Controlling the Dragon

5. The Taoyuan Flood and the Zhongmou Debacle, 1842–1845

5 TheTaoyuan Flood and the Zhongmou Debacle, 1842–1845 The Qing river officials understood that Yellow River floods often came in series.1 In the wake of a flood, sedimentation raised the bed of the river and reduced the holding capacity of the area between the dikes. Although river officials carried out extensive dredging in the dry downstream bed, those measures were aimed at deepening the channel or cutting across meander loops to facilitate the flow. Little could be done to remove the millions of tons of silt deposited in other parts of the riverbed. When the river returned to its old course, it did so at a time when the flow was reduced and the reshaped and deepened channel could contain it. Danger came with the first high water. As the river overflowed its prescribed channel, it sometimes moved in unanticipated directions and eroded unprotected sections of the main dike. The reduced holding capacity of the area between the dikes could also bring floodwaters to the top of the dikes sooner than anticipated. Experienced officials like Linqing, head of the Jiangsu conservancy, were aware of those dangers and kept a close eye on the river as the first postrepair flood season approached. When the Yellow River settled into its old bed east of Xiangfu in the spring and summer of 1842, Linqing and others responsible for river control were distracted by the war with Britain. As British forces returned to the lower Yangzi region in the summer of 1842, top regional officials were called upon to assist in defense. The post of Yellow River–Grand Canal governor-general still retained military responsibilities arising from its origins in the Ming military structure. Linqing left behind his duties in the North and went south to defend the northern bank of the Yangzi. It proved to be an untimely distraction. Unable to carry out his usual careful 107 seasonal survey of the dikes, Linqing was forced to rely upon subordinates less skilled and possibly less conscientious than himself. The result was the second Yellow River flood in two years, a breach of the north dike near Taoyuan in northwestern Jiangsu. Taoyuan, 1842–1843 In the summer of 1842, unusually heavy seasonal rains and the sedimentation of the river channel resulting from the 1841 flood caused the waters of the Yellow River to rise to unprecedented heights. By midAugust the river was fourteen meters deep at the Xunhuang Dike, twothirds of a meter higher than the record set the previous year. Near dawn on August 22, 1842 (DG 22/7/17), a thunderstorm accompanied by high winds created huge waves, which smashed a hole in the north dike in Taoyuan County, northern Jiangsu Province.2 The floodwaters cut through the Grand Canal, traveled north and east to capture the Liutang and several smaller rivers, and disgorged into the sea some sixty kilometers north of the Yellow River’s normal outlet at Yuntiguan. When the storm abated, investigation revealed a gap of six hundred meters in the main dike. Compared to a cataclysm like Xiangfu, Taoyuan was a minor disaster. The area through which the floodwaters passed was sparsely inhabited.3 For the dynasty, the main issues were the cost of repairing the dike and the impact on Grand Canal transport. For Linqing, the Taoyuan flood brought the end of a long and successful period as head of the Jiangsu conservancy. Perhaps in deference to Linqing’s past successes, the emperor ordered only mild punishment— removal from office and loss of rank. More anomalous was the emperor’s injunction that Linqing, perhaps the dynasty’s most experienced and technically proficient hydraulic official, be excluded from all subsequent discussions on the handling of the Taoyuan breach.4 The exclusion of Linqing seems to offer further evidence of Daoguang’s deepening distrust of his hydraulic bureaucracy. The Taoyuan flood is also of interest for the debate it provoked over changing the river’s course. The prospect of abandoning the silted bed of the old course for a new, lower bed was appealing: grain boats could 108 TheTaoyuan Flood and the Zhongmou Debacle TheTaoyuan Flood and the Zhongmou Debacle 109 cross more easily, the water level in Lake Hongze could be lowered to relieve pressure on the Gaoyan Dike, and upstream floodwaters would drain to the sea more quickly.5 As tantalizing as the prospect of a ready-made solution was...