Yellow River historical events, flow places, origins, folk stories, myths and legends, historical figures, sayings, proverbs, idioms, poems, songs, ballads, current situation

(Reprint)

1. The fifth longest river in the world

The Yellow River, the fifth longest river in the world, is a 5,464-kilometer-long river that meanders in northern China. . Viewed from a high altitude, it looks like a huge "ji", and it is also the unique totem of our nation.

2. Characteristics of the Yellow River

It is not just a big river. The Yellow River, the yellow land, the emperor, and the yellow skin, all these yellow symbols sublimate this turbid current flowing through the heart of China into a holy river. "Han Shu." The Yellow River is regarded as the first among hundreds of rivers in the "Gou Xiu Zhi": "There are hundreds of river sources in China, and they are not located in the four rivers, but the river is the ancestor."

3. The theory of loess custom

< p>In ancient geological times, in the Gobi desert in inland Asia, sand and gravel everywhere were disintegrated and crushed in the harsh environment of sudden cold and heat until they formed powder. The prevailing northwest air current in the inland blows them to the east over the years. The coarse sand falls on the Mongolian Plateau, and the finest powder falls with the wind to today's six provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Henan. After millions of years of transportation and accumulation, a loess plateau stretching from the Great Wall in the north to the Qinling Mountains in the south, to the Riyue Mountain in the west and to the Taihang Mountain in the east was finally formed.

4. Deep and vast loess layer

This is an unparalleled loess, covering an area of ??410,000 square kilometers, and the loess coverage thickness is generally more than 100 meters. In places such as Longdong, Shaanxi, and western Shanxi, the loess is 100 to 200 meters deep, and in Lanzhou it is more than 300 meters thick.

The Garden of Eden five or six thousand years ago

Botanists have found that although the rainfall on the Loess Plateau is not as abundant as in the south, the leaching loss of nutrients is also less, making it very suitable for Poplar, birch, oak, pitch pine, spruce, wild jujube, yellow vitex, etc. grow. The lush vegetation at that time maintained a warm and rainy Garden of Eden. Today, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and other provinces are covered with large areas of virgin forest. Henan Province, located in the Central Plains, is called "Yu" for short, which shows that it was still a place where elephants roamed in the era when Cangjie coined the Chinese character.

6. The basis of historical prosperity

Geologists have discovered that loess has excellent solution properties and is suitable for digging cave dwellings; agriculturists have discovered that various mineral nutrients in loess Rich, with high natural fertility. The ancestors gradually dug cave dwellings to live in this piece of yellow land and grew grains to make a living. More than 5,000 years ago, the tribes of Emperor Yandi flourished, and the footprints of Chinese ancestors traveled all over the loess land. In the days that followed, China's first dynasty, Xia, flourished here, the Zhou Dynasty, which had been founded for 800 years, originated here, and the Qin Empire, which swept across Liuhe and unified the world, also flourished here.

7. The Enlightenment of Ancient Era Civilization

In the ruins of human activities in Xihoudu, Ruicheng, Shanxi more than 1.6 million years ago, people found animal fossils and antlers that had been burned by fire. , in the human ruins of Lantian, Shanxi Province 1 million years ago, people found many carbon powder accumulations.

Since then, people from Lantian, Dali, Dingcun and Hetao have all thrived in the arm bay of the Yellow River. Until 6,000 years ago, matrilineal clan culture represented by the Banpo Civilization appeared on the loess.

Our ancestors spent their golden childhood of Chinese civilization hunting and gathering in such a green field.

8. History describes the achievements of transforming nature

This is indeed the first place to be bathed in the light of civilization, and it is inevitable that it is also the first to be exposed to the fire of civilization. According to ancient legend, Shennong once taught the people how to farm. What is intriguing is that Shennong was Emperor Yan, the God of Fire, and what he taught was actually burning forests for reclamation.

"Mencius" records the "accomplishments" of the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors in burning mountains and forests: "In the time of Yao... the vegetation was luxuriant, the animals multiplied, the grains were not harvested, and the animals overran people... Yao was the only one worried about it. , Shun used it to cure it. Shun made Yi hold the fire and burned it, and the animals fled. "

In the Book of Songs, we heard the singing of the ancestors when they were cutting down the trees. The sandalwood was cut down and the river was clear and rippling. "The trees were cut and the birds were chirping."

9. The vegetation on the Loess Plateau was severely damaged for the first time.

The First Emperor unified the six countries, and a large number of people moved into Guanzhong, and the cultivated area increased greatly.

At the same time, he carried out large-scale construction projects, built palaces and mausoleums, and cut down forests in the mountains of Guanzhong. In the thirty-third year of the First Emperor (214 BC), Meng Tian defeated the Xiongnu and obtained a large area of ????land in the Hetao area. Later, he implemented reclamation and border garrison, and repeatedly invaded Ordos. Immigrants to the plateau area, numbering as many as hundreds of thousands at a time, turned the originally endless grasslands into farming areas.

10. The Loess Plateau forest was severely damaged for the second time

During the Western Han Dynasty, the world was under great rule, and China's population surged to 60 million. Immigration to the northwest became the main means to solve the pressure of population expansion. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty alone, more than 700,000 people migrated to the northwest frontier. The Western Han Dynasty drove the Huns to the distant Mobei and turned large areas of forest and pastoral areas into farming areas. The Yellow River diversion irrigation project developed in the Hetao in the Western Han Dynasty came at the expense of the Helan Mountain Forest in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia and the forest in northern Shaanxi.

11. The Loess Plateau forest was severely damaged for the third time

At the beginning of the founding of the Tang Dynasty, they made great efforts to govern and the economy recovered rapidly. Since the center of its economic, trade, and diplomacy is located in the northwest, farming and reclamation in the northwest has been vigorous. Large tracts of farmland have been opened up in the forest and pastoral areas of the Loess Plateau, with hundreds of thousands of acres under cultivation. There are 200 to 300 acres of cultivated land per ding, and extensive planting and poor harvest have resulted in widespread destruction of vegetation.

Chang'an, the central city of the Loess Land, was the capital of the Tang Dynasty. At the height of the Tang Dynasty, national power reached its peak, the scale of the capital was of course unprecedented, and countless amounts of wood were consumed. As far as the vicinity of Chang'an is concerned, in the Tang Dynasty, in addition to logging in Baoji, Mei County, Zhouzhi, Hu County and other nearby mountains, people also went as far as Qishan, Longshan, Lanzhou (today's Lan County) and Shengzhou (today's Er'er in Inner Mongolia). Dos Plateau area) purchase.

12. The Loess Plateau forest was severely damaged for the fourth time

The capital of the Song Dynasty was Kaifeng, because the mountains north and south of the Yellow River near Luoyang had long been cleared, and they had to go to Luliang Mountain. During the logging period, the forest areas in the upper reaches of the Wei River were also violently plundered. According to historical records, as soon as the Northern Song Dynasty was founded, there was a large-scale logging between Qin and Long. Forests in the Qinling, Ziwuling, and Luoshan Mountains in Shaanxi, the Helan Mountains and Dapan Mountains in Ningxia, and the Mahe and Longnan mountains in Gansu were successively destroyed. Officials and merchants of the Song Dynasty harvested more than 10,000 large trees from Longshan between Shaanxi and Gansu alone every year. At that time, there were mountains of good wood in Kaifeng City, and countless private traders purchased and sold wood.

13. The Loess Plateau forest was severely damaged for the fifth time

The Ming Dynasty regained control of the northwest and attached great importance to farming in order to support the army and subordinate the people to the army. At that time, "fields were cultivated all over the world", "but the northwest was the most important". In the early Ming Dynasty, when we were stationed near the Yanmen and Pianguan Great Walls, there were steep mountains and lush forests. "There were only a few people walking on foot, and it was impossible to enter by horseback." In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Beijing's high-ranking officials, border officers and soldiers, and local residents gathered to cut down trees. "Hundreds of families gathered in groups, and thousands of people were neighbors. They could not drive them away, and they could not follow them." There are more than a million forest trees trafficked to Beijing every year.

14. The forests of the Loess Plateau were severely damaged for the sixth time

The Manchus entered the customs and recuperated in just a few decades, and the population increased from 80 million to 200 million. North China and Jiangnan were overcrowded, so a large number of refugees spontaneously flocked to the northwest. The Loess Plateau once again became the hardest hit area. Before the Ming Dynasty, Qilian Mountain and Liupan Mountain had giant trees, but now they were completely bare mountains.

Today, fifteen or six thousand years later, the forest has dropped from 69% to 6%.

Today, six thousand years later, the forest has dropped from 69% to 6%, becoming a veritable forest. loess. The loess itself is loose and does not have any resistance to erosion. It relies entirely on the protection of ground vegetation and its root system. The role of plants in soil and water conservation is greatest in forests, followed by grasslands, and crops are almost zero. For thousands of years, we have been clearing away protective natural vegetation and replacing it with non-protective crops.

Sixteen, woohoo! Yellow River!

Woohoo! For thousands of years, we have destroyed the natural vegetation in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River with swords, axes and fires of war. It’s a pity that all the trees were cut down to build countless magnificent palaces, but where are they now?

The yellow soil is both deep and fragile. Because the soil is loose and has fine particles, once the vegetation is destroyed, soil erosion will be extremely serious. Soon we heard a sad sigh: "As long as the river is clear, how long will a human life be?"

17. Destruction of vegetation on the Loess Plateau and deep ravines

Currently the length of the plateau is 1 kilometer There are more than 300,000 ravines above, and there are countless branch gullies and hair gullies under 1 km.

The final destination of the ravines is the Yellow River. They continue to cut the Loess Plateau and become the main source of sediment in the Yellow River.

18. The vegetation on the Loess Plateau has been destroyed, and the ecological environment is not what it used to be.

Walking on the wilderness we call the Loess Plateau today, you can see rugged, cracked, and fragmented loess. , there are no trees, or even grass. How many people have deeply lamented: How could the ancestors of mankind produce such a splendid civilization in such a harsh natural environment?

What they don’t realize is that green was the dominant color here until 6,000 years ago, when the forest coverage rate here was as high as 69%.

19. A heavy rain caused a huge change in the terrain

With the decline in vegetation coverage, the rivers and gullies on the plateau were strongly incised. While extending upward, the sides were also widening, and A branch ditch develops, and the branch ditch develops into a hair ditch. Such changes often only take years, months, days or even a heavy rain to complete. Therefore, the Loess Plateau is also known as the area with the most rapid terrain change in the world.

In the 20th century, 1.6 billion tons of sediment were dumped every year, 90% of which came from the Loess Plateau.

1.6 billion tons of sediment were dumped every year, and 90% came from these gullies on the Loess Plateau. The 1.6 billion tons of soil lost every year does more than just dye a river a shocking yellow. It flows down with the water, silting up lakes, breaking through hills, raising river beds, and cleaning up plains.

Twenty-one, two breaches in three years, a major change of course in a century

The Yellow River became violent day by day, "two breaches in three years, a major change of course once in a century", the mother river finally became " China's worries". The fight against floods in the Yellow River has become a top priority for life and death in the Central Plains.

22. Guarding against water shortages in the Yellow River, Zhengzhou can be an example in the middle reaches

Zhengzhou was originally prosperous because of water. It is adjacent to the Yellow River, as well as the Jialu River, Xiong'er River, and Jinshui River. It flows through the city. However, with the huge development of industry and agriculture, pollution has become increasingly serious, water diversion channels are crisscrossed, and three rivers that once flowed endlessly have dried up. By the 1970s, Zhengzhou was completely dependent on the Yellow River for water supply.

23. Shandong is short of water. The closer it is to the Yellow River, the more water it is.

Shandong’s water resources situation is even more tense. Its population and cultivated land account for 7.2% and 7% of the country’s total respectively. .3%, while the total water resources account for only 1.2% of the country. Per capita water resources are only 300 cubic meters, which is 13.3% of the national per capita level. Each hectare of cultivated land occupies 4,560 cubic meters of water, which is 17.3% of the country's total. The closer we get to the Yellow River, the more scarce the water resources become. The runoff depth in the Yellow River area drops to only 60 mm, and in Linqing and Guanxian areas in northwest Shandong, it is only 25 mm.

Song: Yellow River

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