The Huai River in the west, the Yellow Sea in the east, the Yangtze River in the south, and the Yishu River in the north, Hongze Lake is not only an important flood control and storage reservoir in the Huaihe River Basin, but also an important water source for the production and life of the people in northern Jiangsu, nurturing the people along the lake. The lake is born because of the canal, and the canal is smooth because of the lake. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, Hongze Lake has always played an important role in ensuring the smooth flow of the Grand Canal.
Hongze Lake Embankment **Visual China In fact, in the ancient times of "watching the sky and eating", every time there was an abnormal climate, the calm Hongze Lake would instantly turn into a "flood lake". Once the embankment breaks, it will affect Huai'an and Yangzhou, and the Grand Canal, which is inseparable from the Huai River and the Yellow River, will not be spared. In order to restrain the flooding of Hongze Lake, the east embankment of Hongze Lake was built in the Ming and Qing dynasties, that is, Gaojiayan, which has the saying that "Gaojiayan is poured down, and Huaiyang does not meet".
However, even so, the Hongze Lake embankment has often burst in history, bringing one deep disaster after another to the Lixiahe area. Located about 45 kilometers away from the embankment, the Zhouqiao section of the embankment has witnessed a history of blood and tears.
In the winter of the fourth year of Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty (1824), the cold wave suddenly arrived, and the west wind was strong. On the surface of the lake, the huge waves carried the ice cubes wave after wave to hit the embankment, the Zhouqiao section was overwhelmed and suddenly collapsed, and a large amount of lake water poured in, rushing out of a large pond nearly 400 meters wide and 24 meters deep. All of a sudden, Shanyang, Funing, Yancheng, Baoying, Gaoyou, Xinghua, Jiangdu, Taizhou, Dongtai and other counties in the east of the embankment were flooded, and the people were killed and injured. At the same time, the floods also hindered the transportation of grain, which directly affected the grain supply in Gyeonggi.
After hearing the news, the imperial court immediately sent a scholar Wang Tingzhen to the scene to investigate the matter. According to the "Qing Historical Manuscript", it turned out that there was a "Yuhuang Dam should not be closed", and another "five dams should not be opened", which was too prosperous to burst the embankment. After finding out the reason, the relevant ** was punished one after another, Zhang Wenhao, the then governor of the Jiangnan River, was dismissed and investigated for ineffective water control, and Sun Yuting, the then governor of Liangjiang, was dismissed for "borrowing Huang Jiyun to be invalid", and Wei Yuanyu, the governor of Caoyun, took over as the governor of Liangjiang. Wei Yuanyu knew the complexity of the project to divert the Yellow River and Jiyun, and he was not very sure in his heart, so he strongly recommended Lin Zexu, who was in Ding Wei, to the imperial court to be in charge of water control affairs.
In 1826, Lin Zexu was robbed of love and walked to the Zhouqiao Datang construction site in plain clothes. Looking at the scene of the broken embankment, yellow water, and devastation in front of him, Lin Zexu strengthened his determination to lead the people to rebuild the embankment. He immediately went up to the embankment to investigate, completely ignoring the strong wind and muddy roads, and inspected the southern section of the six forts of Gaojiayan to the breach of the thirteen forts, and then from the south of the thirteen forts to the ancient ditch of the Shanxuan hall, and went back and forth in the mud.
In addition to organizing local governments and counties to recruit and dispatch migrant workers, rush to block the breaches, and divert and distribute floods, Lin Zexu is still thinking repeatedly about how to make the people in the Lixiahe area completely get rid of the harm of floods, so that the newly built embankment can be strong and stable, and the dam will not collapse againAfter careful investigation and research, he formulated an embankment construction plan: build an inner embankment, confine the deep pool in the circle embankment, and then build a masonry wall on the outer embankment to prevent further rupture and rupture .
At the request of Lin Zexu, the workers chiseled out a tooth groove on each piece of stone, cast a "work" shaped iron shovel with pig iron and placed it between the tooth grooves, and through the pull of the inverted tenon at both ends of the iron curium, the stones were connected into a whole, and then the mortar mixed with glutinous rice juice and lime filled the gaps. In this way, in addition to the adhesion of ordinary mortar, the occlusion force of the iron curium is also increased. The two stones form a whole through the bite of the iron curium, which is more solid and firm, and enhances the overall resistance ability, so that there is no gap in the flood.
Zhouqiao Datang Ruins Park **Visual Chinese stone masonry, iron shovel tenon, step-by-step reinforcement ......The curved masonry wall, which is about 800 meters long and 33 meters wide at the top, was finally completed, and the whole project took six years to complete.
It is worth mentioning that Lin Zexu also ordered the craftsmen to engrave the surname of the person in charge of the embankment section on each piece of iron and curium. The section of the embankment that he personally supervised was inscribed with the word "forestry worker" to show that he was responsible for the quality of the project. If there is a difference in a certain project, and the inscription is ironclad, you can check the person responsible. It is also under such a strict supervision system that in the following 200 years, the Zhouqiao section has not broken the embankment.
Aside from the clouds and smoke of time, the pond that was once formed by the impact of "the wind helps the ice, and the waves hit the ice" has disappeared. Although the stone wall of the ancient weir standing here has no water to prevent, it is still impregnable, and it is difficult for even the flexible grass to poke its head out of the stone gap. As it was when it was first built, it has stood between heaven and earth for a long time, guarding the thousands of miles of fertile ...... under its feet like an arm
Xinhua ** Intersection reporter Zhang Jieru intern Shi Zhiwei.