Controlling the Dragon

3. Confucian Engineers

3 Confucian Engineers When the Daoguang emperor took the throne in 1821, he was determined that the incessant flooding of the Yellow River during Jianqing ’s reign would not be repeated while he was on the throne. Daoguang set out to restore the system, first allowing hydraulic officials of proven ability to take charge but later raising a new generation of technical experts to top posts. For the hydraulic officials placed in charge of Yellow River control in the 1830s, Li Yumei in Henan and Linqing in Jiangsu, the dilemmas of late imperial river control represented a promising but risky career opportunity. Technical mastery gave them access to a high rank that they could retain only if they succeeded in keeping the unpredictable Yellow River in check. The two men came to their positions by very different career paths, but both were innovators and both believed they could intervene to correct weaknesses in the hydraulic system. They differed in the solutions they proposed. Li Yumei fought for technical innovations that he believed would strengthen river construction and reduce costs. Linqing sought to improve administrative efficiency by raising the level of technical proficiency among hydraulic officials. The careers of the two also came to very different conclusions. Li died in office and later was acclaimed a god; Linqing saw his career cut short when a dike collapsed and spent his last years in reluctant retirement. What distinguished both was a missionary zeal for the task and an unflagging optimism about what could be achieved in the daunting struggle against the river. The second decade of Daoguang’s reign was a portentous one. The opium trade was flourishing, and alarm over domestic opium addiction was growing. Foreign traders and missionaries were increasingly restive at being confined to the southern port of Guangzhou. In 1830 Lin Zexu 42 (1785–1850) completed the three years of mourning for the death of his father and returned to continue a parabolic bureaucratic career that culminated in China’s humiliating defeat in the Opium War (1839–1842). In 1836 a hopeful young Hakka scholar named Hong Xiuquan (1813–1864), while in Guangzhou for the xiucai exam, was given a set of Christian religious tracts that planted the seeds of the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). Yet few had any inkling of the cataclysms that awaited, and imperial attention remained firmly fixed on well-established priorities. One of the most important among those was the Grand Canal–Yellow River hydraulic system. Li Yumei and Engineering Innovation in Henan On the seventeenth day of the second month of the twentieth year of the Daoguang reign (March 20, 1840), governor-general of the Henan Conservancy Li Yumei was inspecting the Yellow River’s southern dike near Hujia village when he became ill after eating a large lunch. His condition worsened in the afternoon and he died that same evening, at age sixtytwo . Traditional biographies of Chinese notables often border on hagiography , but it is evident from the honors and popular approbation heaped posthumously upon him that Li Yumei’s long career in Henan and Shandong earned him a reputation for competence and integrity.1 Li Yumei apprenticed for the post of governor-general of the Henan conservancy by serving in a wide range of bureaucratic positions in the Yellow River region. A bagong of 1801, his first appointment was as magistrate of Wuzhi County in Henan. The remainder of his career was spent almost entirely along the river in Henan and Shandong, a fact that gave Li familiarity with both the gentry and the geography of the region. Along the way he showed a predilection for hydraulic engineering, but he also demonstrated competence in fiscal administration, labor management, and disaster relief.2 Beginning with the magistracy at Wuzhi, many of Li Yumei’s postings involved performing jobs related to river conservancy, from gathering matériel to construction of river works. Li had also seen firsthand the consequences of hydraulic failure. In 1815 he was charged with assessing the silt damage to fields caused by the Suizhou flood of 1813. Li requested tax relief for the region, organized the rebuilding of the Suizhou city wall, Confucian Engineers 43 and arranged work relief (yigong daizhen) for displaced peasants. After the Maying breach of 1819, Li was again assigned to assess disaster conditions . He later worked as an assistant in the central office in charge...