Thousands of Years’Water Control
6 min readYu the Great Tamed the Floods
The Chinese civilization enjoys 5，000 years of history.In this long period，the Yellow River brought the people living along it disasters frequently.However，regulating the Yellow River and fighting against the floods of the Yellow River were also the remorseless undertaking which generations of Chinese people committed themselves to for thousands of years and also made admirable achievements.These achievements have all become the excellent cultural heritage of the Chinese people，some of which are still of great significance for reference in further affecting a radical cure of the floods of the Yellow River now and even in the future.
About 4，000 years ago，China was still in the late primitive patriarchy society，and was transforming into the slave society.At that time，people were short of production materials and had low level of productivity，and their life was very hard.Even worse，once or twice the river flooded each year，rendering people’s life more destitute.
It is said that during Yao，Shun and Yu’s period，large floods broke out frequently in the YellowRiver Basin.
In order to control the floods and save the people from the disaster，the leader of the tribe association at that time，Yao，convened the tribe association conference to discuss the flood-control issue with all the tribe leaders，who allchose Gun to take charge of this matter unanimously.Yao adopted their advice and sent Gun to control the floods.After Gun arrived at the place where the Yellow River was preached，he didn’t make countermeasures according to the practical situations，but used the old method-building levee at the place where the river was preached.He surrounded people’s habitat with a long levee and whenever floods occurred，the levee was strengthened and elevated.However，because the floods wereso ferocious that it rushed onto the earthen wall continuously，at last the levee collapsed，and damage caused by the floods was ever larger.For nine years of water control，Gun didn’t achieve any effects.
After succeeding Yao as the leader of the tribe association，Shun inspected theeffect of Gun’s flood-control in person.When he saw that Gun had no methods to control the floods，he ordered to punish Gun，who was executed in Yushan Mountain.Then，he appointed Yu，the son of Gun，to continue his father’s unfinished mission control the floods，and he also sent Xie，the ancestor of the Shang tribe，Qi，the ancestor of the Zhou tribe，Boyi，the leader of Dongke tribe，and Gaotao to assist After Yu received the command，he analyzed carefully the reason why his father failed.Having reviewed the success and failure of the forefathers，Yu the Great，leading Xie，Qi and many assistants to travel long distances under difficult conditions，roughly investigated the headstream，the upper and lower reaches of the river，and they also piled some stones or felled trees to mark at some important places for reference in flood control.
After the investigation，Yu the Great did much research about various kinds of water conditions and finally decided to use the method of dredging out new river channels to control the floods.Leading the assistants and workers in person，Yu the Great began to control the floods with primitive instruments such as the simplestone axes，stone knife and stone shovel etc.In the course of water-control，they were wholeheartedly dedicated themselves to the mission，leading a simple but hardlife.Yu the Great，who worked from dawn to night，and dared not slack off even when he was exhausted.
Under his lead，the flood-control project progressed very fast and the mountain was cut out a valley at last. Fromhere, the floods flowed down vigorously to the lower reaches, and the river was smooth from then on. In this way, Yu the Great solved the problem of floods successfully.
Besides, the water system of the Yellow River had both mainstream and tributaries, and all the water of the tributaries would enter the mainstream if the mainstream was widened and deepened, and the tributaries were dredged up and connected with the mainstream. In addition, Yu the Great elevated the areas which were of high position and lowered the places which were in a much lower position, hence land and lakes were formed naturally. What was more, they linked those lakes and tributaries up, which weakened the menace of the floods, and the water could also flowsmoothly to the sea.
Within about 10 years, Yu the Great led people to cut mountains and excavated channels one after another. It is said that he passed three times in front of his home but he didn’t stop in. This story was later called “Yu the Great passed but didn’t stop in for a family visit for three times”, showing that he was totally devoted to the cause of flood-control.
After the floods were tamed successfully, Yu the Great went to Maoshan Mountain and organized people to develop agricultural production in use of the deposited land after the water withdrew. He let Boyi to distribute rice seeds to the people to plant in the cold areas and let Houji to teach the people to plant different kinds of grains; he also taught people to cultivate fish, geese, and ducks, and to plant cattail in the lake, turning the harmful river into a useful one. Boyi also improvedthe technology of well excavation, making the agriculture progress a lot. Everywhere of the Yellow River Basin had abundant harvest of all food crops accompanying the thriving of all domestic animals.
The legend of Yu the Great taming the floods occupied a special position in the Chinese water-control history: before him, people mainly built earthen walls toprotect themselves from the floods; and after him, in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods (722 BC-221 BC), building levees to confine the river became the major methods of flood prevention. The method used in the primitive society, with Gun as the representative, could protect their own homestead comparatively safely; however, it couldn’t solve large scale of floods; when the living and production scope expanded to certain extent, this method would not work effectively in preventing floods. And the way to dredge new river channels that adopted by Yu, which was obviously much advanced than the method of Gun, could work in a much larger scale. From obstruction to dredging new river channels, this was an important development in the river regulating strategy.
But the latter is developed on the basis of the former one, not replacing andabandoning the former one. Later, on the basis of dredging new river channels, people developed the method of systematic levee-building, realizing the leap from floods restriction to floods prevention, and made levee-building the major means of flood prevention, which was the second important development in the river regulating strategies of China.”Levee-building”is a far more advanced step of “obstruction”, turning the way of flood prevention from protecting certain places to preventing water from flowing out of the river course. This kind of roughly perfect method naturally occupied a predominant position in the flood-control strategies at last.
The prosperity absorbed the experience of the ancestors in regulating the Yellov River, under the premise that the levees are solid, usually adopt the method of dredging out new river channels, especially in the period when the river changed its course and meandered aimlessly; and it is more necessary to adopt the method ofdredging new river channels if they want to return the river into its original stable course.
