China Grand Canal: A Symbol of History and Civilization
Recently, at the 38th World Heritage Committee meeting held in Doha, Qatar, the Grand Canal of China was listed in the World Heritage List. In fact, in a sense, the Grand Canal is not just a river, but a continuous exhibition corridor of Chinese civilization. & lt Millennium Grand Canal >
In 486 BC, Fu Cha, the king of Wu, dug the "Han ditch" from Yangzhou to Huai 'an, which was the earliest section of the Grand Canal. Later, the King of Wu dug a river in Heze, Shandong Province, connecting the Qiantang River, the Yangtze River, the Huaihe River and the Yellow River. One hundred years later, Cao Cao established the connection between the Yellow River and the Haihe River system-it can be seen that the canal communicated the five major water systems as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty.
After the capital was established in the Yuan Dynasty, the Grand Canal that originally bypassed Luoyang was straightened, and rivers such as Jeju, Huitong and Tonghui were built, eventually forming today's Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. The Grand Canal was dug from 486 BC to the Yuan Dynasty in A.D. 1293, which lasted for 1779 years. It is a great miracle in the history of water conservancy in the world.
Shiplock crossflow
The technological greatness of the Grand Canal lies in its "cross" crossing. In nature, you can't see it? Cross? Cross the river, because the river flows downwards, so one river can't flow through another.
Due to the limited amount of water in the canal and the serious water shortage, it is necessary to transfer water from the Yangtze River. However, the water level of the Yangtze River is low, and transferring water to the canal is tantamount to water flowing upwards, and there was no water pump in ancient times.
The ancients adopted a series of technologies such as reservoirs, water tanks and ship locks. This technology not only realized the crossing of the canal, but also realized the "natural course". These locks on the canal are the crystallization of the wisdom of ancient people in China and a great contribution of Chinese civilization to world civilization.
Everything works without it.
In ancient society without roads, railways and aviation, canals were "highways" and "ocean-going ships" at that time. Ancient people could not travel without this golden waterway. From countless women in Yang Guang to six trips to the south of the Yangtze River, all of them left the shadow of the ancient canal.
The Grand Canal not only promoted the development and prosperity of dozens of towns on both sides of the strait, but also cultivated civil society and gave birth to the seeds of capitalism. Observing the map of China, we can see that the cities along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal are dense, and the eastern coastal cities are few and far between. This geographical phenomenon illustrates the importance and influence of the Grand Canal in ancient China from another aspect.