HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Ximen Bao was a Chinese hydraulic engineer, philosopher, and politician. He was a government minister and court advisor to
Marquis Wen of Wei Marquess Wen of Wei (Wèi Wén Hóu; died 396 BCE) was the first Marquess to rule the State of Wei during the Warring States period of Chinese history (475 – 220 BCE). Born Wei Si (魏斯), he belonged to the House of Wei, one of the noble ...
(reigned 445–396 BC) during the
Warring States period The Warring States period () was an era in History of China#Ancient China, ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded ...
of
ancient China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapte ...
. He was known as an early rationalist, who had the
State of Wei Wei (; ; Old Chinese: *') was one of the seven major states during the Warring States period of ancient China. It was created from the three-way Partition of Jin, together with Han and Zhao. Its territory lay between the states of Qin and Qi ...
abolish the practice of sacrificing people to the river god
He Bo Hebo () is the god of the Yellow River (''Huang He''). The Yellow River is the main river of northern China, one of the world's major rivers and a river of great cultural importance in China. This is reflected in Chinese mythology by the tales s ...
.Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 271. Although the earlier statesman Sunshu Ao is credited as China's first
hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...
engineer (damming a river to create a large
irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...
reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...
), Ximen Bao is nonetheless credited as the first engineer in China to create a large
canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...
irrigation system.


Life

Ximen Bao became well known in his lifetime and posthumously for his grandiose works in
hydraulic engineering Hydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive use of gravity as the motive force to cause the mov ...
during the 5th century BC. He organized a massive diversion of the
Zhang River The Zhang River is a tributary of the Wei River in China. The river commences at the confluence of the rivers Qingzhang (or Clear Zhang, 清漳河) and Zhuozhang (or Turbid Zhang, 浊漳河), where between She county of Hebei and Linzhou of ...
, which had formerly flowed into the
Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Standard Beijing Mandarin, Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system in the world at th ...
River at
Anyang Anyang (; ) is a prefecture-level city in Henan province, China. The northernmost city in Henan, Anyang borders Puyang to the east, Hebi and Xinxiang to the south, and the provinces of Shanxi and Hebei to its west and north respectively. It had a ...
. The new course that the river took under his diversion project brought the river to meet the Yellow River further down its course at a bend near modern-day
Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...
. The Zhang River rises in the mountains of
Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...
province, flowing southeastwards, and at the time added to the burden of overflow for the Yellow River. Ultimately though, the purpose of this enormous project of engineering was to irrigate a large
agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
region of
Henei Henei Commandery ( zh, 河內郡) was a commandery of China from Han dynasty to Tang dynasty, located in modern Henan province, to the north of Yellow River. In ancient China, Henei ("Inside the Yellow River") referred to the land north of the low ...
(in the left lower Yellow River basin) by providing it with a natural contour canal.Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 371. Work on the canal system began sometime between 403 BC and 387 BC, when Marquis Wen and his successor Marquis Wu reigned over the State of Wei. Due to several setbacks (including some temporary local resistance to corvee labor service) it was not fully completed until a century later, during the time of Wen's grandson, King Xiang (襄王) (r. 319–296 BC). It was during this time that the Wei engineer
Shi Chi Shi or SHI may refer to: Language * ''Shi'', a Japanese title commonly used as a pronoun * ''Shi'', proposed gender-neutral pronoun * Shi (kana), a kana in Japanese syllabaries * Shi language * ''Shī'', transliteration of Chinese Radical 4 ...
completed the work of Ximen Bao.


Hebo's Bride

Ximen Bao is the central figure in a popular historical event called ''Hebo's Bride''. Around 400BC, Ximen was appointed to oversee the County of Ye (鄴城), a poor region that experienced constant flooding. He met with the locals to inquire on the challenges facing the populace. To Ximen's surprise, instead of naming the flooding as their biggest challenge, locals told him it was the high taxes they had to pay for providing a bride for Hebo, the River God - it was severely draining their finance and for those who have young daughters, lived in fear. With support from many village elders, three powerful elders known as San Lao (三老) colluded with the local officials (廷椽) and a shamaness to concoct a legend that the flooding was caused by the wrath of Hebo. To appease the god, the locals must sacrifice a beautiful young maiden as his bride every year. The cabal heavily taxed the county, used a small portion of the money to arrange for the bridal ceremony and divided the rest for themselves. Any family that could not afford to pay the tax would have its daughter taken as sacrifice - she would be dressed up the day of, and following a ceremony - put on a makeshift boat, and send floating on the river until it fell apart and together they sunk into the river. Many families with young daughters, fearing they would be taken, would send their daughters away; resulting in further social and economic issues for the county. On the day of the ceremony, Ximen arrived at the sacrificial site by the river and met with the shamaness, her disciples, the three elders, the local officials, several village elders, and the maiden; with an estimated over a thousand onlookers also in attendance. Ximen insisted on inspecting the maiden and concluded her beauty would not meet the standard of a God. Declaring that the delivery of an inadequate bride would trigger the wrath of the River God, Ximen ordered the ceremony be postponed until after a suitable bride is found. He had his soldiers threw the shamaness into the river to report to the River God about the postponement and to report back to Ximen on the God's response. Sometime after, as the drowned shamaness had obviously not returned from the river, he tasked each of her disciples with the same mission and to locate the shamaness before submerging each one into the river. After neither of them returned, Ximen tasked each of the three elders with the same mission and threw them into the river. As neither the shamaness, her disciples, nor the elders returned from the river; Ximen ordered the local officials and the village elders to go into the river to fetch them. All of them instead knelt before him in terror and promised not to do the sacrifice again. After that day, bridal sacrifice for the River God became a thing of the past in the County of Ye.


Legacy

In honor of the Zhang River diversion project, the local populace made a popular song about it, as recorded in the historical work of the later
Han Dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
historian
Ban Gu Ban Gu (AD32–92) was a Chinese historian, politician, and poet best known for his part in compiling the ''Book of Han'', the second of China's 24 dynastic histories. He also wrote a number of '' fu'', a major literary form, part prose ...
.


See also

*
Li Kui (legalism) Li Kui (, 455–395 BC) was a Chinese hydraulic engineer, philosopher, and politician. He served as government minister and court advisor to Marquis Wen (r. 403–387 BC) in the state of Wei. In 407 BC, he wrote the ''Book of Law'' (Fajing, ...


References


Citations


Bibliography

* .


External links


Ximen Bao at Chinaculture.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ximen, Bao 5th-century BC Chinese people Chinese canal engineers Chinese hydrologists Wei (state) Year of death unknown Year of birth unknown Zhou dynasty philosophers Zhou dynasty politicians