Waterworks
China has a changeable and a complex topography. As droughts and floods were frequent, water control projects were built in ancient China to tackle the disasters. There were a number of ancient irrigation systems in Shaanxi, Hebei, Sichuan, Beijing and Ningxia. The most famous among them is the Dujiangyan irrigation system in Sichuan, which is still playing an important role in local agricultural production.
Grand Canal of China
The Grand Canal of China is the oldest and the longest canal in the world. It is one of the greatest projects constructed in ancient China. It is as famous as the Great Wall. China Grand Canal begins in the north at Beijing and ends at Hangzhou. This has earned it the name of the Jing-Hang Canal.
The building of the Grand Canal in China began in 486 B.C. During the late years of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC), when Fu Chai, king of the Wu Kingdom, went up to the north to conquer other kingdoms, he ordered Han Gou to be constructed. Emperor Yangdi of Sui Dynasty, during six years of furious construction from 605 to 610 AD, in 604 AD, made a tour to Luoyang. In the second year, he moved the capital to Luoyang and ordered the canalization of the Grand Canal. This task lasted for six years and thousands of labors involved in it. In the 13th century, Kublai Khan, the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, set up the Yuan capital in Beijing. To connect the economic center in the south with the political center in the north, the Yuan Empire implanted a gigantic project to improve the Grand Canal of the Sui Dynasty from 1283 to 1292.
The Grand Canal communicating Yangtze River, Yellow River, Huaihe River, Haihe River and Qiantang River, flows through Beijing,Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang with Hangzhou at its southernmost end. In China, most rivers flow from west to east. Therefore, the Grand Canal running north and south provides an important connector between several minor river systems. It played a vital role in ancient Chinese life. The waterway was the main artery between northern and southern China and was essential for the transport of grain to Beijing. Besides grain, the canal also transported other commodities. The areas along the canal therefore became a large economic belt. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the markets along the canal were quite prosperous.
From the aspects of improving communication between north and south, promoting economic and cultural exchange and strengthening the unification of the country, China Grand Canal, is an extremely stupendous project in the history of Chinese civilization.
Dujiang Yan
Dujiang Yan (The Dujiang River Dyke) is a great ancient irrigation project situated about 50 kilometers northwest of Cheng Du City, at the highest place of the Chengdu Plain, an alluvial plain that fans out in the Sichuan Basin, It was built in the 3rd century B.C. the natural flow from the irrigation system reaches large areas of farmland, turning the Chengdu Plain into "a land of abundance".The Minjiang River is a major tributary of the Yangtze River in its upper reaches. Before Dujiang Yan was built, when torrential water rushed down the mountains in summer, the Minjiang River overflowed its banks and caused serious floods on the Cheng Du Plain. When the rainfall was not plentiful, the flow of water in the Minjiang River would decrease, aggravating the drought on the western Sichuan Plain.
King Zhaowang (306 B.C.-251 B.C.) of the Qin State appointed Li Bing, a noted water resources expert, to be governor of Shu (Sichuan). To conquer the floods of the Minjiang River, he trekked upstream until he reached the area of the present-day Aba Zang Autonomous Prefecture. He got a lot of hydrological data on the Minjiang River. Then he began to build Dujiang Yan. The irrigation system consists of three parts: Yuzui, Baopingkou, and Feishayan.
Yu Zui (Fish Mouth) is a diversion dam built of pebbles. It divides the river into two channels: waijiang, the outer main channel which accommodates flood water, and neijiang, the inner channel which diverts water for irrigation. The water of the inner river flows through Baopingkou to irrigate 200,000 hectares of farmland around Cheng Du. The outer river was designed mainly to release floodwater. Feishayan between Yuzui and the Baopingkou is an overflow dyke. When there is too much water in the inner river, the surplus water brims over Feishayan and flows into the outer river. Baopingkou, dug out of a mountain, is the conduit through which the inner river water flows to the irrigated area.
Dujiang Yan, a great water conservancy project built in ancient times, has been in use for more than 2,000 years. It is a miracle in the world history of water conservancy.
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