Dynamics (1160–1225,
Song dynasty). Flooding of the river has been the cause of millions of deaths The river has long been critical to the development of northern China, and is regarded by scholars as a
cradle of civilization. Flooding of the river has also caused much destruction, including multiple floods that have resulted in the deaths of over one million people. Among the deadliest were the
1344 Yellow River Flood, during the
Yuan dynasty, the
1887 flood during the
Qing dynasty which killed anywhere from 900,000 to 2 million people, and a
Republic of China era 1931 flood (part of
a massive number of floods that year that killed 1–4 million people). The cause of the floods is the large amount of
fine-grained loess carried by the river from the
Loess Plateau, which is continuously deposited along the bottom of its channel. The sedimentation causes natural dams to slowly accumulate. These subaqueous dams are unpredictable and generally undetectable. Eventually, the enormous amount of water needs to find a new way to the sea, forcing it to take the
path of least resistance. When this happens, it bursts out across the flat
North China Plain, sometimes taking a new channel and inundating most farmland, cities or towns in its path. The traditional Chinese response of building higher and higher
levees along the banks sometimes also contributed to the severity of the floods: When flood water did break through the levees, it could no longer drain back into the river bed as it would after a normal flood, as the river bed was sometimes now higher than the surrounding countryside. These changes could cause the river's mouth to shift as much as , sometimes reaching the ocean to the north of the
Shandong Peninsula and sometimes to the south. Another historical source of devastating floods is the collapse of upstream
ice dams in
Inner Mongolia with an accompanying sudden release of vast quantities of impounded water. There have been 11 such major floods in the past century, each causing tremendous loss of life and property. Nowadays, explosives dropped from aircraft are used to break the ice dams before they become dangerous. Before modern
dams appeared in China, the Yellow River used to be extremely prone to flooding. In the 2,540 years from 595 BC to 1946 AD, the Yellow River has been reckoned to have flooded 1,593 times, shifting its course 26 times noticeably and nine times severely. These floods include some of the deadliest
natural disasters ever recorded. Before modern disaster management, when floods occurred, some of the population might initially die from drowning and many more would suffer later from the ensuing famine and spread of diseases.
Cradle of civilization era, most of which are located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River In
Chinese mythology, the giant
Kua Fu drained the Yellow River and the
Wei River to quench his burning thirst as he pursued the Sun. Historical documents from the
Spring and Autumn period and
Qin dynasty indicate that the Yellow River at that time flowed considerably north of its present course. These accounts show that after the river passed
Luoyang, it flowed along the border between
Shanxi and
Henan Provinces, then continued along the border between
Hebei and Shandong before emptying into
Bohai Bay near present-day
Tianjin. Another outlet followed essentially the present course. The
Yu Gong records: "Guiding the River from Jishi, it reached Longmen; southward to Huayin; eastward to Dizhu; then further east to Mengjin; passing east of Luorui, it reached Dapei; crossing north of Jiang River, it reached the Great Plain; then spreading northward into nine channels, they merged into the Inverse River and entered the sea." The "Jishi" mentioned here refers to the
Amne Machin Mountains near present-day
Xunhua Salar Autonomous County in Qinghai Province. This passage describes how, below Longmen, the Yellow River flowed southward to
Huayin, then turned east, passing through Sanmen and
Mengjin where it joined the
Luo River. Continuing downstream, it passed north of
Dapei Mountain, crossed through the
Zhang River, and flowed northward east of present-day
Quzhou County in Hebei, before splitting into several branches that each emptied into the sea. The northernmost branch served as the main channel, turning south at present-day Shen County before heading east, following the Zhang River to the southwest of
Qing County, and then flowing northeast through the southeast of
Tianjin into the
Bohai Sea. Because this course is recorded in the
Yu Gong, it is known as the "Yu River."
Shift of the Yu River In the fifth year of the reign of
King Ding of Zhou (602 BC), the river left these paths and shifted several hundred kilometers to the east. the Yellow River burst its banks and changed course at Suxu Mouth in Liyang (southwest of present-day
Xun County, Henan), deviating from the original course of the Yu River. It then flowed into the sea at Zhangwu (northeast of present-day
Cang County, Hebei), marking the first major course change of the Yellow River recorded in history since Yu the Great tamed the floods. After the diversion at Suxu Mouth, the new channel ran roughly eastward from near Hua County, then northwest of Puyang in Henan, before turning northward; it bent east again north of Guan County in Shandong, then north again through Chiping, gradually shifting northward through Cangzhou in Hebei, and finally entering the Bohai Sea north of present-day Huanghua County in Hebei. Meanwhile, the original Yu River channel continued to carry water intermittently until it dried up completely in the middle of the
Warring States period. Sabotage of dikes, canals, and reservoirs and deliberate flooding of rival states became a standard military tactic during the
Warring States period. As the Yellow River valley was the major entryway to the
Guanzhong area and the
state of Qin from the
North China Plain, Qin heavily fortified the
Hangu Pass; it saw numerous battles and was also an important chokepoint protecting the
Han capitals of
Chang'an and
Luoyang. Major flooding in AD 11 is credited with the downfall of the short-lived
Xin dynasty, and another flood in AD 70 returned the river north of Shandong on essentially its present course. Breaches occurred regardless:
one at Henglong in 1034 divided the course into three and repeatedly flooded the northern regions of
Dezhou and
Bozhou. For the first time in recorded history, the Yellow River shifted completely south of
Shandong Peninsula and flowed into the
Yellow Sea. By 1194, the mouth of the Huai had been blocked. The buildup of silt deposits was such that even after the Yellow River later shifted its course, the Huai could no longer flow along its historic course, but instead, its water pools into
Hongze Lake and then runs southward toward the
Yangtze River. A flood in
1344 returned the Yellow River south of Shandong. The
Yuan dynasty was waning, and the emperor forced enormous teams to build new embankments for the river. The terrible conditions helped to fuel rebellions that led to the founding of the
Ming dynasty. The
1642 flood was man-made, caused by the attempt of the Ming governor of Kaifeng to use the river to destroy the peasant rebels under
Li Zicheng who had been besieging the city for the past six months. He directed his men to break the dikes in an attempt to flood the rebels, but destroyed his own city instead: the flood and the ensuing famine and plague are estimated to have killed 300,000 of the city's previous population of 378,000. The once-prosperous city was nearly abandoned until its rebuilding under the
Kangxi Emperor in the
Qing dynasty. The question of how aggressively flooding should be controlled, and whether it should be steered back to its original channels when it migrated, was a topic of controversy in the imperial court. Rival cliques made arguments based on budgetary, technical and strategic criteria. Geographer Charles Greer identifies two competing schools of thought on how to control the Yellow River. One, which he identifies as
Confucian, advocated containing the river between higher levees, thus maximizing the amount of river basin land that could be cultivated. The other, which he associates with
Taoism, favored lower levees separated by as much as 5–10 kilometers. In one particular long-running debate during the 11th century reigns of the
Renzong and
Shenzong emperors, when the river repeatedly broke its levees and migrated north and west, officials battled over whether expensive measures should be taken to return the river to its former channels. The Shenzong emperor ultimately decreed that the river be allowed to remain in its new course. Traditional
flood control techniques made use of
levees,
revetments to absorb the energy of the water, overflow basins, drainage canals and
polders. Treatises on traditional flood control techniques were written by officials such as
Pan Jixun, who argued that joining branches of the river increased the water's power and this in turn increased its ability to flush sediment. The difficult situation around the confluence of the Yellow River, the Huai, and the Grand Canal, however, still led to a major flood of the regional center
Sizhou and Pan's dismissal from court. Subsequently, the river's 1680 flood entirely submerged Sizhou and the nearby
Mausoleum to Ming Ancestors beneath Hongze Lake for centuries until modern irrigation and flood control lowered the water level enough to permit their excavation and the tombs' restoration starting from the 1970s.
19th century through present ,
Neimenggu), 1851 soldiers during the 1938 Yellow River flood.
Between 1851 and 1855, and is the
second-worst natural disaster in history (excluding famines and epidemics). The Yellow River more or less adopted its present course during the
1897 flood. Flooding in 1898 made entire communities in Shandong destitute. Along with the drought that followed and the increase in Christian missionary activity exacerbating social divisions in
rural China, the Yellow River flooding was a factor in the rise of the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists (
Boxer movement) and the
Boxer Rebellion. The
1931 flood killed an estimated 1,000,000 to 4,000,000, The Kuomintang government did not acknowledge responsibility for Huayuankou breach and the subsequent disaster, instead blaming Japanese warplanes for bombing the dikes. It sought to address both flooding risks and to convert rainfall-fed fields of the North China Plain to irrigated agriculture. ==Geography==