global flood story. It involves different people, different miracles, different Gods. It really is a completely different story. The only thing it shares in common, is that there was a lot of water spread across the land at some time in the last 4,000 years.
