Yanzhi River

One protected unit, two points

In the provincial list of protected sites published by the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism the place is recorded as "the Yanzhi River and Tiansheng Bridge, Ming, Lishui District, within the Tiansheng Bridge scenic area". In that list "the Yanzhi River and Tiansheng Bridge" is one protected unit with two points: the river is the channel itself, the bridge is the bridge left from rock in mid-channel. This entry and the entry for Tiansheng Bridge are written separately, but the two belong to one protected unit; neither is graded on its own, and they are not written up as two independent provincial sites.

The works and the line of the canal

According to the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, the Yanzhi River runs from the mouth of the Qinhuai River in the north to Honglan Wharf on Shijiu Lake in the south, a total of 7.5 km. It was cut in the twenty-sixth year of the Hongwu era (1393 CE) to carry grain transport between the Nanjing region and the two Zhejiang provinces; hundreds of thousands of labourers were organised and fifteen li of channel were cut through fire-shattered rock.

The Nanjing Municipal Water Resources Bureau writes that the canal was cut under the direction of Li Xin, Marquis of Chongshan, to link the Qinhuai River with Shijiu Lake for grain transport; that at the peak of the works more than 750,000 labourers and over 1,400 officials were called up; and that from the twenty-fourth year of the Hongwu era (1391 CE) it took nearly five years to drive the canal through.

The name

In its district profile the district government writes that the river "takes its name from lying at Yanzhi Hill", and records that when it was cut "a great natural rock spanned the air, straddling the cliffs on either side". This entry reproduces that statement. The relation between the name and the colour of the rock at Yanzhi Hill is treated separately in "On the Name of the Yanzhi River and Yanzhi Hill".

The two accounts of the time taken

The two government sources differ on the time taken. The provincial department of culture and tourism says "more than ten years"; the municipal water bureau says that from the twenty-fourth year of Hongwu it took "nearly five years". The two may refer to the main channel and to the whole works including ancillary structures respectively, but the sources make no such distinction; this entry sets the two side by side without deciding between them, and confidence is accordingly medium.

Protection status and present state

Public descriptions state that the Yanzhi River and Tiansheng Bridge were listed as a provincially protected site in 1995; the year comes from a commercial travel platform and no provincial government gazette has been traced, so protection_batch records the year and marks it as unverified. In the seventh batch of provincial protected sites (Su Zheng Fa [2011] No. 181) the only entry in Lishui is the Weijiacun Mound Tombs, so this place can be confirmed not to belong to the seventh batch. The scenic area's current status is a 4A-rated tourist attraction and a National Water Conservancy Scenic Area.

To be added

Still to be added: the gazette number and date of the provincial batch, the surviving length of the channel and its condition, records of dredging through the dynasties, and the relation between the upstream sluices and dams and the channel.