Chapter 15 Section 3 Governance of Huitong River
At first, the scope of Huitong River was relatively small, only referring to a section of Yundao between Linqing and Xucheng (Dongping).Later, the scope was expanded, and the Ming Dynasty called the canal from the south of Huitong Town in Linqing to the north of Xuzhou Tea City (or Xia Town) as Huitong River.Huitong River is a key section of the North-South Grand Canal.In the twenty-fourth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1391), the Yellow River burst in Yuanwu (northwest of Yuanyang, Henan). The flood carried sediment and rolled northward, and 1/3 of the Huitong River was destroyed.The Grand Canal was interrupted, and the northward movement of Caoliang from the canal was blocked.
In the first year of Yongle (1403 A.D.), Beiping was designated as Beijing, and the capital was planned to be moved to the north.In view of the fact that the safety of sea transportation was not guaranteed, Emperor Yongle decided to reopen the meeting to connect the river in order to solve the problem of grain consumption in Beijing after the capital was moved.In the ninth year of Yongle (1411 A.D.), he ordered Song Li, Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, to be responsible for the construction, and conscripted 300,000 civilians from Shandong, Xuzhou, Yingtian (Nanjing), Zhenjiang and other places to serve.The main projects are improving the water diversion hub, dredging the channel, rectifying the dam gate, building additional water tanks, etc.Some of these projects were completed that year.
Improve the water distribution hub.In the Yuan Dynasty, the Jeju River used Wen and Si as its water sources, first diverted the two waters to Rencheng, and then diverted them from north to south.Since Imseong is not the highest point of the Jeju River, the real highest point is in Nanwang to the north of it. Therefore, Imseong divides water, with more south flow and less north flow.As a result, the northern section of the Jeju River has a shallow channel, which is only accessible to small boats and not to large ships.The inappropriate location of the water-dividing hub was the main reason why the North-South Grand Canal did not play a greater role in the Yuan Dynasty.Song Li ruled the canal this time and made preliminary improvements to it.In addition to maintaining the original water diversion project, he also adopted the suggestion of Bai Ying, an old man in Wenshang who is familiar with the local terrain, and built a new dam on the Wenshui river bed near Dai village to divert the remaining water of Wenshui to Nanwang. , into the Jeju River.With the increase of water volume in the Hebei section of Jeju, the navigation capacity has also been greatly improved.
Decades later, people made a more thorough improvement on this water diversion project, that is, completely abandoned the water diversion facilities of the Yuan Dynasty, diverted all the relatively abundant Wenshui to Nanwang for diversion, and built a bridge on the river bed here. There are two dam gates in the north and south to control the water volume more effectively.Generally speaking, it is divided into three to seven, three parts of the south flow, the south meets Surabaya, and the north flow seven parts into the Yuhe River.People jokingly say: "Seven points to the emperor, three points to the south of the Yangtze River."
Dredging the river.Can be divided into two parts.One is to re-excavate a section of the channel that was washed away by the flood of the Yellow River.The old road flows northward from the west of Anshan Lake to the Weihe River, and the new road flows northward from the east side of Anshan Lake to the Weihe River.Diverting to the east of the lake, when the Yellow River floods, there is a lake to accommodate the flood, which can improve the safety of this section of waterway.And because the terrain here is high in the west and low in the east, the canal was built in the east of the lake, which is convenient for diverting water from the lake to supplement the water volume of the canal.The second is to widen and dredge other channels that will lead to the river.Generally speaking, it should be dug to a depth of 13 feet and widened to 32 feet.In this way, even a grain ship with a slightly larger load capacity can pass through smoothly.
.In order to overcome the difficulty of navigation caused by the excessive slope of the river, the Yuan Dynasty built 31 dams and gates on the river.This time, in addition to repairing the old dam gates of the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty built seven new dam gates, which improved the configuration of the dam gates and further improved the navigation conditions.Because there are many dams and gates on the Huitong River, the Ming people also called this section of the grain-transporting river "gates".
In addition to the above-mentioned projects, in order to better adjust the water volume of the Huitong River, Song Li and others "also installed new water tanks in Wenshang, Dongping, Jining, Pei County and Lake".
After vigorous management in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the navigability of the Huitong River was greatly improved. The limit of grain carried by water tankers was increased from 150 in the Yuan Dynasty to 400 in the Ming Dynasty; The hundreds of thousands of stones in the past have soared to several million stones.The successful reopening of the Huitong River in the early Ming Dynasty strengthened Emperor Yongle's determination to move his capital to Beijing, and announced that he would stop transporting grain from the south by sea.
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