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The Yellow River, the mother river of the Chinese nation, is the birthplace of Chinese civilization. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Since the period of the Three Emperors and the Five Emperors, the common people have lived on both sides of the Yellow River. Fertile land, humid climate, and convenient water sources have created this fertile land.

The people lived a stable life, and the dynasty gradually prospered. Along the Yellow River, a strong dynasty was born, and the main territory and political center of the Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang dynasties were in the Yellow River Valley, which is the best proof.

During this period, the Yellow River was truly the mother river, raising countless children along its banks. However, people often only know how to take, not in return, or they do not know how to be sustainable.

As the population of the rich Yellow River basin grows, more land needs to be cultivated to feed them, and the ecology is gradually being destroyed. In addition, the construction of houses and palaces, deforestation, war and many other factors have caused serious damage to the ecology of the Yellow River Basin. At that time, people did not know how to govern, so the problem became more and more serious.

The Yellow River is mostly a loose loess area, and once the vegetation is damaged, it is easy to lead to soil erosion. As more and more sediment enters the Yellow River, so does the flooding.

Sediment accumulates, the riverbed gets higher and higher, the river channel becomes narrower and narrower, and the circulation is okay on weekdays, but when it rains heavily and the water of the Yellow River swells, there will be flooding. The river could not be drained in time, so the flood water had to find its own vent, so the Yellow River burst.

The first serious breach of the Yellow River in history occurred in the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the Yellow River burst and flooded in the Yangqu area for more than 60 years, and several prefectures such as Yan and Henan were mostly disturbed by floods.

In the twelfth year of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty promoted Wang Jing. Hundreds of thousands of people were sent to govern the river. Wang Jing surveys the topography. Excavation of the mountain. Establish the water gate, build an embankment from the mouth of Laiyang 5,000 miles long, so that the river and Bian are diverted, the Yellow River enters the sea from the northeast, and the Mu Canal enters the water from the southeast. River ingress.

A year later, on the second day of the fourth month of the thirteenth year of the Han Dynasty, the river canal was completed, and since then the foreign canal has been safe and flowing. The Zihe River is constrained by the north and south embankments, and the water potential is to flow into the sea from the impact sand, which is extended to the four prefectures of Henan, so as to avoid greater river disasters.

I have to say that Wang Jing's contribution is great, not only for the benefit of the people of the Han Dynasty. For the millennia that followed, the people on both sides of the Yellow River enjoyed his blessings.

Since the Eastern Han Dynasty King Jingzhi River, the Yellow River has entered a rare "safe flow period", during which there were basically no large-scale floods, and the people in the Yellow River basin were finally spared from it. And thanks to the Yellow River. It is precisely because of this that the confrontation between the North and the South was later carried out. The Northern Dynasty was able to unify the Southern Dynasties. The reason why the Sui and Tang dynasties were able to dominate the world, the national strength was strong, and the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, also benefited from the help of the Yellow River.

However, it is precisely because of this that the Yellow River basin has become a densely populated and active area for thousands of years, and the degree of development has deepened, and the ecological damage has become more and more serious. The flooding of the Yellow River is also accumulating day by day, and one day it will erupt.

Unfortunately, the Great Song Dynasty caught up!

From the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Yellow River began to be flooded, but it began to erupt in a concentrated manner after entering the Song Dynasty. During this period, the Yellow River was unusual, no longer as gentle as a mother, but a raging beast. Since the first time in the first year of Jianlong, the breaking of the Yellow River has become commonplace.

From the first few years to the next year, two decisions in three years, two decisions in three years became a folk proverb at that time. The continuous bursting of the Yellow River brought great disasters to the people of the Song Dynasty. So much so that in a certain year, the Yellow River is rarely calm, and the historians will be busy leaving the words of "it is the year of Hening" in the annals of history. It can be seen from this that the flooding of the Yellow River has harmed the Northern Song Dynasty.

Every time the Yellow River floods, countless farmlands and houses are flooded, and countless people are displaced and destitute. Not to mention the reduced tax revenue of the imperial court, it also had to come up with countless money and grain to relieve the disaster and control the Yellow River. As a result, countless manpower and material resources are consumed. To a certain extent, the Northern Song Dynasty was poor and weak for this reason, and the Yellow River almost dragged the Northern Song Dynasty half to death. In particular, Bianjing, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, was on the bank of the Yellow River, and the flooding of the Yellow River directly threatened the safety of the community and became the most serious disaster in the Northern Song Dynasty.

However, the monarchs and ministers of the Northern Song Dynasty did not seem to be very attentive in the management of the Yellow River, and often only repaired the headache and foot pain, and did not consider the root cause. It is precisely because of their passive sabotage that the already serious floods of the Yellow River have accumulated and erupted again, which has led to an even more terrifying thing - a diversion!

If it is only a breach, it doesn't matter as long as it is blocked, but the diversion is ...... The sudden diversion of a river that flowed safely in other directions has so many implications. A disaster for the whole country along the old and new rivers!

During the Northern Song Dynasty, especially during the reign of Renzong, the Yellow River was like a naughty child, and the diversion was commonplace.

In the first year of Renzong Jingyou, the Henglong section of the Yellow River on Jingdong Road burst, and the flood that burst out of the embankment swept away countless people, animals, crops, and houses, directly rushed through the boundary of the Daimyofu, and then turned to the north. Although the Song court tried its best to repair the embankment, it was still to no avail, and it did not play any role, so it had to be rerouted helplessly.

It was a tragic beginning, and since then, flooding has been frequent. For decades afterward, the Yellow River was never at rest......

This is nothing, and after that, the sixth day of the sixth month of the eighth year of the Renzong Qing calendar, a day that sounds extremely auspicious. The Yellow River bursts the embankment in Shanghu, the capital of Lanzhou, the width of the breach is nearly one mile, the big wave is emptied, the water waves are monstrous, and the rolling yellow water directly spreads to the land of Hebei.

After these two breaches, the Yellow River was completely diverted, and the river changed to the north, passing through the east of the Yellow River in Henan and the west of the Daimyo of Hebei, crossing the Hebei Plain, joining the Yuhe River, and then entering the sea through the Jiehe River.

It is precisely because of this that the rich land of Hebei was completely destroyed by the floods of the Yellow River. The fertile land is gone, the people are displaced, and the people are struggling to make a living. The entire land of Hebei is about to become a Shura hell for thousands of miles in the red land, and the price paid by the Great Song Dynasty is self-evident.

Again, it was mentioned earlier. Because of the loss of the Yanshan barrier, the Song army could only rely on the Tangbogou River for defense on the Song-Liao border in Hebei. When the sediment-laden waters of the Yellow River came northward, the ponds that the Song army had worked so hard to dig were gradually silted up and lost their role as a national defense. This is a major event related to the national defense of the Northern Song Dynasty and the survival of life and death.

The flooding of the Yellow River has threatened the very existence of this country!

At this point, the management of the Yellow River must be put on the agenda. The Northern Song Dynasty court was not without methods, and they also thought of a lot of ways to control the river, and put them into practice.

However, a problem arises, and river control is not a pure problem. There are no trivial matters in the court, and it is impossible for everyone to work together in any one thing. As far as river governance is concerned, because different plans involve the interests of different people, the courtiers have been arguing endlessly, and they have not been able to come up with a unified plan for river control.

After four years of chattering, hysterical, and unconvincing bickering for their own interests, the ministers finally realized that the best opportunity to harness the Yellow River had been wasted. During these four years, the Yellow River was rarely stable, and it can be said that it was a golden period for river governance.

However, because of the quarrel over various plans, the construction was delayed until the Yellow River burst its embankment again in Guogukou, Tao County, the Daimyo Mansion, and everyone woke up, but unfortunately it was too late. After five months of hard work, the breach was closed, but at a terrible cost.

But officials who visited the inspection reported that the silt in the waterway was getting thicker and thicker, and that the water was in danger of overflowing the levee and collapsing again at any time. This time, Emperor Renzong couldn't sit still anymore, he was really a little wronged. The Northern Song Dynasty paid for the ecological destruction of the Yellow River basin over the past millennium, while he had to pay for the mistakes of previous generations of kings.

After the emperor personally supervised, the efficiency was naturally not ordinary, and soon there was a plan to control the river. Prime Minister Fu Bi and Wen Yanbo personally presided over the selection of various plans for a long time, and finally had a result. They recommended to Emperor Renzong the plan of "the river enters the six towers" proposed by Li Zhongchang, who was the official of the river canal department.

Li Zhongchang proposed to dig a six-tower canal under the Shanghu Junction to divert the Yellow River to the east of Henglong's old road. It can make the breach of the embankment of Shanghukou alleviate the disaster and easily block the breach. If successful, it will become a permanent waterway for the Yellow River, so that the main channel can survive the flood peak and no more flooding.

Once the plan was proposed, it was agreed to by Emperor Renzong. The 'return to the old way' proposed by Jia Changchao, the former prime minister and the judge of the Daimyo's government, was abandoned.

As a result, the Northern Song Dynasty accumulated a lot of manpower and material resources to gather in the Liuta River to solve the flood of the Yellow River. After Ouyang Xiu, a famous minister at that time, learned the news, he immediately wrote a letter to oppose it, but in the end, the stone sank into the sea, and the method of entering the six towers was still implemented.

The Liuta River was excavated and dredged, and the Yellow River breach at Shanghukou was also blocked. The Yellow River seems to flow into the sea in accordance with the expectations of the ministers.

It's a pity that they ignore one point, the Yellow River is surging, how can a Liuta River accommodate? Although there is the old course of the Yellow River, but because of siltation, the riverbed has become higher and higher, and the flood effect is very poor if the renovation is not thorough, the water flow speed is bound to slow down greatly, and the pressure of the Liuta River will undoubtedly increase greatly. It is a pity that the Liuta River, as a small inland river, does not have such a capacity and flood distribution capacity at all, and the results can be imagined.

A very dramatic scene occurred, on the night when the Shanghu breach closed, the Yellow River broke its banks here again. The plan to enter the six towers, which consumed a lot of manpower and material resources, ended without a problem, and it completely failed with the regret and helplessness of many people. And the Yellow River is still gushing, raging in the north, so countless people are suffering. (To be continued......)