Chapter 20 Nineteenth Zhou Enlai and Water Conservancy Construction

I recall how Premier Zhou cared about water conservancy construction with a few examples from my personal experience. Premier Zhou attached great importance to water conservancy. On November 21, 1972, when he was listening to the Gezhouba project report, he said: "Twenty years after liberation, I cared about two things: one water conservancy, and one skyrocketing (missiles, satellites)".Whenever there are unresolvable water conservancy disputes across the country, or major problems in water conservancy construction, the Prime Minister will personally deal with them.Premier Zhou paid close attention to all the water control tasks assigned by Chairman Mao.

In 1949, there was a flood, and the Yangtze River and Huaihe River were severely damaged. Chairman Mao instructed: "The Huaihe River must be repaired."Premier Zhou held the Huaihe River Management Conference overnight and personally presided over the planning of the Huaihe River Basin.He knows well that to formulate a river basin plan, one must first figure out the hydrological conditions of the river.When the Prime Minister discussed the hydrological characteristics of the Huaihe River with engineers, he found that the hydrological data of the upstream and downstream were contradictory. While asking why, he induced the engineers to discuss a method of checking and supplementing.After repeated discussions, I finally found a good way to compile hydrological data, which is to organize the incomplete hydrological records of a river into a relatively complete series of hydrological data.

Premier Zhou listened to the reports of the engineers very carefully, and asked repeatedly whenever he found any inconsistencies.In order to make the report accurate, hydrological experts draw the hydrological records as a flood process line, also known as the flood peak curve, and analyze the contradictions between the upstream and downstream flood peaks to find out the reasons for the contradictions.During the Kuomintang period, hydrologists often did not observe and record on time, or a certain tributary had no records at all.Therefore, a reasonable correction assumption is made for the cause of the data error.For example, for a tributary that lacks data, the shape of the relevant flood peak is repaired with the amount of water that the tributary should have.This method of artificially revising flood peak records is more reasonable than some original incomplete flood peak records.This method has achieved good results in the compilation of hydrological data of the Yangtze River.The hydrological data of the Yangtze River, which weigh more than one ton and have been recorded for more than 100 years, have been compiled into a book and become a valuable asset for the construction of the Yangtze River.

The results of the reorganization of hydrological data laid the foundation for the formulation of flood control and water resources development plans for the Huaihe River Basin. Although the Huaihe River Basin Plan at that time was only a preliminary strategy for river control in the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, it could also be called a large-scale unified plan.It is related to the overall layout of water conservancy projects in Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces.Under the guidance of this plan, some famous water conservancy projects were built in the valleys of the tributaries of the Huaihe River in the next few years.For example: Foziling and Meishan Reservoirs in Anhui, Banqiao and Shimantan Reservoirs in Henan, Yishu River diversion project in Shandong, etc.The development projects in these mountainous areas and similar projects that continued to be built later have brought huge economic benefits to the masses of the people in the basin.In the planning of the Huaihe River Plain, attention was paid to making full use of river water to develop irrigation projects, such as the northern Jiangsu irrigation project, which also played a huge role in the great development of agriculture in the Huaihe River Basin.Therefore, it will be instructive to revisit the guiding ideology of Premier Zhou's presiding over the formulation of the Huaihe River Basin Planning and his river governance spirit.

In 1949, a flood occurred in the Yangtze River, which almost caused the catastrophic disaster that the Jingjiang embankment burst and the Yangtze River was diverted.Due to the huge scale of the Jingjiang embankment, to meet the standard of preventing large floods, the amount of work cannot be completed in a short period of time.In order to solve the critical problem of flood control in the Yangtze River, we began to conduct on-site surveys and study plans since February 1950.After the proposal of the Jingjiang flood diversion project was proposed, it was submitted to the Party Central Committee by the Central South Bureau.Chairman Mao, Comrade Liu Shaoqi, and Premier Zhou listened to the reports of Deng Zihui and Bo Yibo during the National Day, and immediately made a decision to approve the construction.Because the project was delayed for one year, Premier Zhou severely criticized the relevant units and asked the Central South Bureau to start construction in 1952.When the project officially started, both Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou personally wrote inscriptions.Chairman Mao's inscription is: "For the benefit of the general people, strive for the victory of the Jingjiang flood diversion project!" Premier Zhou wrote an inscription: "Make the rivers and lakes beneficial to the people." Comrade Li Baohua, secretary of the party group of the Ministry of Water Resources in Wuhan, asked why the central government did not hear any difficulties in the Jingjiang flood diversion project, and said: "If there are difficulties that are not raised in time, I will not be able to take responsibility." Under the care and supervision of the Prime Minister, All requests made by the headquarters of the Jingjiang Flood Diversion Project were promptly resolved by the central government.Thus, an astonishing miracle happened. Under the leadership of the Central South Bureau, the two sluice gates with a flood capacity of about 10,000 cubic meters per second and the corresponding embankment took less than 4 months in total. The time is all completed.

Since the Jingjiang section is the key to the flood control of the Yangtze River, after the completion of the Jingjiang flood diversion project, various solutions to the problem were further studied.In addition to insisting on annual repair projects to continuously strengthen the flood control capacity of the Jingjiang embankment, the Jingjiang flood control project is also included in the planning of the Three Gorges Project, and it is required to be completed before the Three Gorges Project.This Jingjiang flood control project with independent functions has received Premier Zhou's care many times during the process of research and formulation. In early March 1958, Premier Zhou visited the Jingjiang embankment in the snow.Afterwards, he listened to several reports on the flood diversion and silt discharge project on the north bank of the Jingjiang River, and in 1970 formally approved the immediate construction of the project.However, due to various complicated factors, the Jingbei flood diversion and silt discharge project and other plans to relieve the threat of floods in the Jingjiang River have not been implemented so far.

After more than 30 years of scientific research and design work since liberation, the project plan to ensure the safety of the Jingjiang River section not only achieves technological advancement and economic rationality, but also eliminates various concerns of the local people and fundamentally relieves the impact of floods. The conditions for the threat in the Jingjiang area are already in place, the problem is how to make a decision.The example of Premier Zhou personally solving the difficult problems of the Jingjiang flood diversion project provided us with a good experience.As early as the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, although there were different opinions on the Jingjiang flood diversion project, thanks to the decisive decision of the Prime Minister, the difficulties were finally overcome in time, and all the Jingjiang flood diversion projects were completed before the flood season in 1952.Otherwise, it would be hard to imagine what would happen to the Jingjiang Dam when the Yangtze River flooded in 1954.With the Jingjiang flood diversion project, not only the danger of the Jingjiang levee has been reduced, but also time has been gained for us to formulate a plan to completely eradicate the Jingjiang flood.

In the winter of 1954, after Chairman Mao, Comrade Liu Shaoqi, and Premier Zhou listened to reports on the planning of the Yangtze River Basin and the design of the Three Gorges Project, Premier Zhou immediately sent a note to the Soviet government in the name of the Chinese government, asking the Soviet Union to send experts to help with the planning of the Yangtze River Basin.After the Soviet expert team leader came to China, I reported to Premier Zhou that the Soviet expert team disagreed with us in some aspects. The Premier received the Soviet expert team leader in the State Council and asked the scientist Zhu Kezhen to listen to me and the Soviet expert team leader. State your point of view.After Premier Zhou patiently listened to our different opinions, he clarified Chairman Mao's intentions regarding the planning of the Yangtze River Basin and the Three Gorges Project technically as well as ideologically and politically.Afterwards, the Prime Minister helped solve problems from many aspects in the actual work of planning the Yangtze River Basin, enabling us to cooperate with Soviet experts to successfully complete the planning and design tasks at various stages ahead of schedule.

At the beginning of 1958, Chairman Mao asked me to attend the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Nanning Central Committee to report on the Three Gorges issue.At this meeting, Chairman Mao made it clear that Premier Zhou would lead the planning of the Yangtze River Basin and the Three Gorges Project in the future, and Chairman Mao asked Premier Zhou to take care of it four times a year.In fact, the prime minister caught many more than four times.Every time I go to Beijing, the Prime Minister asks me to report on my work.At this meeting, Chairman Mao asked me to write an article on the Yangtze River Basin Planning Report. I will use this article as a summary of the Yangtze River Basin Planning Report.Finally, the meeting decided to hold a special meeting in Chengdu in March of that year to make a formal decision on the planning of the Yangtze River Basin and the Three Gorges Project.

In order to make full preparations for the Chengdu enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, Premier Zhou personally surveyed the Three Gorges Dam site in late February 1958.Accompanied by comrades Fuchun and Xiannian, more than 100 people from relevant ministries and commissions of the central government, heads of relevant provinces and cities, experts from various fields and experts from the Soviet Union participated in this survey.On board, Premier Zhou listened to reports, presided over discussions, and carefully studied the Yangtze River plan and the Three Gorges issue.In Sandouping, I also visited the Three Gorges Dam site, and brought the core of the dam site to Chairman Mao to see.After more than ten days of exhaustion along the way, the Prime Minister took a train from Chongqing to Chengdu overnight on the evening of March 7 to attend the Central Chengdu Conference.The Premier made a special report last week at the meeting.According to Premier Zhou's report, the central government officially made a resolution on the "Opinions on the Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project and the Planning of the Yangtze River Basin".It has become an important document guiding the planning of the Yangtze River Basin and the direction of the Three Gorges Project.

In the resolution of the Chengdu meeting, a decision was also made to start construction of the Danjiangkou water conservancy project on the Han River. As soon as the Chengdu meeting ended, Premier Zhou held a meeting in Hubei on the construction of the Danjiangkou Water Conservancy Project. It was determined that Comrade Wang Renzhong would preside over the project, be responsible to the central government, the Chief Office would be responsible for the design, and the Hubei provincial government would organize the construction. During the construction of the first phase of the Danjiangkou project, many difficulties and disturbances were encountered, but all of these were properly resolved under the care of Premier Zhou.For the serious quality problems that occurred in the project itself, Premier Zhou personally presided over a meeting to study solutions, and decided to stop the project for reinforcement.After taking reinforcement and reinforcement measures to bring the project quality up to the design standard, a new question arose whether to resume work, that is, continue to finish the project or stop it.Later, due to Hubei Province’s reasonable proposals, taking advantage of Danjiangkou’s favorable foundation of pouring 1 million square meters of concrete, and giving full play to the project’s benefits in advance, it was possible to resume the Danjiangkou project.Since the resumption of work in February 1966, under the kind care of Premier Zhou, despite the impact of the "Cultural Revolution" turmoil, the first phase of the Danjiangkou project was successfully completed. Although the Danjiangkou Water Conservancy Project has only completed the first phase of the project, its benefits are very significant.In particular, flood control has almost changed the situation of the Jianghan Plain being flooded twice in three years.Other benefits such as power generation, irrigation, shipping and aquaculture are also significant.Therefore, Premier Zhou instructed that the Danjiangkou Water Conservancy Project should be taken as a model of "five benefits" and exhibit models at home and abroad.Of course, to fully utilize the benefits of the first phase of the project and create conditions for the later phase of the project, we need to continue to work hard. Premier Zhou made a series of arrangements in accordance with Chairman Mao's instructions to "run the affairs of the Yellow River well", and convened a national expert meeting to discuss effective new plans for controlling the Yellow River.The Yellow River has its own laws. Before a correct understanding of it, the Sanmenxia Water Conservancy Project, which was originally a key project to control the Yellow River, was in danger of becoming a mud reservoir.Premier Zhou arranged the Yellow River Control Conference in the winter of 1964 to seek a good way to control the Yellow River.During the meeting, the Prime Minister patiently listened to different opinions.The Prime Minister immediately encouraged some good opinions, and patiently persuaded some incorrect opinions. When discussing how to deal with the Sanmenxia sedimentation problem, the Prime Minister asked the comrades present at the meeting to propose a plan.The Prime Minister also asked me to express my opinion.Based on the theory that the reservoir can be used for a long time, I advocate lowering the water level of the Sanmenxia Reservoir to restore the original Yellow River bed in the Xuanguan River section, so as to relieve the threat to the Guanzhong Plain. , Turn the transformed Sanmenxia Reservoir into a medium-sized hydropower station.Then, the Prime Minister said: "The bottom hole is used to discharge sand. Someone once mentioned that he is a student who has just graduated from school. What's his name?" Someone replied, "It's called Wen Shanzhang."The Prime Minister went on to say: "It is necessary to publish a statement in the newspaper. He was right and we were wrong. Restore his reputation!" When discussing the policy of governing the Yellow River, the Prime Minister asked me to express my opinion.I said that the Yellow River is a precious river, and it is wrong to treat the Yellow River as a harmful river.The problem of the Yellow River is essentially an agricultural problem, but experiments must first be done to convince those who disagree.The Prime Minister immediately gave me encouragement, so I proposed a plan to first use 200 mu of land to carry out the experiment of "releasing silt rice" in the Yellow River.The Prime Minister said: "Yuan Shikai could successfully grow Xiaozhan rice on the saline-alkali flat in Tianjin Xiaozhan. The conditions on both sides of the Yellow River are better than Xiaozhan. Why can't rice be planted on a large scale?!" In terms of developing agriculture, looking for the direction of harnessing the Yellow River, we have added many specific examples.Many people have proved that all the areas where the Yellow River flooded were the main grain-producing areas in history.A professor at Tsinghua University, when researching the history of the Yellow River breach, found that the so-called "mob breaching the embankment" recorded in the history books was actually the upright officials at the time leading the masses to "burst the embankment and release silt".Everyone's speech is consistent with my investigation.Before this Yellow River Control Conference, the Prime Minister urged me to survey the Yellow River many times.I asked the people along the Yellow River to find out, and many farmers said that after the Yellow River flooded, they would have a good harvest.This is not only their personal experience, but also contains many scientific principles.Because the sediment of the Yellow River is very rich, it is good for the growth of crops.As long as the sediment of the Yellow River is used in a planned and scientific way, a large area of ​​land can be transformed, the topography can be changed, and the efficiency of land can be increased. It is absolutely possible to achieve the dual goals of developing agriculture and harnessing the Yellow River. To formulate a plan for controlling the Yellow River through agricultural measures, it is necessary to propose a phased and phased agricultural development plan so that the water and sand resources of the Yellow River can be fully utilized in the end.The slogan I raised at the time was to drink up all the water in the Yellow River and eat up all the sand.With the support of Premier Zhou, I started the "silt rice reform" and two-season planting experiments on both sides of the Yellow River.Summarizing the experience of more than one year has made me more confident in the above-mentioned Huang control plan. Thanks to Premier Zhou's encouragement and inspiration, I worked out this plan to control the Yellow River starting from agriculture in a short period of time. It was also because of Premier Zhou's support that I was required to send people from the Yangtze River to control the Yellow River so that I could go to the bank of the Yellow River to practice.I started from "reforming silt rice", and gradually expanded the scope of investigation, research and experimentation.For example, sedimentation ponds combined with fish farming, water storage and fish farming combined with South-to-North Water Diversion, water supply to the Beijing-Tianjin region, design of sediment transport channels to transport a large amount of sediment in the Yellow River channel, and construction of activities that can be removed to adapt to changes in the topography of the river bank. needs, as well as the promotion of rice sowing and rice stubble wheat paddy-dry crop rotation measures to increase production and so on.I firmly believe that with the development of various agricultural development measures, the excess water during the flood of the Yellow River will eventually be drained.But unfortunately, the turmoil of the "Cultural Revolution" disrupted this set of Yellow River control plans, and even disrupted the deployment of Premier Zhou to personally inspect the Yellow River to inspect the results of the "silt rice release" project. The complicated situation of the "Cultural Revolution" made Premier Zhou no longer have time to take care of the issue of governing the Yellow River. On December 30, 1970, the Gezhou Dam Project on the Yangtze River, a component of the Three Gorges Project, finally started construction.Before the start of construction, Premier Zhou wrote a written report to Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao commented: "I agree with the construction of this dam. It is one thing to envisage in the document now, but it is another thing to encounter some unexpected difficulties during the construction process. That’s when you’ll be ready to modify the design.” In early November 1972, about the second anniversary of the start of the Gezhouba project, Premier Zhou presided over the Gezhouba project meeting while sick.He announced that the main project of the dam was suspended, and said that it was time to implement Chairman Mao's instructions and revise the design.In order to solve various conflicting problems of the project, the Prime Minister decided to reorganize the leading organization of the project, set up the Gezhouba Engineering Technical Committee, and appointed me to be in charge of the work.The engineering design was changed to the responsibility of the Yangtze River Basin Planning Office.The Prime Minister also personally participated in the first technical committee chaired by me, and asked about the drafting of the work plan.The Prime Minister also asked me to concentrate on completing the Gezhouba project, saying that he was cautious about the Gezhouba project, as if facing an abyss, as if walking on thin ice, and asked us to adopt such a cautious attitude.The Premier said that he was most worried about whether the sediment problem in the waterway of the Gezhouba Dam Project could be solved.Although the Prime Minister thought what I said was reasonable, he still said: "Then I will keep it." I understand the meaning of Premier Zhou's words, and we must not take it lightly.I realize that Premier Zhou's concerns are justified.Because the waterway problem of Gezhouba mainly includes two problems: one is the sediment problem, and the other is the flow state problem.The problem of water flow is much more complicated than that of sedimentation.In the natural river channel above the approach channel entrance, there is no control engineering for a certain length of the river, and the water flow requirements required by ships entering the approach channel entrance must be met. This is indeed a special and major technical problem for the Gezhouba Project.Thanks to Premier Zhou's attention and inspiration, and through the efforts of the chief scientific and technological cadres, all the problems that Premier Zhou was worried about were all solved in the construction of the project. Premier Zhou attached great importance to the experience and lessons of water conservancy projects more than 20 years after the liberation of the whole country.He believes that when determining the water conservancy project plan, especially the major projects related to the national economic construction, if there is no strong leadership core, there will inevitably be different opinions and no consensus. Therefore, when reorganizing the leadership team of the Gezhouba Project, the Premier decided to establish a responsible The characteristic engineering technical committee is directly responsible to the State Council.Facts have proved once again that without such a technical committee, it is hard to imagine that the Gezhouba Project would have been so successful.Of course, the experience of the Gezhouba Engineering Technical Committee still needs to be systematically summarized to enrich the specific content of the capital construction system reform. Today, the Gezhouba Project, which Premier Zhou is most concerned about, has basically been completed due to the attention of the Party Central Committee and the correct decision-making. The goal that Premier Zhou decided to use the Gezhouba Project as an actual preparation for the Three Gorges Project has also been achieved.We have every reason to comfort the spirit of Premier Zhou.