Unit 7 - Opinion Milestones Essay

Engineering Water

by Elizabeth Phillips-Hershey

1 In ancient China, people believed that a magical “Emperor Yu” held the secret for taming the rivers that flooded each season. The myth said that he had been given mathematical secrets by a river tortoise. The secrets told him how to build canals, dikes, and irrigation systems. But it was real-life engineers and laborers—men and women, children and the elderly—who were responsible for the actual building.

2 Early Chinese civilizations were built on the low plains along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. These rivers, and the smaller rivers that fed them, were both helpful and destructive. They provided water for growing crops. They were a means of transportation. Often, though, floods destroyed the fields. To prevent water from destroying crops, workers built earthen walls. They dug more channels into which floodwater could go.

3 In the hills of northern China, crops were grown on terraces cut into hillsides. People invented irrigation machines so they wouldn’t have to carry water by hand. One such invention was like a stationary bicycle. Two people pedaled to bring water from wells, reservoirs, and canals through a wooden channel and into a raised ditch.

4 As populations grew and new cities were built, Chinese engineers designed a network of canals to connect the country. The emperors supported these efforts. They helped speed the movement of military troops and supplies. They helped expand trade.

5 One of the most amazing feats of water engineering in ancient China was the construction of the Grand Canal. Some parts of this waterway were built almost 2,500 years ago. It was finished around the year 600. The canal is more than 1,100 miles long. (That’s about the same distance as from New York to Florida.) About 60 bridges cross it. Like other canals, the Grand Canal was used for trade and transportation.

6 But these canals, like other great structures, were built under difficult conditions. Millions of workers were forced to work on the canals. In some areas of China, every male from the age of 15 to 55 had to join the workforces. Women became laborers for the first time in the year 608 to work on the Grand Canal. Children and old people helped. Nearly two million people died building the Grand Canal. Like natural rivers that flow and flood, engineering water was both helpful and destructive to the people of ancient China.