The Ji Canal River or Jiyunhe () is a semi-artificial river in North China Plain near the major city of

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 popu ...

. It is an important part of

Hai River The Hai River (海河, lit. "Sea River"), also known as the Peiho, ("White River"), or Hai Ho, is a Chinese river connecting Beijing to Tianjin and the Bohai Sea. The Hai River at Tianjin is formed by the confluence of five watercourses: the ...

watershed system. The total length of Jiyunhe as of today is about 145 km and it drains into the

Bohai Sea The Bohai Sea () is a marginal sea approximately in area on the east coast of Mainland China. It is the northwestern and innermost extension of the Yellow Sea, to which it connects to the east via the Bohai Strait. It has a mean depth of ...

near

Tanggu Tanggu District () was a district in the Tianjin municipality, now part of the Binhai New Area. It is on the Hai River where it enters the Bohai Sea, and is a port for Tianjin, which is about upriver. The Tianjin Economic-Technological Develo ...

. Jiyunhe was originally a natural river (named Baoqiu River before Sui and

Tang Tang or TANG most often refers to: * Tang dynasty * Tang (drink mix) Tang or TANG may also refer to: Chinese states and dynasties * Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) b ...

dynasties and Chao River before

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...

) derived from a mountain called Baoqiu north of the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups ...

near

Zunhua Zunhua () is a county-level city in the northeast of Hebei province, China, bordering Tianjin to the west. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Tangshan. Historic sites include the Eastern Qing Tombs (Qing Dongling). Adm ...

. The original length of this river was over 310 km. The section south of the Great Wall was artificially widened by Cao Cao during the

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 ...

so that it became navigable and thus it could be used to supply the frontline in the northeast. The upstream section of the river was gradually abandoned. In

, the channel was artificially broadened again to make it navigable to bigger ships. Since then, it became a supply line of

. Grains were shipped to Tianjin and nearby towns on this river, so it got a nickname of Grain River and was finally renamed as Jiyunhe which literally means Canal of Ji.

References

Rivers of China {{China-river-stub