Zheng Guo Canal
The Zheng Guo Canal ( Chinese 鄭國 渠 / 郑国 渠 , Pinyin Zhèng Guó Qú , W.-G. Cheng-kuo ch'ü ) is a large canal in China that dates back to 246 BC. In the old kingdom of Qin . It was built by Zheng Guo .
The canal brought the water of the Jing Shui (泾 水) River from Zhongshan (in today's Jingyang County , Shaanxi Province ) over 150 km west to the Luo River and thus supplied the dry central Shaanxi Plain (Guanzhong Plain) with sufficient supplies Water.
The canal was originally part of a project by the King of Han State directed against his rival Qin : The resources of the Qin State were to be tied up in the long term through this civil project. The Qin, however, successfully completed the construction work, and the irrigation of many thousands of square kilometers of additional arable land provided the kingdom with sufficient funds to expand its already vast army.
To this day, the land surrounding the Zheng Guo Canal is particularly fertile.
The three major hydraulic engineering projects in ancient China of the pre- Han era were:
- the Zheng Guo Canal
- the Dujiangyan irrigation system
- the "magic channel" ( Lingqu )
The canal has been on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China (4-31) since 1996 .
Web links
- Technological Change in Warring States China ( accessed July 31, 2011) (PDF file; 113 kB)
Coordinates: 34 ° 35 ′ 9.3 ″ N , 108 ° 46 ′ 32.9 ″ E