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| Joys and sorrows in the process from failure to success |
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| First Bamboo Cages |
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| In the process of building the Dujiangyan Project, Li Bing went to investigate the land shapes and water condition around Min River and worked out his plans. However, the greatest difficulty arised that what kind of material can be used in the project. Li Bing split the river into two parts, but the part that was suppose to flow into the fields was higher than the other side, so very little water went there. He changed his plan a bit. He decided to build a man-made island levee to separate the two parts and force more water to go into the Bottleneck. Using some concepts of physics, he made the man-made island curved so the water would travel faster. Building a man-made island in the middle of the river also proved difficult. Li Bing tried to construct the base using pebbles and clay, but the water washed them away. He tried using huge boulders, but when the floods came, even these were scattered. Li Bing was stuck with this problem. One day, as he was walking by a small stream, he saw women had put in the stream bamboo cages with clothes waiting to be washed. Even fast waters didn't move them. This gave him a brilliant idea. He had men construct huge bamboo cages, each several dozen meters long, and placed boulders inside them. He made hundreds of these, and dropped them in the middle of the river.
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In this way, nothing could move it. This method was widely used in the project afterwards and it played very important roles in building dams and fish mouth. This project has been bringing benefits to both discharge of water and irrigation of farmlands. It made great contribution to the prosperity of Chengdu Plain, which has always been praised by the people.
Written by: Luo Man and Dong Ting |
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