Chapter 24 Section 2 The Rise of Farmland Water Conservancy in Zhou, Qin and Han Dynasties

The construction of farmland and water conservancy in the Taihu Lake Basin began in the Eastern Zhou, Qin and Han Dynasties.Because the literature records are too brief, it is difficult to know the whole picture today.However, it can still be found that, starting from the needs of agricultural production, drainage and irrigation projects were started here at that time. "Yuejueshu Wudi Biography" has such a record related to farmland water conservancy: "Wuxi Lake, Chunshen Junzhi thought it was a pier. The chisel language was Zhaodu to the east to Datian. The name of the field was Xubei. The chisel to the south of Xubei poured into the Great Lakes, and to the south. Go to the west." Wuxi Lake is located between Wuxi and Changzhou, and it has been buried today. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was a large swamp with an area of ​​about 15,000 hectares.Lord Chunshen, named Huang Xie, was a minister of the state of Chu in the late Warring States period. He was enfeoffed in Jiangdong, with Wu (now Suzhou) as his capital.Chun Shenjun carried out large-scale water conservancy construction in the west of his capital. He transformed a large swamp in Wuxi Lake into a pond for water storage; he opened canals to divert water to irrigate Xubei's farmland; to the Great Lakes.The Great Lake is Taihu Lake. "Yue Jue Shu" was written by Yuan Kang, a native of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The information about farmland water conservancy in the book should be said to be basically credible.

Guangxu's "Gaochun County Chronicles" also included such a legend about farmland water conservancy: "In the Spring and Autumn Period, Wu built a solid city as the city of Seto, and because it built a polder attached to the city, it was the fertile soil of Wu." Gucheng is now a town in Gaochun County. The small town is in the northeast of Gucheng Lake.Guangxu's "Gaochun County Chronicles" was written in the late Qing Dynasty. The so-called "building a dike and attaching it to the city" comes from a legend, and of course it cannot be regarded as a reliable piece of information.However, in the late Spring and Autumn Period, the State of Wu was once very powerful and was one of the Five Overlords in the Spring and Autumn Period. It defeated the state of Chu with a large army in the west, conquered the State of Yue in Zhejiang in the south, and competed with Qi and Jin in the north. , it will inevitably build water conservancy to develop agriculture, as the economic basis for hegemony.The Gaochun area is also an important base for Wu to use troops against Chu. Its naval forces often pass by here and attack Chu westward along the Xu River, making the Chu army "exhausted".Therefore, it is not impossible to build water conservancy here to develop agriculture so that the army can get food locally.If this legend is indeed true to a certain extent, then the construction of farmland and water conservancy in the Taihu Lake Basin can be pushed up to the late Spring and Autumn Period.

During the Han Dynasty, with the initial development of the Taihu Lake Basin, the construction of farmland water conservancy expanded.In Changxing, Zhejiang Province, there is Gaotang, which is said to have been built in the second year of the Western Han Dynasty (2 AD) at the initiative of Gao Botong, a native of Wu. .In the second year of Xiping in the Eastern Han Dynasty (173 A.D.), Chen Hun, the county magistrate of Yuhang (now the south of Yuhang Town, Yuhang County, Zhejiang Province), built a large-scale water storage project in the south of the county, named Nanhu, to store the water of Tiaoxi River.Yuhang has many hills and is often threatened by drought.The Tiaoxi River flowing through the territory is the main waterway in the upper reaches of Taihu Lake, and the flow is relatively large in the rainy season, which is one of the important factors for the occurrence of waterlogging in the Taihu Lake Plain.Building the South Lake to store water is an important project. "Waterlogged, capital is used to divide and kill the boom, and drought is used to irrigate the farmland". It is the barrier of Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Huzhou, and can irrigate more than 1,000 hectares of farmland in Yuhang area.

During the Han Dynasty, in addition to the construction of farmland and water conservancy in the west and south of the Taihu Lake Basin mentioned above, many drainage and irrigation projects were also started in the east.According to the "New Book of Tang Geographical Records", there are still some ancient water conservancy facilities in Haiyan County, Zhejiang Province. The Tang people believed that they were built in the Han Dynasty. The drainage and irrigation channel from Jiaxing east to Hangzhou Bay. In addition, a group of waterways dug in the Taihu Lake Basin during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Qin and Han Dynasties with the main purpose of shipping were also objectively beneficial to the drainage and irrigation of local farmland.

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