China - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 241

relationships, such as son to father and subject to emperor, but included
admonitions to protect forests and rivers. The focus of Confucianism was
agriculture. Farmers should plant and harvest in harmony with nature,
and the emperor would mediate, for example, with a spring planting cer-
emony. Buddhism, which arrived in China from India about the second
century AD, is a gentle religion that sees humans and animals as equals.
Buddhists believe in reincarnation, so a person may return in his next life
as an animal. Most adherents are vegetarians. One feature all religions
share is that their temples often preserve nature, especially when sited on a
mountain. In a country where farmland is so scarce, the temples are often
the only untrammeled places left. For example, Mount Emei in Sichuan
covers 12,000 hectares, and has been protected since the 10th century AD.
Some ancient engineering projects, dating even before unification in the
Qin Dynasty, affected the environment. In Sichuan the Min River flooded
each spring when the snow on the mountains melted. The provincial
governor, Li Bing, designed and built a channel to drain off an even flow
for the main stem, directing it south to the capital city of Chengdu, and
drained the surplus onto farmland in need of irrigation. A small natural
island was the diversion point. This required cutting a channel 20 meters
wide through solid rock using fire and cold water to crack the solid rock.
To divert the flow of the river, workers prepared huge cribs of bamboo and
filled them with rocks, then during the dry season dragged them into place
in the river. The project, which took 8 years to complete, was an immediate
success, guaranteeing a steady flow to the city and adequate irrigation of
the fertile plain. Over 2,200 years later, it remains in operation.
Building the Grand Canal began earlier, but took much longer to com-
plete. Eventually, it extended 1,800 kilometers from Hangzhou to Beijing.
Its north-south route unified the empire and promoted commerce. Grain
could be barged from the south to supply military troops stationed in the
north. Construction began in 486 BC and was not completed until about
600 AD. The land is low and level so not many locks were needed. The
Grand Canal remains in operation to the present.
Controlling the Yellow River proved an endless task. The volume of
water surges in the spring, sweeping away silt from the fertile loess pla-
teau. After leaving the Qingtong Gorge in Gansu, it crosses the flat coastal
plain. As the speed of the river decreases, the silt drops out into its own
channel, clogging the current and pushing the water over the sides. With
each annual flood, the river builds natural dikes that confine it for a while
but are breached in the high water, thereby inundating the countryside.