Analogy Between'Draining the Tributary of the Huai River into the Yangtze River'in the Mencius and Water Control and Research in Ming and Qing Dynasties
The Huai River was partially diverted into the Yangtze River in the Late Ming Dynasty instead of straightly entering the sea.During the Ming and Qing dynasties,text in the Mencius was closely related to water management.The text of'draining the tributary of the Huai River into the Yangtze River'in the Mencius was cited by contemporaries as an analogy to the hydrological situation and provided the theoretical basis for water control.In the early Qing Dynasty,water control officials related the Yu Wang River to the Mencius and conceptualized a new channel for draining the flood of the Huai River into the Yangtze River,sparking scholarly deliberations on water management,the classics,and geography.In the mid-Qing Dynasty,frequent floods occurred in the Huaiyang area.Based on critical studies on geographical texts,Sun Xingyan and Jiao Xun argued that the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Huai River were connected,suggesting the idea of draining the flow of the Huai River into the Yangtze River to relieve flood.In the late Qing Dynasty,Confucian scholars conducted critical text analysis around the geographical viewpoints of Jiao Xun,refuting the common upper reaches between the Yangtze River and the Huai River,and reconfirmed the interconnections between the Yangtze River,the Huai River,and the Grand Canal.The practice and exploration centered on reconstructing the relationship between the Yangtze River and the Huai River injected geographical identification and practical application into traditional Confucian studies,transforming the simple interpretation of classics into textual research and interpretation of the relationship between the two rivers as well as the geographical space in-between,pushing the related study to the level of geographical thematic research.
Mencius LiteratureConfucian classics attachmentGao WeirYuwang Riverrelationship between the Yangtze River and the Huai River
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