Ximen Bao

Ximen Bao was an ancient Chinese government minister and court advisor to Marquis Wen of Wei during the Warring States period of China. He was known as an early rationalist, who had the abolish by law the inhumane practice of sacrificing people to river deities. Although the earlier statesman Sunshu Ao is credited as China's first hydraulic engineer , Ximen Bao is nonetheless credited as the first engineer in China to create a large canal irrigation system.

Hydraulic engineering

Ximen Bao became well known in his lifetime and posthumously for his grandiose works in hydraulic engineering during the 5th century BC. He organized a massive diversion of the Zhang River , which had formerly flowed into the Huang He River at Anyang. The new course that the river took under his diversion project brought the river to meet the Huang He further down its course at a bend near modern-day Tianjin.

Work on the canal system began sometime between 403 BC and 387 BC, when Marquis Wen and his successor Marquis Wu reigned over the State of Wei. Due to several setbacks it was not fully completed until a century later, during the time of Wen's grandson, King Xiang . It was during this time that the Wei engineer Shi Chi completed the work of Ximen Bao.

In honor of the Zhang River diversion project, the local populace made a popular song about it, as recorded in the historical work of the later Han Dynasty historian Ban Gu.