No city in the world has been repeatedly flooded like Kaifeng, but it can still rise again and again. The flood brought endless disasters to Kaifeng and buried countless romantic stories underground. Every rise and fall of Kaifeng is closely related to the flood.
The ancient city of Kaifeng was flooded for the first time, which should be a famous man-made disaster in history. In 775 AD, Wang Ben flooded the girder. At that time, the girder of Dewey, the richest city in China, was suddenly in ruins, and Wang Sun, the son of Wei, became a prisoner. Kaifeng city gradually declined from prosperity. Sima Qian went to Daliang to explore the road, looking for the footprints of Xinlingjun, and lamented that Daliang City had become a market in Daliang.
After the looting in Jin and Yuan Dynasties, Xian Tong, the largest city in the world, and Bianjing, the richest city in the world, began to decline, but it was the flood or man-made disaster that really brought Kaifeng down. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the peasant rebels in Li Zicheng attacked Kaifeng, and met with desperate resistance. Kaifeng failed in March. Later, some people thought that a dying loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty or a vicious Li Zicheng Rebel committed a crime. Historical records are controversial. It is better to record both sides than to dig the Yellow River levee, but no matter who they are, they are unforgivable criminals. After the Yellow River burst, just like after the flood, only 20,000-30,000 people escaped from Kaifeng City. Kaifeng City is not only a ruin, but also a hell on earth. Kaifeng City was buried several meters underground by yellow sand, and even the tall Maitreya Buddha in Suoguo Temple could only see its head and fingers, as if in silence for the victims. Nowadays, the octagonal glazed hall of Suoguo Temple is mostly buried underground, and later generations try to improve it.
The cruelty of this flood is even worse than the trampling of Kaifeng by the iron hoof of Jin and Yuan Dynasties. In the Ming Dynasty, there were records about Kaifeng, such as Bianhe River and Caihe River, but the Bianhe River was silted up by the Yellow River, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was diverted. Since then, the prosperous Bianliang River has never recovered, and countless places of interest and cultural heritage have been destroyed or buried underground. In the Ming Dynasty, there were Yishan, Genyue, Zishengge and Jinmingchi. It is conceivable that the Yellow River flooded the capital of song dynasty, far exceeding the flood of Qin dynasty, which at least did not affect the wide Pengze.
The indomitable, anxious and unyielding spirit of the whole nation led by Chiang Kai-shek is admirable, but the practice of tearing apart the Yellow River levee and causing hundreds of thousands of people to be displaced in eastern and southern Henan is not acceptable. Although the flood was not as good as Kaifeng in the late Ming Dynasty, it did bring endless suffering to the people in the Yellow River region, and at the same time failed to achieve the goal of using water as a soldier to stop the Japanese invaders.
After Kaifeng was flooded in the late Ming Dynasty, Kaifeng was flooded by the Yellow River seven times, but the harm was relatively small. Countless heroes worked tirelessly to control water, and national hero Lin Zexu managed the Yellow River with Kaifeng people on his way to exile in Yili. The 36 heroes who managed the Yellow River are still enshrined in Kaifeng Ancient Blowing Platform, which is admired by future generations.
After liberation, ensuring the An Lan of the Yellow River has always been a top priority in Kaifeng. In recent years, due to a large number of upstream interceptions, the headwaters of the Yellow River are desertified, and the Yellow River has been cut off almost every year, and the threat of the Yellow River to Kaifeng has been minimized. However, the flood is greater than the sky, and the harm of the Yellow River has never slackened. When Xiaolangdi Reservoir was put into use, it shouted the slogan of resisting the once-in-a-thousand-year flood, but it washed away the Lankao levee close at hand. When Sanmenxia Reservoir was completed, everyone cheered that the Yellow River was about to clear. The Yellow River silt silted up the reservoir for ten years, and it poured into the fertile Weihe River basin. Mao Zedong called for countless grandiloquence all his life, but the old man was worried when the Yellow River was hanging. When the river bank rose, it would be the end!
Today, the Yellow River management has entered the high-tech era, and human beings have more coping strategies for the Yellow River. The flood of the Yellow River in Kaifeng seems to have become a thing of the past, and the last threat of the Yellow River water to Kaifeng has a history of one hundred years. Last year, someone dug a hole hundreds of meters long on the last levee barrier to prevent the Yellow River water from entering Kaifeng, which shocked Kaifeng citizens. I don't forget the past, but I still want to tell people that harnessing the Yellow River and doing well in the three dikes are still the most important things that Kaifeng, which is rising, can't forget.
May the Yellow River always be An Lan, and Kaifeng, which was originally submerged by the Yellow River, once again embark on its glory.