Every flooding of the Yellow River will bring great disasters to people on both sides of the river, so the management of the Yellow River has always been a major event in the history of China's river management. However, in addition to completing the purpose of flood control and disaster prevention, the successive river managements sometimes bring heavy burdens to the people along the coast, and even cause people to live in poverty and social unrest. This poem "Early Yellow River Affair" was written in the tenth year of the Yuan Shun Emperor (1350), before the Jialuzhi River, reflecting the reality of the Yuan Dynasty's rule of the river before this, and its purpose was to provide a reference for the upcoming Jialuzhi River.
The Yellow River floods
Since the Jin Dynasty, the Yellow River has been diverted and flowed from the Huai River into the sea. The Yuan Dynasty built its capital, which was far from the Yellow River, so it did not pay enough attention to the disaster prevention of the Yellow River. It was not until the Yellow River threatened the Grand Canal that it had to be remediated. In May of the fourth year of the Yuan Shun Emperor (1344), the Yellow River Baimao Causeway broke, and in June the Jin causeway broke, and the towns along the river were flooded, and the water of the Yellow River overflowed into the Huitong River, threatening the safety of the canal. There was a heated discussion within the imperial court about the flood. In the ninth year of zheng, the Yuan Shun Emperor ordered his ministers to discuss the management of the river, and the chancellor called the ministers to discuss the strategy of governing the river, and Jia Lu (1297~1353) vigorously advocated "the river must be ruled" and "the south river must be dredged", advocating the rectification of the Yellow River. Jia Lu proposed two plans to control the Yellow River: First, build the north embankment and stop the breach, with small costs; Second, adopt the method of dredging and plugging at the same time, so that the Yellow River will be diverted to the east and the original waterway will be restored. At the time, neither of Jalu's plans was adopted. By the ninth leap month of the ninth year, the disaster of the Yellow River was even more serious, and the comeback of the escape felt that the problem was serious, and he grasped the plan to control the river, and the Yuan Shun Emperor summoned his ministers to discuss the grand plan for the management of the river. The ministers who participated in the discussion at that time were full of discussions and put forward various proposals. Jia Lu participated in the discussion as an envoy to the capital Caoyun and re-proposed his two strategies for governing the river. He adopted Jia Lu's second plan and decided to start governing the Yellow River.
Portrait of Jalu
Both of Jaru's plans, both of which were put forward after field visits and in response to real problems, were highly implementable. However, the first plan was put forward in response to the financial shortage of the Yuan Dynasty, but only to ensure the safety of the immediate water transport and salt works. This is because the construction of the north embankment, although the cost is low, the labor is saved, but the river water that spills into the territory of Shandong in the north forms a huge lake in the Peixian area, and the flood discharge capacity is small after that, which makes the flood impossible to drain, and can only stay in the area around Peixian County, and the newly built north embankment can only prevent the river from continuing to flood, and cannot fundamentally solve the problem. If the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River encounter another exceptionally large flood, the newly built north embankment is still in danger of being washed away, and at that time, the old water has not been discharged, and the new flood has overflowed, which will aggravate the degree of disaster. The second plan, adopting the method of dredging and plugging at the same time, to restore the Yellow River to its old road, was the most scientific and effective plan under the historical conditions at that time. This plan, the scale of the project is huge, the time, manpower, material resources, financial resources will be much more than the first plan, but its effect is better, not only can solve the problem of flooding of the Yellow River, but also can ensure the safety of the canal and salt works.
Yellow River Canal
In April of the eleventh year of the reign, Jia Lu was appointed as the Ambassador of Shangshu of the Ministry of Works and the Ambassador of River Defense of the General Administration, and was awarded the Silver Seal. Leading the Henan and Hebei zhulu armies, 250,000 migrant workers from the thirteenth road such as Fa Bi Liang and Daming, and 20,000 people from the eighteenth wing army such as Luzhou were thrown into the zhihe. The main method of managing the river this time is to dredge, dredge, and plug at the same time, first dredging and then plugging, first dredging the Yellow River Old Road from Huanglinggang to Hajiakou, and dredging the water reduction river from Ouli Village to Yang qingshan, both of which are 280 miles long. Secondly, it is to plug the gaps, openings, and build embankments, the main project is to block the Baimao breach, which is the key battle to determine the success of the river, after seven months of treatment, in November the Baimao breach was successfully blocked, the Yellow River returned to the old road, and the Huai River converged in one place, flowing east into the sea. Jia Lu returned to the dynasty and presented the "River Flat Map" to Emperor Shun. Jalu's major creation in the plugging technique, the Stone Boat Embankment Water Barrier Method, was successful. After the completion of the project, Jia Lu was recalled to the capital and promoted to Doctor Ronglu and Scholar of Jixian University. In August of the twelfth year of Zhengzheng, his entourage attacked the Xuzhou rebel army Sesame Li. In the winter of the same year, Jia Lu was ordered to besiege Haozhou with the general Yue Gecha'er, and died in the army at the age of fifty-seven in May of the thirteenth year.
Map of Haozhou
Jia Lu made outstanding contributions to the official duties, especially in the management of the Yellow River. On the basis of summing up the experience of his predecessors in harnessing the Yellow River, he creatively combined dredging, dredging, plugging, and other methods of river management, and pulled the flooded Yellow River back to its hometown, ensuring the safety of the canal, which was conducive to the smooth progress of water transportation, and enabling the lower reaches of the Yellow River to gain relative stability. At the same time, the Yuan Shun Emperor ordered Ouyang Xuan, a scholar of Hanlin, to make a "Heping Stele" and compile the "Zhizheng River Defense Record", which recorded the experience, methods and experiences of the river control this time, which was also the first time that the river control literature recorded the river control method in detail, providing valuable experience and reference for future generations to rule the river. But the Jaluch River also has a negative impact. The flooding of the Yellow River caused the displacement of the people and the lack of livelihood, which aggravated the social contradictions at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. When The Jialu River was being treated with labor and wealth, the entire river control project cost a lot of money, and according to statistics, the total cost was 1,845,636 ingots of the Central Command. The size of the project is rare in the history of ancient river management. Huge expenses increased the burden on the people, and the migrant workers who ruled the river were also subjected to the deduction and drive of the officials who ruled the river, as written in the poem: "Driving away the husband is like driving away the prisoners", "Hunger is half-desired to die, driving the long river", which made the already deep social contradictions even more intense, and the leaders of the Red Turban Army, Han Shantong and Liu Futong, took advantage of this opportunity to launch the great peasant uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.