Written by Zhu Haiyan
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History has entered the 20th century, but the invasion of human beings by the Huai River has not stopped. Since 1916, there have been four major floods in this land, of which the Jianghuai flood in 1931 was the most severe. According to statistics, the death toll reached more than 4 million. Some even believe that this is the deadliest natural disaster in history.
On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was founded. It is believed that with the development of modern industrial civilization, China's floods will no longer be as raging as in the past, but will be tamed by human beings. Even if extreme weather causes flooding, China's strong rescue capabilities will minimize the disaster and avoid a repeat of the tragedy of starvation and floating corpses.
However, in 1949, the year of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the pain brought by the flood to the sons and daughters of China is still fresh in their memories, especially the people on both sides of the Huai River, who will never erase the painful memory. That year, 7 million acres of land in northern Jiangsu were flooded, and there was no harvest. A total of 8 million people were affected by the disaster in northern Anhui, 3.5 million people were affected in Suxian Prefecture alone, 1 million people were left without cooking, and 360,000 people went out to flee the famine.
/Huaihe River flood old photos (picture source: Internet)/
That year, 121.56 million mu of cultivated land was flooded across the country, grain output was reduced by 22 billion catties, 40 million people were affected, and more than 10 million people were affected in the hard-hit areas.
More than 5,000 acres of farmland were flooded in East China, accounting for one-fifth of the cultivated land, and 16 million people were affected.
In 1949, the nascent regime in the land was not driven by industry, but by an agrarian state of 400 million peasants, with only about 100 million people living in cities. Most of the farmers in this land still live a hard agricultural life, and most of them have never left the confines of the county in their lives. They toiled the land, enjoyed the gifts of Mother Earth, and at the same time, endured natural disasters.
In the following summer of 1950, heavy rains fell in the area where Henan and Anhui meet, flooding 43.5 million mu of land in the basin, affecting 13.39 million people and killing 489 people.
/Huaihe River flood old photos (picture source: Internet)/
Zeng Shan, minister of the interior of the CPC Central Committee, vice chairman of the East China Military and Political Commission, and director of the East China Finance Commission, wrote the following passage when he inspected the Huai River at that time:
"There is an ocean on both sides of the Jinpu Railway, and it is like this for dozens of miles at a glance. The embankments along the Huai River for hundreds of miles have all lost their function, the villages have been submerged and collapsed, the city walls of the county seat of Huaiyuan County are no longer visible, and many victims are crammed into the high ground to survive, and the cadres are depressed......
Zeng Xisheng, secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, sent a telegram to Chairman Mao:
"This year's floods are worse than last year, the damage is unprecedented in a century, 31 million acres of farmland have been flooded, accounting for half of the northern Anhui region, many villages have been flooded, and houses and agricultural tools such as cattle have suffered serious losses. More than 9.9 million people were affected, accounting for about half of the population in northern Anhui. The floods are still continuing! The damage is still expanding! Future floods are still a threat considering that the autumn floods are likely to be even more severe...... These reasons made the cadres very pessimistic, and the peasants would hug them and cry when they saw them, and the cadres would hang their heads in despair......"
Chairman Mao received a telegram from Zeng Xisheng, and when he read that "the masses of the people were struggling in the vast ocean and were bitten by poisonous snakes and died", he could not help but burst into tears, and he wrote a letter of approval to Premier Zhou Enlai: "Zhou, please order the Ministry of Water Resources to formulate a diversion plan as soon as possible and send it to me for review." With that, he issued a call for "we must repair the Huai River". He said to the secretary: "If you can't save the people, what is the Communist Party?"
What a loud slogan to "save the people!" This sentence should forever become the original aspiration of this ruling party! It will always be! Not for a while!
/Chairman Mao's work photos (picture source: Internet)/
During the flood of the Huai River in 1950, within two months, Mao Zedong made four important instructions on the issue of controlling the Huai River. At that time, the country's economy was poor and white, and internal and external troubles were intertwined, but the state still decided to comprehensively and systematically manage the Huai River. This requires determination and will to serve the people.
The nascent people's power can no longer tolerate such a situation. On November 6, 1950, the Committee for the Control of Huai was established to coordinate the work of Henan, northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu.
Some people even regard Mao Zedong's inscription "We must repair the Huai River" as the first decree of New China.
But the flood did not give up, and it launched another surprise attack on the nascent regime.
In 1954, another basin-wide flood occurred in the Huaihe River Basin, which was 31 percent larger than the 1931 flood. Huaibin County in Henan Province was completely submerged, Shenqiu County in eastern Henan Province was submerged by 80 percent, the land was flooded by 1 to 2 meters, 83 counties and 2 cities in Henan Province were affected, 13.42 million mu of farmland was flooded, 33,970 farmland projects were destroyed, and 300,000 houses collapsed. In Anhui, 26.2 million acres of farmland were flooded, 1.68 million houses collapsed, and 1,098 people died. 10.63 million mu of land in Jiangsu was flooded, 832 people died, and 64.64 million mu of flooded land in the whole basin.
/Old photo: The people's Huaihe people's rule (picture source network)/
The struggle against the floods of the Huai He is by no means an overnight struggle, but a long-term and protracted decisive battle! From the very beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government and the sons and daughters of the Huai He have made preparations.
Over the past several decades, through the unity and cooperation of the vast number of workers on the water conservancy front and the people of the whole river basin, and through hard work, tremendous results have been achieved in harnessing Huai. Over the past 70 years, the total investment in the governance of Huai has been 924.1 billion yuan, and the direct economic benefits have been 4,760.9 billion yuan. The input-to-industry ratio is 1:5.2.
In this way, year after year, they have fought duels with floods, and the sons and daughters of the Huai River have been dueling with the floods of the Huai River for 75 years.
In order to deepen the memory, it is not like listing a brilliant list.
First, after more than 70 years of efforts, the Huai River flood disaster prevention capacity has been significantly enhanced. A large number of projects to control the Huaihe River, such as the Foziling Reservoir, the Mengwa Flood Storage Area, the Linhuaigang Flood Control Project, and the Huaihe River Inlettu, have been completed one after another, so that the Huaihe River Basin has basically completed a flood prevention and flood mitigation system consisting of reservoirs, river channels, embankments, flood storage areas, control hubs, and flood control dispatching and command systems. The flood control standards for the upper reaches of the main stream of the Huaihe River have been significantly improved, with the flood control standards for the upper reaches of the main stream of the Huaihe River exceeding 10 years, the flood prevention standards for major flood control protection areas, important cities and the Hongze Lake embankments in the lower reaches of the river reaching once in 100 years, and the flood prevention standards for important tributaries and small and medium-sized rivers have been raised to more than once in 10 to 20 years. Under the condition that the flood storage area is fully utilized, it can prevent the largest flood in the basin since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The flood defense of the Huaihe River has gradually changed from a tactic of defending against a sea of people to a calm response to the scientific dispatch of water conservancy.
Second, the capacity of water resources guarantee has been greatly improved, which has effectively supported the sustainable economic and social development of the river basin. After more than 70 years of construction, more than 6,300 reservoirs, about 400,000 ponds and dams, and about 82,000 water diversion projects have been built in the Huaihe River Basin. There are about 1.44 million mechanical and electrical wells above designated size, and reservoirs, dams, sluices, projects and wells are dotted. The construction of the north-south to north-to-north diversion project to the east and the middle route, and the diversion project from the Yangtze River to the Huai River and the northern Jiangsu River diversion project, together with the inland rivers, lakes, sluices, and dams in the basin, have gradually formed a system of "four vertical, one horizontal, and multi-point" water resources development, utilization, and allocation. The "four verticals" are the eastern and middle routes of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, and the projects to divert the Yangtze River to the Huaihe River and the Northern Jiangsu River; the "one horizontal" project refers to the Huaihe River; and the "multi-point" project refers to a large number of water conservancy projects. With less than 3 percent of the country's total water resources, the Huaihe River basin carries about 13.6 percent of the country's population and 11 percent of the country's arable land, contributes 9 percent of the country's GDP, and produces one-sixth of the country's grain.
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/ Anhui Fuyang Wangjiaba Gate (Image source: Internet)/
In 2024, on the fourth day of the world, I rushed to Wangjiaba in Funan County, Anhui Province. Wangjiaba is located at the junction of Henan and Anhui provinces, is the demarcation point of the middle and upper reaches of the Huai River, and the Wangjiaba sluice built here is considered to be the vane of the Huai River flood control, and is known as the "first sluice of the Huai River for thousands of miles". The Mengwa flood storage area to the east of Wangjiaba is home to nearly 200,000 people. The total area of the flood storage area is 180.4 square kilometers, and the designed flood storage capacity is 750 million cubic meters, which is equivalent to the water capacity of 126 West Lakes in Hangzhou. There are 131 Zhuangtai in the Mengwa Flood Storage Area, of which 77 are completely isolated in the center of the flood storage area.
In the eastern part of the Mengwa flood storage area, there is the Caotai retreat sluice. Caotai Gate was built in the 70s of the last century, a total of 28 flood discharge holes, the design flood discharge capacity of 2000 cubic meters per second, when the water storage in the Mengwa flood storage area exceeds the design flood storage capacity, you can open the retreat gate, let the flood flow to the middle reaches of the Huai River.
In addition to the Mengwa flood storage area, there are three flood storage areas in the downstream Yingshang, namely Nanrun Section, Jiangtang Lake and Qiujia Lake. The capacity of these three storage areas can reach 1.1 billion cubic meters. When the Mengwa flood storage area is unable to alleviate the huge pressure of the flood peak, the downstream flood storage area is opened according to the flood situation. Together with the Mengwa Flood Storage Area, these four flood storage areas can hold 1.95 billion cubic meters of floodwater, which is equivalent to the water capacity of 300 West Lakes in Hangzhou. In layman's terms, the Mengwa flood storage area is the first line of defense for flood control, while the Nanrun section, Jiangtang Lake and Qiujia Lake are the second line of defense. Unlike war, when the second line of defense is opened, the first line of defense remains firmly on the first.
The Wangjiaba hub project is composed of two parts: the Wangjiaba sluice dam and the Mengwa flood storage area. The Wangjiaba Gate was completed in 1953, and the old gate was demolished and rebuilt in 2003. There are a total of 13 holes in the Wangjiaba gate, and the design flow rate is 1626 cubic meters per second. It is the "fixed star" on the chessboard to protect the middle and lower reaches of the Huaihe River, the first safety barrier in the Huaihe River Basin, and the top priority of flood control and flood control in the Huaihe River. You don't know Funan, you don't know Fuyang, but anyone who knows the Huai River will know Wangjiaba, and anyone who watches the news broadcast will know Wangjiaba. In the family of dams, it is almost as well-known as the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. From 1954 to 2020, Wangjiaba has opened the flood gate 17 times, making great contributions to reducing the flood peak of the Huai River and ensuring the safety of the downstream river.
/April 2024 Author's photo in Fuyang Wangjiaba Gate/
At this moment, I was standing on the top of the high sluice gate of Wangjiaba, and the Huai River, which was rushing from west to east, was about 500 meters west of the sluice, and suddenly turned to the south. At the southern end of the 4-kilometer-long town of Wangjiaba, it flows southeastward. At this time, the Huai River is so gentle, peaceful and serene, it flows quietly, the banks are grazing sheep, and the banks are frolicking children. On the south side of the gate are parked several small cars that come to worship this red patriotic education base. Although there are few tourists, people still remember this flood control building that stands firm on the cusp of the storm and is the mainstay.
Wangjiaba Gate, not as tall and majestic as I imagined, it is very ordinary, but also very ordinary, like a simple Huaihe old farmer standing there, if you walk, you can walk from the south end of the dam to the north end of the dam in more than 1 minute. In front of it and between the Huai River, there is a dry river pond several hundred meters long, and a few clumps of reeds that are about to die. If it is the flood season, the Huai River will leap forward, fill this dry river pond with lightning speed, and rush down from the sluice gate into the flood storage area.
/Wangjiaba Gate Open Gate Flood Discharge (Image Source Network)/
The simple image of Wangjiaba Gate has an inclusive mind.
The data shows that July 20, 2020 is the 17th time that the gate has been opened after the completion of the Wangjiaba Gate. Before the opening of the gate, the water level in front of the gate was as high as 29.75 meters, a record high. The guaranteed water level of Wangjiaba is 29.3 meters. What is the concept of 29.75 meters? The elevation of the top of the gate is 29.76 meters, which means that there is still one millimeter to reach the elevation of the top of the gate, and one millimeter is a negligible number in daily life. If you don't open the floodgates, the floodgates will flip!
After the flood gate is opened, the Mengwa flood storage area is a vast ocean, and Zhuangtai is like an isolated island, which needs to be passed by boat. In order to take care of the overall situation, the people of Mengwa gave up their small homes for everyone, and for the overall situation of flood prevention and flood control, they retreated to one village after another. The days before the water receded were inconvenient and even very difficult. But they are not alone on the island, behind them stand the country and the people. The flood will eventually recede. Homes will also be rebuilt.
Some people have raised the question of whether the Mengwa Flood Detention Area must be discharged?
The answer is yes.
First, if Wangjiaba does not release floodwater, it will not protect grain. Not far upstream of Wangjiaba is Henan, which is one of China's largest grain-producing provinces. If the Wangjiaba dam is not opened, if the upstream water level continues to rise, even if the water level rises by a few inches, hundreds of thousands of acres of land may be flooded, affecting the food security of a large country.
Second, Wangjiaba will not protect the "clothes" if the flood is not discharged, there are a large number of garment factories in Jiangsu in the lower reaches of the Huai River, and Wangjiaba does not start the Mengwa flood storage area, the Huai River water will be discharged for thousands of miles, and the high water level will flow through the downstream, and the garment factories and other enterprises in the downstream will be flooded, creating a huge chain reaction and bringing heavy damage to the economy.
Third, the Wangjiaba does not discharge floods and cannot be "contained". Only when 200,000 people in Mengwa are evacuated and the huge flood water is temporarily stored here, can thousands of houses downstream be stabilized and people downstream can live and work in peace. Without the efforts of the people of Wangjiaba, there would be no happiness and safety downstream.
Fourth, Wangjiaba does not discharge floods, and cannot guarantee "work". Opening up the flood discharge area can ensure the smooth flow of traffic downstream. Under Wangjiaba, railways and highways are dense like a network. Once these dense railways and highways are flooded, the cost of repairing them is naturally much greater than the loss caused by the flooding of the Mengwa land in Wangjiaba upstream. Only the flood discharge of Wangjiaba can ensure the smooth flow of downstream traffic.
/Huaihe River scenery (picture source network)/
There are 98 flood discharge areas in the country, and 18 in Anhui alone. Anhui, which is not economically developed, has assumed the role of a pillar in flood control and flood control.
On July 20, 2020, when the Wangjiaba sluice gate was opened for flood storage, I read a post online. The poster is from Jiangsu, and he said:
"My hometown is from Jiangsu, and my grandmother is a bit of a black region, saying that when she was a child, the people begging on the street were all from Anhui, because Anhui is not good, and there is often a lot of water, and there are no outstanding people in Jiangsu. Now I know that this is not the case, and Anhui has borne the disaster for thousands of people in the lower reaches of the Huai River. This time, for the sake of safety downstream, the people in the Mengwa flood storage area of Wangjiaba have stored the flood water that is going to flow to the lower reaches of the Huai River to their homes, and countless villages have been evacuated, and they have given up their lives for the sake of our homes. For us, for all the cities and villages along the Huai River, for the thousands of us who have never met. ”
When I saw this text, I couldn't help but shed tears. The spirit of the people of Wangjiaba cannot help but be in awe of this nation. According to statistics, in 2020, the direct economic loss of Wangjiaba flood discharge was 59 billion yuan. Then, in the more than 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Wangjiaba has been opened to discharge floods 17 times, and the total amount of its economic losses can be imagined.
/Fuyang The cutest laborer (picture source: Internet)/
When discussing what is the "Fuyang Spirit", the people of Fuyang confirmed that the "Fuyang Spirit" is the "Wangjiaba Spirit and the Spirit of Migrant Workers". I think this conclusion is realistic, without thousands of farmers going out to work, Fuyang would not have been able to quickly get rid of poverty and achieve a well-off life. Specifically, the "Wangjiaba Spirit" is "the spirit of selfless dedication to the world and the selfless dedication of the world", which is "not the spirit of self-improvement that is not afraid of hardships and difficulties". In the face of the challenge of floods repeatedly, we have never flinched, resisted the enemy for the nation, actively carried out production to save ourselves, rebuilt our homes, worked hard to develop industries with special characteristics, and persisted in achieving the goal of becoming well-off and becoming rich in the struggle against floods. The "Wangjiaba Spirit" is the "spirit of unity between the army and the people, and the spirit of solidarity between the cadres and the masses" when the flood hits. The "Wangjiaba Spirit" is "the scientific spirit of respecting the law and comprehensive prevention and control".
After visiting Wangjiaba, it was already noon, and I wanted to find a restaurant in Wangjiaba town to eat. Go north through the Wangjiaba Gate, about 1 kilometer, the town is closed, the door is closed, and the door is closed, and I can't find a restaurant. Turn back to the south, walk 4 kilometers long street, still do not see a restaurant, even the extremely simple restaurant is not there, the street is cold and cold, and the current prosperity of other markets is different. At first I was a little puzzled, but then I gradually figured out that this is the front line of the duel between humans and the flood, it is always waiting for the arrival of a strong enemy, and the lights do not belong to it, and the battle will start at some point.
It is not only the dawn that is quiet, but every moment is "quiet", waiting for it, with a hundred times the vigilance, flood control and flood control, so that the days pass between flat and steep......
/Author: Yu Linhuaigang/
Leaving Wangjiaba, I rushed to Linhuaigang, 100 kilometers downstream. Linhuai Gang belongs to the junction of the middle reaches of the Huai River and the upper reaches, the topography of the two banks of the upstream Huai Bank is two posts and one depression, which can store a large amount of floodwater, and is a rare excellent dam site. This place is 490 kilometers away from Huaiyuan, and the catchment area is 242,160 kilometers. The construction of flood control projects here is a way to hold the throat of the upstream water, and almost all the floods above Zhengyangguan, the main stream of the Huai River, are controlled. The construction of the Linhuaigang water conservancy project can be called the construction of the "Three Gorges Dam" on the Huaihe River, which will fundamentally change the passive situation in which the floodwaters of the main stream of the Huaihe River drive down for a long time and threaten the safety of the lives and property of the people in the Jianghuai region and the cities along the Huaihe River.
The Linhuaigang project spans 3 counties of Huoqiu, Yingshang and Funan in Anhui Province, with a control area of 42,200 square kilometers, which is a first-class large-scale water conservancy project, according to the design of 100 times, 8.56 billion cubic meters of flood detention, and 12.13 billion cubic meters of flood detention according to the 1000-year flood standard check.
If calculated as a once in 100 years, it can hold 1,500 water capacity of Hangzhou West Lake. If calculated according to 1,000 times, it can accommodate more than 2,000 water capacity of Hangzhou West Lake.
In the event of a 100-year flood, it can avoid flood diversion to Huaibei, and the inundation area can be reduced to 1,290 square kilometers, and the one-time disaster reduction benefit is 30.598 billion yuan.
During the operation period, the average annual flood control benefit is 231 million yuan, and in the event of a 100-year flood, the flood protection benefit is 23.5 billion yuan.
The flood of the Huai River has been brutally fighting with human beings for thousands of years, causing unspeakable disasters. From today onwards, the time has begun! The day has come when mankind will tame it! May it coexist in harmony with mankind, so that its evil history and soul can be baptized and saved, and the sweet homeland-like pastoral song will flow on this land to express the depth and magnificence of the Huai River. (End of full text)
/Xiaoju, winner of the "Fan Changjiang Award" in Beijing (Fan Susu, the son of Fan Changjiang in the fifth from the right, and Zhu Haiyan, the author of the article in the seventh from the right)/
Introduction of Zhu Haiyan
Zhu Haiyan, a native of Lixin, Anhui Province, enlisted in the army in 1976 and served as a soldier, platoon commander, deputy instructor, and cultural officer of the division's Political Department in the Seventh Division of the Railway Corps.
In 1983, he was transferred to the "Railway Soldier" newspaper, and in February 1984, he was transferred to the "People's Railway" newspaper and served as a reporter, chief reporter and chief reporter. In 1998, he served as editor-in-chief, president and editor-in-chief of China Railway Construction News, and a senior reporter. In March 2010, he was transferred to the Engineering Management Center of the Ministry of Railways as the deputy director at the bureau level, specializing in the writing of railway construction reports.
The winners of the 6th Fan Changjiang Journalism Award are the "four batches" of talents in the national propaganda system, leading figures in China's press and publishing circles, and senior experts directly controlled and contacted by the central government. He has won the China Journalism Award eight times, won the first and second prizes of provincial and ministerial news awards more than 90 times, and won the "Five One Project" award of the Central Propaganda Department for his long-form reportage "There is War in the North". He has published 40 collections of various works, with a total word count of 20 million words. He enjoys the allowance of the State Council and is a member of the Chinese Writers Association.
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