Dragon Kings- Chinese GroupCollective"Rulers of the Four Seas"

Crystal Palaces and Celestial Orders

Four brothers divided the seas in ancient times. Ao Guang took the east, Ao Qin the south, Ao Run the west, Ao Shun the north. Each ruled from a crystal palace beneath the waves, attended by fish ministers and shrimp soldiers, with treasuries holding relics from before the world was tamed.

Their power came with a leash. The Dragon Kings served the Jade Emperor, and no rain could fall without his written decree. A Dragon King who sent storms without authorization faced execution. Humans who needed rain burned incense and begged. The Dragon Kings received the petitions and waited for heaven's word.

The Iron Pillar of the Eastern Sea

Ao Guang's Crystal Palace in the Eastern Sea was built from coral and jade, lit from within by luminous pearls. Among its treasures was an iron pillar left by Yu the Great after he measured the depths of the primordial flood. It weighed 13,500 jin. No one had moved it in centuries.

Sun Wukong came looking for a weapon. He rejected every spear and halberd Ao Guang offered as too light, then asked about the glowing pillar in the treasury. When he touched it, the iron shrank to the size of a needle. The Ruyi Jingu Bang had found its owner. Wukong took the staff and bullied all four brothers into surrendering their finest gear: golden chain mail from one, a phoenix-feather cap from another, cloud-walking boots from the third. The Dragon Kings filed a formal complaint with the Jade Emperor. It did not go well for them.

The Jing River Dragon

A fortune teller in Chang'an had been predicting rainfall so precisely that the Jing River Dragon's fish and shrimp subjects knew exactly when to hide and when to feed. The dragon king disguised himself as a scholar and confronted the man, who calmly predicted the exact time and volume of the next rain, as decreed by heaven.

To prove him wrong, the dragon king altered both the timing and the amount. He sent the rain three hours late and three inches short. The Jade Emperor's response was a death sentence. The executioner would be Wei Zheng, a human minister in Emperor Taizong's court who also held office in heaven.

The desperate dragon appeared to Taizong in a dream and begged for his life. Taizong promised to keep Wei Zheng occupied during the appointed hour. He summoned the minister for a chess game, but Wei Zheng nodded off over the board. In his sleep, he drew a celestial sword and took the dragon's head. The ghost of the Jing River Dragon haunted Taizong until the emperor sickened and descended to the underworld, the journey that set the Journey to the West in motion.

Nezha at the Eastern Sea

The confrontation with Nezha, told in the Fengshen Yanyi, cost Ao Guang more than treasure. When the child-god bathed near Chentang Pass, his Red Armillary Sash churned the waters so violently that the Crystal Palace shook to its foundations. Ao Guang sent the patrol yaksha Li Gen to investigate. Nezha struck him dead with the Universe Ring.

Ao Guang then sent his third son, Ao Bing, in full battle armor. Nezha killed him too, and ripped out his tendons to braid a belt for his father.

The four Dragon Kings went together to the Jade Emperor, demanding justice and threatening to flood the mortal world. Rather than bring destruction on his family, Nezha carved his own flesh from his bones and returned it to his parents. His teacher Taiyi Zhenren later rebuilt him from lotus roots, and the boy came back stronger than before. The Dragon Kings got their apology. They did not get their revenge.

Rain Rites

In times of drought, communities petitioned the Dragon Kings through temple priests. The rituals could be reverent, but when reverence failed, people turned to coercion. Priests paraded dragon statues through scorched fields and left them baking in the sun. They threatened to pitch the statues into dry wells. If rain still did not come, they insulted the dragons by name.

Dragon King temples numbered in the thousands, from the coast to far inland. On the second day of the second lunar month, "the Dragon Raising Its Head" (二月二龍抬頭), people ate spring pancakes called dragon scales and noodles called dragon whiskers, and visited temples to pray for the season's first rains.