The area that now forms Hongze Lake was an inlet of the
East China Sea about 2 million year ago before being closed in by sediment from the
Huai and other nearby rivers. Under the
Sui, the Hangou Canal and lake were connected to other waterways north and south to create the
Grand Canal. During an inspection tour in 616,
Emperor Yang renamed Pofu Hongze in his delight at the rain that greeted his arrival there, the rest of the countryside having suffered a drought. When it further expanded under the
Tang, it became known as Hongze Lake. A massive flood of the
Yellow River redirected it south of
Shandong in 1128 or 1194,
following the course of the
Si to join the Huai below
Huaiyin. The silt from the Yellow River began to obstruct the flow of the Huai and
started to expand Hongze still farther, ultimately quadrupling its original size. During this period, it became an important fishery and center of irrigated cropland. It still forms the origin point of the
North Jiangsu Main Irrigation Canal. Under the
Yuan, the course of the Grand Canal in the area was straightened to circumvent the lake. and
Yellow Rivers flowing around
Sizhou and the
Ming Zuling into Hongze Lake, from the
Siku Quanshu edition of
Pan Jixun's
Overview of River Management. Both Sizhou and the tomb were entirely submerged beneath Hongze Lake during a subsequent flood in 1680. Under the
Hongwu Emperor, the first
emperor of the
Ming dynasty, the
Ming Zuling garment tomb was built near the regional center
Sizhou to
honor his ancestors, whom he posthumously elevated to imperial status. Under his son the
Yongle Emperor, the Gaojia Weir was further expanded, in part to protect the site. In
Wanli 7 (c.1579),
Pan Jixun enlarged and reinforced the weir with stone along its then of length. His mismanagement of the area's difficult hydrology allowed Sizhou to flood and threatened the tombs, leading to his demotion and dismissal. By the
Qing, the Yellow River had built up enough silt that it
changed course again to merge with earlier tributaries of the Huai. In
Kangxi 16 (), the
viceroy of rivers Jin Fu Jìn Fǔ, 16331692) extended the embankments from
Zhouqiao to
Jiangba Jiǎngbà). A few years later in 1680, the increased silting produced enlarged Hongze Lake so much that it entirely consumed Sizhou and the Ming Zuling. The
Kangxi and
Qianlong Emperors continued the expansion and reinforcement of the Gaojia Weir, reaching and completing the modern Hongze Lake Embankment. Altogether, from
Wanli 3 () to
Xianfeng 5 (), the Gaojia Weir and Hongze Embankment burst 140 times, involving breaches in 300 different sections. During the worst breaches, the lake level fell as much as . On one occasion in the 19th century, the
Daoguang Emperor held the
Jiangnan river supervisor Zhang Wenhao Zhāng Wénhào, d.1836) in chains at the repair site for a month during repairs necessitated by his mismanagement of when the dams need to be closed and opened; he was then dismissed to serve in the
Xinjiang border guards. For their part, local people made prayers and offerings to nine
dragons jiǔ lóng) near Zhouqiao for protection; the
temple was lost in a flood. In the early 1850s, the massive floods of the Yellow River that occasioned the
Taiping Rebellion restored the Yellow River entirely to its northern course, finally removing its inflow and siltation from the lake. Under the
People's Republic of China, counties in Anhui that bordered the lake were ceded to Jiangsu in 1955 to allow unified administration of the lake. By the early 1960s, its water level had dropped enough that the stone statues of the Ming Zuling's
sacred way were again visible along the shoreline. After the end of the
Cultural Revolution, the provincial and national cultural preservation authorities excavated and restored the tombs, ultimately erecting a new
embankment to protect it from any further flooding. In 1966, 1976, and 1985, the Hongze Embankment itself was reinforced and improved with more modern engineering and materials, particularly with additional barriers to break up the force of the rivers' and lake's waves against the levees. ==References==