The link between the Yangtze River and the Yellow River: the Han River
Text | Feng Tianyu
Source | Yangtze River Civilization
With a total length of 1577 kilometers, the Han River is the longest tributary of the Yangtze River (its basin area was also the crown of the Yangtze River tributaries before the Fuhe River was diverted in 1959), originating in the southern foothills of the Qinling Mountains, the main stream crosses the Hanzhong Basin in Shaanxi Province from west to east, flows through the Jianghan Plain in Hubei Province, joins the Yangtze River in Wuhan, and the tributaries extend into the four provinces (cities) of present-day Gansu, Sichuan, Chongqing and Henan.
The Han River has a long history as a link connecting the two major river basins of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. In the Neolithic Age, although the primitive cultures of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the middle reaches of the Yellow River had their own distinctive characteristics and sources, there were close connections, and frequent exchanges and mutual integration made many common factors appear in the cultures of the two places, and they often learned from each other in the shape of artifacts. For example, in the late Neolithic period, influenced by the Wangwan type culture in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, a small number of checks and ropes began to appear in the Shijiahe culture in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River; while the Wangwan type culture in the middle reaches of the Yellow River was also influenced by the Shijiahe culture, and some hollows and circles of the Shijiahe culture prevailed. On top of the early, middle and late Neolithic artifacts unearthed in the middle reaches of the two major river basins, we can see signs of cultural exchange and integration between the two places. In this process, the Han River Basin must have played an important role as a link.
According to the "Shangshu Yugong", written in the Warring States period, in the legendary Xia Yu era, the tribute of Jingzhou in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River needed to "float in the river Tuo And submerge Han, more than Luo, as for the South River", that is, to reach the upper reaches of the Han River by boat through the Yangtze River and its tributaries Tuojiang, Qianjiang and Hanjiang, and to reach Luoshui by land (the Yiluo River in present-day Henan is not the Beiluoshui River, a tributary of the Wei River in present-day Shaanxi), and then to the South River (the river that divides Shanxi and Henan, which belongs to the Yellow River system). This shows that by the warring states period at the latest, the Han River was the most important waterway channel connecting the two major river basins of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River.
From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, five gold (copper) festivals were unearthed in Anhui, including two boat festivals and three car festivals. These are all duty-free passes for land and water transportation granted to his son ("Ejun") whose fief was in the sixth year of King Huai of Chu (323 BC), and the Boat Festival (water transport) has specific regulations on the passage route of Ejun merchant ships.
The "Route" section of the Zhoujie festival begins with the inscription Cloud: "From Eshi, over oil, Shanghan, just, just Yunyang." Over Han, just Yin. The "鄂" here is not Dong'e (present-day Ezhou, Hubei), but Xi'e, in the north of present-day Nanyang City, Henan; "Yue" refers to going down the river, "up" means going up against the current; "oil" passes through "Shui", which is the "White River", a tributary of the Han River. The route of the boat as stated in this sentence is: starting from Nanyang, Henan, going down the Bai River into the Han River, and then going up against the Han River, successively reaching Heyunyang, and then going down the Han River to reach the Chu capital (as mentioned above, Sun Shu'ao dug the Yunmeng Canal to communicate between the Han River and the Yangtze River, so at this time merchant ships can go directly from the Han River to Yingdu). The specific location of Yunyang is still disputed, roughly on both sides of the upper reaches of the Han River above the mouth of the present-day Tangbai River, of which Yunyang should be "Xunyang", that is, Xunyang County, Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, where the Xun River from present-day Xi'an is injected, and its land was the border between Qin and Chu, where the two countries may be able to trade through the Xun River. It can be seen from this that by the late Warring States period, the Han River Basin was already an important water passage connecting Guanzhong, the Central Plains and the Chu State, and its economic and military value was extremely high.
Qin and Chu fought several battles, relying on the Han River to transport grain. The two countries repeatedly competed around Hanzhong in the upper reaches of the Han River, and the Battle of Danyang and Lantian, which occurred in the seventeenth year of King Huai of Chu (312 BC), became a turning point in the prosperity and decline of Qin chu. The Chu army fell out of the nest but suffered a crushing defeat, lost the land of Hanzhong, fell into a situation of self-preservation, and was no longer able to compete with Qin; and the State of Qin thus formed a towering momentum for the State of Chu, as Su Dai said in the "History of Su Qin Lie": "(Qin) The armor of Hanzhong, by boat out of Ba, by summer water and down to Han, four days to Wuzhu. "The army of the Qin state and HanZhong came out of the Ba River by boat, took advantage of the summer water, and went down the Han River, and in four days it could reach Wuzhu near the capital of Ying. This is not alarmist, in the twentieth year of king Xiang of Chu (279 BC), the Qin general Bai Qi led an army down the han river south, straight to the hinterland of the Chu state, captured the Chu vice capital Yan (now southeast of Yicheng, Hubei), Deng (now xiangyang, Hubei), and the following year, the Chu capital was pulled up, and the Chu state was forced to move its capital to Chen (present-day Huaiyang, Henan), and it was declining day by day. The State of Qin, on the other hand, completely occupied the Han River Valley and controlled the main routes of north-south and east-west communication, laying a solid foundation for future unification wars. In the era of division that followed, the Han River basin would become a place of contention between the northern and southern regimes. For example, the persistence and eventual collapse of the Southern Song Dynasty regime had a lot to do with the gains and losses of Xiangyang and Fancheng, the important towns in the middle reaches of the Han River.
During the Qin and Han dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, the capital of the Central Dynasty moved along the east-west axis, roughly located in Guanzhong and the Central Plains, through which the Longhai Line passed through the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. Although there was a canal between Jianghuai and the Yellow River, and the Sui Dynasty also opened the Grand Canal, the Han River has always been an important channel for the transportation of wealth from the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River to the capital, especially when the Grand Canal is not smooth, the Han River will become the main channel for the transportation of grain and grass taxes south of the Yangtze River to the Beijing Division, which is highly valued.
In the early Han Dynasty, caoyun was sent to Hewei (the Yellow River and its tributaries Weihe), but the road was long and obstructive, and the Western Han government took various measures to alleviate the difficulties of grain in the capital, including the "Tongchu Ramp and Caoshi" related to the Han River (see Figure 6-2-1).
His descendants wrote a letter to pass through the slopes and caoshi, and the next imperial master Zhang Tang. Tang asked about it, because of his words to Shu from the old way, so the road is more than a saka, back to the far side. Nowadays, it is nearly four hundred miles through the chute, and the chu shui is through the water, and the diagonal water is through the Wei, and all can be boated. Cao poured into the praise from the Nanyang, and the water of the praise was reduced to the oblique, and more than 100 miles were between them, and the car turned and fell from the oblique to the Wei. In this way, the valley of Hanzhong can be caused, and Shandong is infinite from the pillar, which is convenient for the pillar of Cao. And the wood and bamboo arrows of the oblique wood are intended to be in Bashu. The Son of Heaven thought so, worshiped Tang Ziwei as the hanzhong guard, and sent tens of thousands of people to make a praise ramp for more than 500 miles. The fruit of the road is near, and the water is turbulent, and it is not allowed to water.
The reason for the proposers was that the Chu Chuan Dao was nearly 400 miles less than the previous Shu Dao, and that the Chu Shui Passed through the Shui Shui (Han River) and the Diagonal Water passed through the Wei River, and they could all be watered. The grain in the Shandong (east of Kunshan) region assembled in Nanyang, took the Tangbai River waterway, entered the Han River, went upstream, and then entered its tributary Baoshui, continued to swim against the popular boat; from the tributary of the Han River upstream of the Baoshui River, from which to the Wei River tributary oblique water, the middle of the more than 100 miles of land, can be transferred by car; then you can load the boat from the oblique water, go down the river, into the Wei River. In this way, the grain in Hanzhong could be transported, and the grain in Shandong (east of Kunshan) was transported from the Han River without any danger, which was more convenient than the river Weicao that needed to pass through the pillar (now part of Sanmenxia, Henan). This proposal was approved by Emperor Wu of Han, who used tens of thousands of people to open more than 500 miles of slopes, and the road was indeed close, but there were many waters and stones, and it could not be transported. Although it is difficult to achieve large-scale water transport on this waterway due to the restrictions of waterway conditions, the status of water transportation between the north and south of the Han River is still highlighted. A major effort by the Western Han Dynasty to communicate water traffic between the two major river basins of the Wei River and the Han River was still valued by the two Han regimes. Especially during the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were rebellions in the Western Qiang, and the Chu Chuan Dao served as the transportation hub for the Central Dynasty to control Bashu, and was still opened by the emperor's order until the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Later Han Shu Shun Emperor Ji: "Yi Hai, Zhaoyi Prefecture Thorn History Strike Meridian Road, Tong chu diagonal road." Since then, the Chu Chuan Road has been one of the most important transportation routes between Sichuan and Shaanxi.
During the Tang Dynasty, in order to open a waterway from the Han River system to Chang'an (now part of Xi'an), Tang Taizong tried to open the Chu Chu Road again in the twenty-second year of Zhenguan (648), but because there were often large rocks collapsing on both sides of the Chu Shui in summer and autumn, it was too late to clean up in the winter and spring and could not be built. Due to the poor canal of the Weihe River at that time, land transport had to be taken west of Tongguan, and the transport capacity declined. After Emperor Taizong of Tang's son Emperor Gaozong ascended the throne, the supply of food and grain in Guanzhong encountered difficulties. During the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, he had to "visit" the eastern capital Luoyang seven times because of the grain problem, after which Wu Zetian simply "changed the eastern capital to shendu" and lived in Luoyang for a long time. Emperor Gaozong of Tang's son Emperor Zhongzong of Tang moved back to Chang'an after ascending the throne, but in the third year of Jinglong (709), there was a great famine in Guanzhong, and "the group of ministers asked many people to drive back to the eastern capital". In order to solve the problem of grain difficulties in Guanzhong, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang accepted the suggestion of Shi Cui xiang of Xiangzhou and opened the Danba Transport Road (see Figure 6-2-2). Danshui and Bashui are tributaries of the Han River and the Wei River, respectively, the source of the two is only more than 10 miles apart, but the height difference is large, the waterway is not easy to open, and in the end, more than half of the tens of thousands of people involved in the project died, and the new road was also washed away by the flood.
Although the Three Large-scale Attempts of the Han and Tang Dynasties to communicate with the Wei River and the Han River waterway were unsuccessful, it also highlighted the great significance of the Han River waterway to Wang Qi in Guanzhong. In terms of the Danjiang River, which failed to open the Danba Canal during the reign of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, the Danjiang River originated in the northwest of Shangluo, Shaanxi Province, and flowed into the Han River at the mouth of the Danjiang River, which has been an important waterway for communication between Guanzhong and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River since ancient times. For example, in the late Warring States period, Danyang (now part of the confluence of Danjiang and Huaishui in Huaichuan County, Nanyang City, Henan Province) was the starting point of Danjiang water transport at that time. The loss of this place meant that the Qin army could use this as a starting point to transport military food through the Han River-Danjiang waterway and attack the hinterland of the Chu state, and the core area of the Chu state would always face the threat of the sudden arrival of Qin soldiers, so the king of Chu Huai would not hesitate to send the troops of the country to counterattack. For example, in the tenth year of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (354), Huan Wen's first Northern Expedition departed from Jiangling (present-day Jingzhou, Hubei Province), first arrived in Xiangyang by boat via the Yunmeng Canal, entered Junkou (in present-day Junxian County, Danjiangkou City, Hubei Province), went up the Danjiang River, reached Nanxiang, and then changed the infantry from the west of huaichuan to attack the Guanzhong region controlled by the former Qin regime (southwest of present-day Huaichuan County, Nanyang City, Henan Province). (The Biography of Huan Wen of the Book of Jin: "The water army entered Junkou from Xiangyang, to Nanxiang, and from Huaichuan to Conquer Guanzhong.") ”）
After the Anshi Rebellion, due to the war in the eastern region and the division of warlords, the southeast wealth could not be transported from the Bishui-Grand Canal to Chang'an, so the Han River waterway that ran up the Han River through Ezhou (now wuchang) or Jingzhou became the most important waterway of the Tang Dynasty. After transporting the southern materials to Xiangyang via the Han River, there are two main routes: first, from Xiangyang to the west of the Han River, all the way to Yangzhou in southern Shaanxi (now part of Yang County, Shaanxi, on the north bank of the Han River), and then by land through Liangzhou (now part of Hanzhong, Shaanxi) to cross the Qinling Mountains to Chang'an; the second is to go along the Danjiang River to the Shangluo area, and then transfer to Chang'an by land. The HanJiang-Danjiang waterway became the lifeline of the supply of financial materials for the Beijing division in the middle and late Tang Dynasty.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the capital continued to move east to Kaifeng, relying on the southern water transport supply. Among them, the materials in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River can go straight to the Grand Canal, while the materials in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River need to take a detour to the Grand Canal, which is very inconvenient. At that time, the "Nanxiang Pass" of the road out of Fangcheng was a famous passage with frequent traffic, while the Baihe River, a tributary of the Han River, was developed for a long time, and its river channels were mostly rectified and relatively smooth, and the section of the Baihe River from Xiangyang to Nanyang was an important grain transportation waterway in the Song Dynasty.
Therefore, in the third year of the Taiping Revival (978), Cheng Nengxian proposed to dig a channel from Nanyang to Fangcheng, the source of the Bai River (see Figure 6-2-3), to lead the Water of the Bai River north, so that it could pass through the Cai River (formerly known as the "gap" between Huang and Huai, which was dug by the State of Wei during the Warring States period) to "reach the Beijing Division". Emperor Taizong of Song adopted this plan and ordered tens of thousands of Dingfu and soldiers to "pass the mountain valley", but it was ultimately due to the relationship between the terrain and the water level--The terrain of Fangcheng was too high to reach the water, and the flash flood broke out and failed.
Tang, Deng, Ru, Ying, Xu, Cai, Chen, Zheng Dingfu, and the soldiers of zhuzhou, all tens of thousands of people, used bow and arrow to make Wang Wenbao, Liu Zhao envoy Li Jilong, and li Shenyou, deputy envoy of the inner workshop, and Liu Chengjue, to protect him. The valley of the Mountain, Li Bowang, Luoqu, Shaozhu Mountain, all more than 100 miles, the moon, arrived at Fangcheng, the terrain is high, and the water cannot be reached. It is possible to sacrifice many servants to water, but it is not possible to transport water. The mountains and rivers will soar, the stone weir will be broken, the river will not be able to be stopped, and the pawn will be ruined.
Although the canal project directly connecting the Han River and the Yellow River has failed repeatedly, it has not affected the important role of the Han River in the Northern Song Dynasty. Ten years later, in the first year of Duangong (988), it was suggested that the Dongcao River in Jingnancheng (see Figure 6-2-4, formerly known as the Yunmeng Tong Canal) be opened to open the Gubai River, so that the materials could be directly reached from Jingzhou to the Beijing Division. Although "the ancient White River will eventually be opened", the Jingnan Cao River through the Han River has been successfully rectified, "it can beat the heavy load of 200 huo, and the traveler is quite convenient".
In the first year of Kangding (1040), Ouyang Xiu wrote the book "Tongjin Si Shangshu Cheap Three Things", and the first thing was "Tong Cao Yun". He believed that the marching route of Han Gaozu, Cao Cao and others showed the significance of the Han River-Danjiang waterway, and suggested dredging its old waterway. In this way, the property of Wuchang, Hanyang, Liangzhou, Yangzhou, Jinzhou (now part of Ankang), Shangzhou (now part of Shiyan) along the main stream of the Han River could be transported to Nanyang through the Han River-Tangbai River waterway, and then transported to Kansai through Wuguan Road or Danjiang, thus alleviating the shortage of grain in Kansai. He also praised the abundant trees along the Han River and the ease of building ships and vehicles.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, in order to prevent the Jin soldiers from going south, Jingzhou repeatedly developed the water cabinet project, resulting in a large-scale military water conservancy project - three seas and eight cabinets, which had a wide range of submergence, and the Jingnan Canal and the natural river channel were mixed and could not be identified, and by the Yuan Dynasty it was abolished, and the water transport of the Han River was greatly affected. After the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the Beijing division was permanently in Beijing, the wealth of Jiangnan was transported to the Grand Canal, and the Han River water system was no longer a cardinal for the safety and security of the society, but it was still a major water and land transit route between the northwest, the Central Plains and the Yangtze River.
In the middle of the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, there was a great famine in Guanzhong, and it was necessary to transport grain to help, so it was proposed to dig a canal between Longju Zhai (the end of the upper reaches of the Danjiang Waterway) and Tongguan in order to solve the problem of grain in Guanzhong once and for all. This proposal was not adopted, and the grain still needed to be transported from Danjiang to Shangzhou via Xiangyang and then transferred to Xi'an by land. Although the canal has not yet been completed, the scale of water transport on the Danjiang River is still considerable in the middle of the Qing Dynasty.
In the sixth year of the Qianlong Dynasty (1741), Shaanxi made major adjustments to the reclamation policy of southern Shaanxi, and a large number of immigrants from Huguang and Jiangxi poured into southern Shaanxi and western Hubei. The population of southern Shaanxi was only 490,000 in the middle of the Kangxi Dynasty, and by the early years of Daoguang, it had increased to 3.84 million, and the vigorous development of local agriculture and handicrafts made the shipping industry of the main stream of the Han River quickly recover and tend to prosper, and Ankang gradually became the largest cargo distribution and transshipment center in southern Shaanxi and northwest Hubei.