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Rivers & Seas
“In the southeast provinces there are no places lacking communication by water. Therefore merchandise is mostly transported by boat.”
Tang Yu Lin
(Miscellanea of the Tang Dynasty)
circa AD 800
Small craft being tracked upstream. Whirlpools are common occurrences on the rivers of Szechuan. Illustration from the Szechuan Yen Fa Chih. |
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When civilization first emerged in China several thousand years ago, it took shape on the banks of the two great rivers that continue to dominate the land to this day. Falling out of the steppes, cutting through rocky gorges and meandering across the muddy alluvial plains before reaching the sea, the Yangtze and Huang (Yellow) rivers have defined China’s landscape and life since the beginnings of civilization. The two great rivers are the cradles of Chinese culture, flooding the rich plains to give birth to the rice-farms, and connecting cities and markets across the landscape more effectively than a paved road. |
Typical river scene, late 19th century.
Photo courtesy: Len McCann
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The Yellow River, thick with the yellowish silt that gives it a name, falls out of the plateaus south of the Gobi desert, cutting a 3,400-mile (5,464 kilometre) swath through the land. It is not a particularly navigable river for large craft, and from antiquity to now floods, spreading out across the marshy plains to create vast lakes. The Yangtze, the world’s third largest river (after the Amazon and the Nile), is fed by melting snow from the Tibetan alps, and falls dramatically from 16,000 feet to sea level on a long 3,900-mile (6,380 kilometre) course before reaching the East China Sea. Three spectacular river gorges, numerous cities and an expansive network of tributaries that drain 650,000 square miles (1.6 million kilometres) of land define the Yangtze as much as its fast, muddy brown waters.
It is those water links – rivers, streams and lakes, along with an intricate system of canals, that dominate China. Both rivers figure prominently in China’s history and economy, serving for millennia as highways for both trade and war. Because of their rivers, much like the Egyptians the Chinese worked their internal waters with riverine merchant craft and an inland navy. Chinese endeavours on the high seas, however, took thousands of years to unfold. |
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