Yangtze River Water Conservancy History Ⅰ

Yangtze River Water Conservancy History – Yangtze River Introduction

Yangtze River is the largest river in China, which is 6300 kilometers long. It passes by Qinghai, Tibet, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shanghai, totally ten provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions. It has over 700 branches, covered 1807,000 square kilometers. Compared to the Yellow River, the Yangtze River is more stable, with larger water amount and less sediment concentration. Although there were several serious floods in Yangtze River history, most of them were useful for navigation and irrigation. Since Three Kingdoms, the Yangtze River was becoming main agricultural production base and economy zone of China. With constantly development of the Yangtze River water conservancy project, the Yangtze Cruise also got great development in Yangtze River history.

Yangtze River Water Conservancy History – Spring and Autumn Periods and Warring States Period

In Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period (770 BC ~221 BC), the society was very unstable. The kingdoms fought with each other to be the leader of the kingdoms. The Ba Kingdom fought with Chu Kingdom, while Chu Kingdom fought with Wu and Yue Kingdoms. At that time, there have appeared special made ships in the battles on water. As the navigation became more popular, people dug canal frequently, which is outstanding features of water conservancy in this period. The Wu Kingdom built the Hangou which connected the Jiang River and Huai River together. It is the beginning of Southern and Northern canal. In the late years of Qin Zhaowang (about 256 BC ~ 251 BC), Li Bing, who was the officer of Shu, built the Dujiangyan in Guan County. Later, people in many districts began to build the dike to conserve water for irrigation.

Yangtze River Water Conservancy History – Qin and Han Dynasties

The feature of this period was to develop water conservancy in many aspects. The Qin Kingdom united the six kingdoms. In order to unite the south area of the Five Ridges, the first emperor of Qin sent an officer to chisel Lin Canal in Xing'an, Guangxi Province, which connected the Xiang River and Li River together. It promoted the economy and culture communication of north and south. In the early period of West Han Dynasty, there appeared flood records in Jiang River and Han River. The first flood (185 BC) submerged over 4000 houses. Five years later, there appeared flood again, which submerged tens thousand houses. In Han Dynasty, there have appeared dikes in Xiangyang area, and the Jing River and middle stream of Han River have become important flood prevention area. In late West Han Dynasty, the emperor asked the governor of Nanyang to build large amount irrigation projects. In later dynasties, emperors paid more attention to develop water conservancy project. There appeared many useful dikes and canals in Yangtze River area. With the development of water conservancy project, the irrigation and navigation in the Yangtze River area also got great development.