Polders and the Guangtong Dam in Lishui

A line running from enclosure to the sealing of the sluices

Lishui lies among the lakes of Shijiu, Gucheng and Danyang, low-lying and wet. Water works take up a good number of entries in the gazetteer, and one thread among them is unusually clear: first the lakes were enclosed as fields, then, because of the enclosure, dams and sluices were built, and finally, because the sluices were sealed, the upstream waters had no outlet and the fields drowned were those of this county. The four points on that thread all carry firm dates in the gazetteer and join end to end.

Before the Song: the Danyang lake fields and the three lakes

The gazetteer traces the beginning of lake fields in the county to the state of Wu:

吴景帝孙休永安元年戊寅，使都尉严密开丹阳湖田。

Translated: In the first year of the Yongan era of Sun Xiu, Emperor Jing of Wu, yinying, the commandant Yan Mi was sent to open fields on Danyang Lake.

This is the earliest entry on opening lake fields, that is, breaking the lake shore into farmland. Down to the Song the three lakes of Shijiu, Gucheng and Danyang remained lakes and had not yet been turned into fields on any scale, which is why the proposal of 1125 could be made at all.

1125: the three lakes to be abolished and made into polders

徽宗宣和七年乙巳，九月，知府事卢襄请罢石臼、固城、丹阳三湖为圩田。

Translated: In the seventh year of the Xuanhe era of Emperor Huizong, yisi, in the ninth month, Lu Xiang, prefect, asked that the three lakes of Shijiu, Gucheng and Danyang be abolished and made into polders.

What is recorded is the request, a proposal and not an outcome. The gazetteer does not say whether it was approved or how far it was carried out, and this site presents it as the source does, without supplying a sequel. The wording repays attention: what was to be abolished were lakes, and what was to be made were polders, that is, fields enclosed by dykes. Once that step was taken, the storage capacity of the lakes fell accordingly.

The Yongfeng Polder and two grants

Two emperors of the Southern Song granted polder land in this county to their ministers:

绍兴二十三年癸酉，以永丰圩田赐秦桧。旧志云，郡府志载此事，而不专言溧水。今溧水有永丰圩，故采入以备详考。后孝宗赐都统司云云，同此。

Translated: In the twenty-third year of the Shaoxing era, guiyou, the fields of the Yongfeng Polder were granted to Qin Hui. The old gazetteer says that the prefectural gazetteer records this but does not speak of Lishui in particular; since there is a Yongfeng Polder in Lishui today, it has been taken in for fuller examination. The later grant to the command of the capital armies under Emperor Xiaozong is of the same kind.

The value of the entry lies not only in the grant but in the compilers' own note: they say plainly that the matter is recorded in the prefectural gazetteer and "does not speak of Lishui in particular", and that they take it in only because the county contains the Yongfeng Polder, "for fuller examination". That is both a statement by the annals about its own scope and a warning that the relation of the Yongfeng Polder to Lishui needs separate inquiry. On this ground this site gives the related entries a confidence of medium. In the eighth month of the first year of the Qiandao era (1165) the gazetteer records the same polder granted again, to the command of the capital armies. Polder land was thus both public property and a reward, and the management of such land lies outside this gazetteer's scope; only the grants are recorded here.

1403: sluices built to store and to release

In the early Ming, after the cutting of the Yanzhi River, the water regime of the county changed. Under the first year of the Yongle era (1403) the gazetteer records:

四月，设溧水广通镇闸坝，置官一员。初，溧水民言溧阳、溧水洼下，数罹水患，乞于广通镇置闸，以备潴泄。遣人视之，还言，二县水由固城湖上纳宁国、广德诸水，每遇霖潦即注县境，且胭脂河与石臼湖诸水不入大江而奔注，苏松皆被其患。宜于胭脂山、广通镇及固城湖口二处筑闸坝，设官掌之为便。从之。

Translated: In the fourth month, sluices and a dam were established at Guangtong in Lishui, with one officer appointed. Originally the people of Lishui said that Liyang and Lishui lay low and suffered repeatedly from floods, and asked for a sluice at Guangtong to store and to release the water. A man was sent to inspect, and reported that the waters of the two counties come down through Gucheng Lake from the rivers of Ningguo and Guangde and pour into the county whenever there is heavy rain, and that the waters of the Yanzhi River and Shijiu Lake run into one another instead of reaching the Yangtze, so that Suzhou and Songjiang also suffer; it would be well to build sluices and dams at two places, at Yanzhi Hill and Guangtong and at the mouth of Gucheng Lake, and to appoint an officer to manage them. This was approved.

The entry records the occasion, the findings of the inspection and the measure taken. Those who asked for the sluice were the people of Lishui, and their reason was that they needed a work to store and to release water; the inspection found that the upstream waters of Ningguo and Guangde came down through Gucheng Lake, and that the Yanzhi River and Shijiu Lake ran into one another rather than into the Yangtze, so that Suzhou and Songjiang suffered too; and the measure was sluices and dams at three places, with an officer in charge. At this stage the sluice worked in both directions, storing as well as releasing.

1512: the two sluices sealed

More than a century later the character of the same work had changed. Under the seventh year of the Zhengde era (1512) the gazetteer records:

七年壬申，苏、常等郡以水患奏请筑广通坝。事下抚臣议，加筑高厚三丈，杜塞二闸，厉其禁勿开。先是有闸可以蓄泄，至此水患遂永贻于溧矣！

Translated: In the seventh year, renshen, the prefectures of Suzhou, Changzhou and others memorialised for a dam to be built at Guangtong because of floods. The matter was referred to the grand coordinator for discussion, and the dam was raised three zhang in height and thickness, the two sluices were sealed up, and a strict prohibition was laid on opening them. Previously there had been sluices that could store and release; from this time the floods were left to Lishui for good.

Those who asked for the dam were the prefectures of Suzhou and Changzhou and others, on the ground that they too suffered from floods; the measure was to raise and thicken the dam to three zhang, seal the two sluices and forbid their opening. The gazetteer then adds its own verdict: where previously there had been sluices to store and release, from this time the floods were left to Lishui for good. That sentence is the gazetteer's own judgement, strongly worded, and it is reproduced here and marked as such.

It is worth noting that the sluice of 1403 was built at the request of the people of Lishui and the dam of 1512 at the request of the prefectures downstream of Suzhou and Changzhou: the same work served opposite needs in turn, and the county's position shifted from beneficiary to sufferer. That shift is the key to understanding the floods that follow.

The Wanli period: the Fengxian Polder and the loss of the lakeside fields

After Zhengde the county turned to building its own dykes. In the great famine of 1588, "Du Yunji, the magistrate, applied to the assistant prefect of Yingtian, and by memorial obtained permission to spend treasury silver on building the dykes of the Fengxian Polder, on which the starving people depended" — relief and dyke building were done together, as work for food. In the sixth month of 1595 the gazetteer records a flood that broke the dykes of many polders, and notes that the Fengxian Polder alone escaped:

二十三年乙未，正月上旬，儒学桂树华。六月，蛟出溃诸圩，独凤贤圩无患。知县喻言兴仿许旧书，劝民筑之，周计三十余里。

Translated: In the twenty-third year, yiwei, in the first ten days of the first month, the osmanthus of the Confucian school flowered. In the sixth month a dragon burst out and broke the polders, and only the Fengxian Polder suffered nothing. Yu Yanxing, the magistrate, following the old book of Xu, urged the people to build it, and its circuit was reckoned at more than thirty li.

"A dragon bursting out" is the gazetteer's way of recording a mountain torrent and is reproduced as it stands. That all the polders but one were broken shows that the Fengxian dyke was the more solidly made, and the magistrate accordingly urged the people to continue it, to a circuit of more than thirty li. The flowering osmanthus at the head of the entry is a portent and has nothing to do with the water works.

Dykes, however, could protect only part of the land. In 1600 the complaint of the county's people states the outcome plainly: because of the dam at Guangtong the upstream waters had no outlet, more than eighty thousand mu of rich fields along the lake were drowned, the quota remained though the fields were gone, and it was apportioned among the villages; the people therefore petitioned for the commutation of the grain tax. That belongs with taxation, and is set out in "Taxation and Corvée in Ming and Qing Lishui".

Gaps in the chain of cause and effect

From the abolition of the three lakes to the sealing of the two sluices the gazetteer's record is continuous in time but not everywhere strict in causation. Only two things can be taken as established: that after the sluices were sealed in 1512 the upstream waters lost their outlet, on which the gazetteer itself delivers a verdict; and that in 1600 the people of the county attributed the drowning of the lakeside fields to the dam at Guangtong, which is the complaint of contemporaries.

How much storage capacity the enclosure of the lakes removed, how far the water level rose after the sealing, and how much of the eighty thousand mu drowned was land enclosed since the Song, are all questions the gazetteer does not answer, and this site makes no estimates. To draw the three matters into a single chain of cause and effect is this site's arrangement of the sources, not a statement the sources themselves make.

Uncertainties

First, whether the request of 1125 to abolish the three lakes was granted, and over what area it was carried out, is not recorded.

Second, the relation of the Yongfeng Polder to Lishui is one the gazetteer says it takes in "for fuller examination", and its exact position and extent remain to be established.

Third, whether the reopening of the two sluices was ever proposed in the Ming or Qing after they were sealed is not covered by the Kangxi edition used here, which runs only to the Shunzhi period, and remains to be established.