IRRIGATION IN CHINA. 823 



Prince Houan-Kung, having obtained the supremacy in the king- 

 dom of Tchi, returned to the system of Tcheou-Kung in a modi- 

 fied form. He appointed a minister and other officers of waters, 

 who visited all parts of the country and attended to the execution 

 of the works needed to prevent the visitation of the two great 

 scourges of drought and floods. By these energetic measures 

 the kingdom of Tchi was made the richest state of the time. 

 When the Emperor Tsing-Tse-Houang, B. c. 250, reunited the 

 Chinese Empire, he made the lands free to all, and imposed a tax 

 instead of the cultivation of the ninth for the state. Previous to 

 this he had constructed the Tcheng-Ko Canal, to conduct water 

 from the King Eiver to the Pe Mountain, by the aid of which 

 some nine hundred thousand or one million acres of formerly 

 sterile land were made fertile, so as by its increased wealth great- 

 ly to aid him in transforming his kingdom into an empire. Un- 

 happily, he was dazzled by his great success. He allowed the 

 canals to be neglected, and the country in consequence fell from 

 its high estate of prosperity ; and, as it is related in one of our 

 historical books, " the dynasty of Tcheou, who founded the meth- 

 od of well -lands, survived for eight hundred years, with a happy 

 people and prosperous landholders. Tsing followed an opposite 

 policy, neglecting the canals ; and his family only reigned for 

 two generations, because so many of his people were ruined and 

 their hearts were turned away from it." Thus the utilization of 

 the waters had become a great political factor. This is not 

 strange, because the Chinese are eminently an agricultural people. 

 The system of Tsing was continued, except that the rate of taxa- 

 tion was reduced, under the Han dynasty, which arose 202 B. c. 

 But after about three hundred and fifty years a series of inunda- 

 tions — the first that had occurred in two thousand years, or since 

 Yu's time — began in the Yellow River and resisted all attempts 

 to check them until a thorough method was adopted, under the 

 direction of a special minister of hydraulic works. At the same 

 time the productiveness of the land reached by the new canals 

 was greatly increased. In the regions distant from the rivers 

 irrigating wells were dug, and a period set in of activity in hy- 

 draulic works and general use of water which has not been sur- 

 passed. 



The success of the proprietors who enjoyed the advantages of 

 the irrigation works encouraged others to construct similar ones, 

 each according to his means and for the advantage of his ten- 

 ants. This method differed from that of Tcheou. The distribu- 

 tion of the lands was more unequal, but the regulation of the 

 waters had been so perfected that the agriculture of the kingdom 

 received a decided impulse ; and China still has reason to thank 

 the authors of the transformation for the permanent benefits it 



