The protagonist of the story is neither Dayu, who settled in Kyushu, nor Li Bing and his son, who designed and built Dujiangyan, but Jia Rang, a famous twin in the history of harnessing the Yellow River in China, and Wang Jing in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty. They inherited the idea of respecting nature from Dayu and Li Bing, and made great contributions in the future.
These two names should not only be firmly remembered, but also mentioned at that time. Remember them to remember the blessings of the past, and mention them to tell the world what kind of concept it is to respect nature.
The funeral of the Yellow River: My mother is my own mother and has a bad temper.
The Yellow River is the mother river that feeds the growth of the Chinese nation. Mother is her own mother, but her old man's temper is bad.
I won't mention those years when there is no written record. Only in the recorded thousands of years, the Yellow River burst its banks 1593 times and changed its course 26 times, which is known as "two breaches in three years and one change in a hundred years".
The terrible thing is that the diversion of the Yellow River is not a minor incident, but a considerable action. If you don't promise, break the door and smash the window, and don't look back. Historically, the northernmost part of the Yellow River flowed into the Bohai Sea through the Haihe River and the southernmost part flowed into the Yellow Sea through the Huaihe River. Its downstream is like a restless tail, sweeping the whole North China Plain and Jianghuai Plain from north to south.
There are two natural reasons why the Yellow River is not calm:
First, the sediment content is high. In the Han dynasty, there was a saying that "the river is heavy and muddy, and there are six buckets of mud for one stone". After the Tang and Song Dynasties, with the increasingly serious deforestation, the sediment concentration of rivers increased. After the river reaches the downstream, the flow speed slows down, a large amount of sediment is deposited, and the riverbed keeps rising, forming a "suspended river on the ground", resulting in periodic breaches;
Second, the Yellow River is different from other rivers. In ancient times, there were no fixed rivers and dams, and they were in a state of roaming and grazing, and they took different routes at will almost every year. Gong Yu's "Nine Rivers" refer to the nine channels that Dayu dredged for the Yellow River to enter the sea. Among them, the northernmost "Tuhai River" is named after its huge workload and the horror of its disciples.
It was not until the Warring States period that Zhao, Wei and Qi built dikes 25 miles away from the river to prevent flooding that the Yellow River was temporarily cut off.
Illustration of historical diversion of the Yellow River
When the mother has a bad temper, some children and grandchildren fail to live up to expectations. Because of the need of war or other factors, the Yellow River was diverted by people. There are two most famous ones. First, in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Du Chong was stopped from moving southward by 8 Jin Jun, and the Yellow River must have been opened, allowing the Yellow River to seize the Huaihe River and enter the Yellow Sea through Surabaya. This is the first time in the history of the Yellow River estuary that the Bohai Sea changed into the Yellow Sea and flowed southward into the Huaihe River. It lasted for nearly 800 years and lasted until the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, and then it changed back to the Bohai Sea. The other time was at 1938. In order to prevent the Japanese army from advancing westward, the National Government blew up the riverbank at Huayuankou, Zhengzhou, and thousands of miles of fertile land became a desolate "yellow floodplain". It was not until 1947 after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War that the gap was blocked and the original road was restored.
Even at the national level, the harm caused by the diversion of the Yellow River is unbearable. The place swept by the tail of the Yellow River is the core area of farming civilization in the Central Plains. Turbid waves rolling, Tian She, people and animals are empty; Water retreats and sand remains, and a large area of soil is salinized, making it difficult for crops to grow. Almost every yellow disaster, accompanied by hunger, plague and turmoil, has become a nightmare for the people.
Jia rang's three strategies for river management: advocating water and soil concessions
As mentioned earlier, the Yellow River has been honest for nearly 300 years since Zhao, Wei and Qi built a 50-mile-wide riverbank during the Warring States Period. But from the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, it began to be restless again, and it broke down almost every year.
It is said that the 50-mile-wide levee is enough for the Yellow River to toss and turn. However, after the reunification of the Qin and Han Dynasties, people along the river found that the floodplain was rich in aquatic plants with a large area, so they reclaimed farmland and built houses to prevent floods, and built many tortuous small dikes in the original dike, which made the dike body bend and narrow. Secondly, there is too much sediment in the Yellow River, which keeps silting up and raising the riverbed. In 300 years, this river bank was raised several feet and became a "suspended river".
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty made great contributions in the process of defeating Xiongnu, but at the same time, it also put the poor people in China in prison. In the face of repeated breaches of the Yellow River, he was unable to cope and had to make do with it. It was not until Liu Xin, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, took charge that he once moved his mind to cure the Yellow River, and sent a letter to people of insight all over the world, giving advice and trying to find a way.
Jia Zhen, who is not well known, has therefore stepped onto the front desk of history. He put forward the "three strategies" to control the Yellow River, which is considered to be the most far-sighted and wise strategy to control the Yellow River.
Portrait of Jia Zhen
The core idea of the best policy is "not competing with water for land". The concrete idea is to draw the Yellow River from Liyang Shepeng (now Xunxian County, Henan Province) to the north, rely on the highland at the eastern foot of Taihang Mountain, form a dam on the left, build a 300-mile-long solid "golden levee" with stones on the right, collect the river water, and at the same time remove the population in some areas of Jizhou (now central Hebei Province) to form Luyuan River (extinct, now Handan and Xingtai).
The price of this strategy is a large number of immigrants, giving up some towns in Tian She. However, Jia Rang calculated a big account: the government spends hundreds of millions of yuan to repair the river embankment every year, and the loss after the breach is incalculable. As long as it takes a few years of maintenance, it is enough to complete the resettlement.
In this strategy, Jia Zhen compared the river to the respiratory tract of the earth, and compared the behavior of blocking the river and fighting for water to covering the baby's nose and mouth to suffocate him. He uttered one of the most controversial words, but no one paid attention to it: how can a great man rule Wan Li and compete with water so close at hand?
But short-sighted people often refuse to let this place go, and there are all kinds of grand reasons. Jia Rang knew that the strategy of abandoning land to make water difficult to get everyone's approval, and he put forward the "middle policy":
Open up flood diversion channels and set up more "sluices" (gates) along the way. First, it can weaken water potential; second, it can irrigate shipping; third, it can improve soil and increase crop yield. This scheme only takes one year to repair the dike, which can last for hundreds of years, but it can't solve the fundamental problem, and the sediment of the Yellow River will eventually lead to the diversion again.
As for the worst policy, it is to "strictly guard against death", set up more dike guards along the way, beat gongs and drums every year when the flood season comes, ask migrant workers to make sandbags, be on duty day and night, heighten dikes and rescue any county town whose breach is blocked. It wastes people and money, and it's dangerous. Once the dam breaks, it will be a disaster.
Due to political corruption at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Jia Zhen's three strategies for river management failed to be implemented, but their strategies were widely appreciated by people of insight and recorded by Ban Gu in the full text of Han Shu Gou Ji.
It should be noted that Jia Jean's paper on river management was not written while sitting in his office. He visited the topography of Jizhou area on the spot and had a deep understanding of the Yellow River hydrology. Most importantly, his concept of water control inherited the ideas of China sages such as Dayu and Li Bing, respecting nature and conforming to the trend, and embodied the development concept of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, which is very rare.
Jing Wong: The effect of erecting sluice in different canals is obvious.
The management of the Yellow River lasted from the late Western Han Dynasty to the early Eastern Han Dynasty. Of course, everyone in the middle is not idle-people are busy fighting and changing dynasties; The Yellow River is busy breaking its banks and wandering freely.
Actually, I really can't blame the government. Governing the river is not a trivial matter, and it consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. Without a prosperous foundation of stability and unity, most people really dare not move this idea. After the establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu wanted to mobilize migrant workers to rectify the Yellow River. Later, he estimated the cost and felt that the people had just settled down and could not stand the toss, so they gave up. It was not until his son, Emperor Han Ming, that the national strength was restored and the matter of harnessing the Yellow River was put on the agenda again.
The protagonist of this river regulation is Jing Wong. Wang Jing was chosen because he had successful experience in dredging canals before. Emperor Han Ming was very appreciative of his general plan of river management, and specially gave him ancient books on water control such as Shan Hai Jing and Yu Gong Tu, and recruited hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to take charge of this huge project.
Portrait of Jing Wong
To sum up, Wang Jing's overall plan is to make bold innovations and give full play to it on the basis of Jia Rang's middle policy and according to the current situation. Because the Yellow River and the Bianhe River burst at the same time, and the two streams were mixed in one place, Wang Jing combined the clever management of the Yellow River with the management of the Bianhe River. On the one hand, he built and strengthened the Yellow River levee from Xingyang (now north of Zhengzhou) to Haikou (now Lijin, Shandong), and at the same time fully absorbed Jia Rang's idea of diverting water and opening floodgates, and introduced the Yellow River water into the side canal by setting gates, which was divided into two parts. On the branch canal, "there are sluices in ten miles, which make it more mutually injected and there is no fear of repeated leakage", which is convenient for controlling water potential and navigable irrigation.
The whole project was completed in one year. Although Wang Jing paid great attention to economy, he still spent more than 6543.8+000 billion. However, since this regulation, there has been no major diversion of the Yellow River for more than 800 years, and the number of overflows is very small. This huge welfare was enjoyed free of charge until the end of the Tang Dynasty, and finally the riverbed rose due to sediment accumulation, which was unsustainable.
Wang Jing's achievements in harnessing the Yellow River are the most successful in the history of harnessing the Yellow River from ancient times to the present. He essentially verified the rationality and operability of Jia Rang's middle policy, and Jia Rang's best policy may only become an unattainable good wish.
Before and after Jia Jean and Wang Jing, countless people challenged the Yellow River and failed to achieve long-term stability. How to deal with natural disasters is still a serious issue we are facing today. /p- 1 146349882708 . html
In fact, after slogans such as "at all costs" and "people on the embankment" have been shouted, we might as well calm down and review the spiritual wealth and development concept left by our ancestors, study and explore the correct way to treat nature, and design a set of scientific and long-term countermeasures. We can't muddle along, losing a number of people and materials every year and producing a lot of rhetoric every year. . . . . . .