Few rivers around the world possess a thousand-year hydrological
record except the Baiheliang on the Yangtze River. Baiheliang
(White Crane Ridge), now submerged under Three Gorges Reservoir
water, carries the earliest and lowest water hydrological
inscriptions, which record 1,200 consecutive years of water level
changes.
It's a 1,600-meter-long and 15-meter-wide rock ridge in
the Yangtze River to the north of Fuling District of Chongqing
Municipality. It was given the name because of the white cranes
that used to gather on it.
A collection of Chinese sculpture and
calligraphy
Before the Three Gorges Reservoir was filled, the rock
ridge was concealed underwater during summer and autumn periods. As
winter came and the water level dropped, the ridge would be
revealed.
Stone fish carvings, which were used for measuring water
levels from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) on could be seen when it
appeared in the dry season. The most attractive of them was a
2.8-meter-long, 0.95-meter-wide stone carp sculpture-in-the-round.
It used to be a long rock broken from the ridge. By the Qing
Dynasty (1644-1911), an unknown sculptor carved out a fish on it
with drill, knife and hammer. The fish was vividly depicted. Its
oval eyes, slightly opened lips, palpus, as well as its cheek, fin,
tail and even scales, were engraved in a subtle way. However, the
stiff tail made the fish not so dynamic.
To the east of the stone carp, there is a poem carved in a
straightforward and uninhibited way, reading "Since the stone carp
took its shape, it has jumped into the river where the flood dragon
lives. Continuous rains it has brought to people, and the moat
ridge it exposes." It could have been written in the Qing Dynasty.
To its west, there is a couplet: "White cranes perch on the ridge
creating a famous historical site, and stone fish jump out of the
water, predicting a good harvest year." This was done at the time
of the Republic of China (1912-1949). If one is lucky, you can see
the statue of Bodhisattva, who was said to be able to make an
unfortunate couple pregnant. In the western part of Baiheliang,
three paragraphs of inscriptions can be seen, which were carved in
1963 and the writer and calligrapher are still living today. In the
northern part of Baiheliang, inscriptions can be seen
everywhere.
The large inscription is about two meters square, while the
little one is no larger than 0.09 square meters. The inscription
records not only water level changes of the Yangtze River from the
1st year of Guangde of the Tang Dynasty to present, but
also crop harvests and failures, as well as official posts,
situations of the people and society and folk customs. More than
300 people have left their names on the ridge. Famous historical
figures such as Huang Tingjian, Zhu Ang, Chao Gongsu, all left ink
marks on the stone ridge. The calligraphy covers all kinds of
writing styles of China, including official script, seal character,
running script and characters executed swiftly and with strokes
flowing together; and in different genres: the Yan style (modeled
after Yan Zhenqing), the Liu style (modeled after Liu Gongquan),
the Ou style (modeled after Ouyang Xun), all from the Tang Dynasty,
and many others.
A favorite destination for visitors
Fuling is an ancient city with a long history. As early as 2,000
years ago, the Ba people set up their own state there.
Since the Three Gorges project started, Baiheliang has become
the focus of world attention. An old boatman said that in low water
season, one year, the ridge received 2,000 visitors a day. The
20-odd boats sailing between Baiheliang and the river bank had no
time to rest at all. All the boaters felt exhausted. "My arms ached
for days," the old boatman smiled while thinking of the generous
income that year.
Fuling city is famous for its preserved pickle. The Three Gorges
project helps people better understand the city. In fact,
Baiheliang was approved as a cultural relic under Sichuan
provincial protection in 1980. Eight years later, it became a key
unit under state protection.
In this gorgeous project, the Three Gorges area turned into the
largest archaeological site of the country and field of cultural
relic protection. Numerous cultural ruins above or below ground
were found to form a historical route on the development of the
Chinese nation in this area. The passage linked the Paleolithic
period to the present.
Earliest hydrological record
There are two stone carp carved out by a Tang Dynasty person who
didn't leave his name. The two fish are hard to see because only in
a very dry year do they appear above water. Fan Xipeng, a surveyor
at the end of the Qing Dynasty, in his "Notes of Watching Stone
Fish", told of the hardship in seeing the two fish: "The fish
appear when the river is shallow and dry, and the water may rise
and fall suddenly. And it disappears as quickly. For this reason,
some officials stationed here will never see the fish through their
post. Even elders living here for generations have never had the
chance to see them. As the fish appear, the elders haven't left
home, but when they get to the site, the fish sink again." In a
long period of time, it has been a great event in Fuling to see the
stone fish coming out of the water. Those who came to Baiheliang
not only wrote of the event, but also engraved the water level at
that time. The records increased with the ages, thus forming a
systematic note about low water levels in history.
In 1685, the pair of stone fish jumped out of the water. Xiao
Xinggong, then magistrate of the Fuzhou Prefecture, led his fellow
officials to watch. Seeing the carp had been blurred, he asked
stonecutters to carve and renew them. Hundreds of years later,
workers at the Chongqing Hydrological Station under the Yangtze
River Valley Planning Office measured the carp and found the
elevation of their eyes was 137.91 meters, almost the same as that
of the zero point of the modern water level gauge.
China's first water gauge was erected in Jianghan Pass of Wuhan
in 1865, but this pair of carp were under water for at least 1,100
year earlier.
At an international hydrological symposium held in Britain in
1970s, Chinese experts brought with them photos of these two fish
and hydrological data of Fuling for the past 1,200 years, which
shocked the participating hydrological masters from around the
world. Experts pointed out it was impossible for them today to
obtain experimental materials under national conditions for such a
long time no matter with what kind of simulated method.
Thanks should be given to cultural relic workers and
hydrological experts from Sichuan Province and Chongqing
Municipality, who made strenuous efforts in collecting all the
inscriptions on the Baiheliang. From these inscriptions, 114 were
to be hydrological data. Then they converted different units used
in different dynasties to mark the water level into what we now
use: the meter. As the two carp were carved on a slope with a 14.5
degrees angle, experts needed to turn the oblique distances into
vertical ones. When all this work was completed, cultural relic and
hydrological experts had a cycle period of low water on the upper
reaches of the Yangtze River for the past 1,200 years. They
concluded that every 3-5 years, there was a low water season, every
10 or 12 years, there was a dry season, and every 600 years there
was an extremely low water level.
These conclusions form the most systematic hydrological data of
the Yangtze River, and therefore, Baiheliang is called "the oldest
hydrological station in the world."
The two largest water conservancy projects of China: the
Gezhouba Hydropower Station and the Three Gorges Reservoir, both
consulted the hydrological data inscribed at Baiheliang.
Stone carp jumping out of water promises a good
harvest
There are many stone carvings in Three Gorges area to mark dry
seasons in the Yangtze River. Among the well-known ones are the
Ling (clever) stone of Chongqing, Longji (dragon ridge) stone of
Yunyang, Longchuang (dragon bed) stone of Fengdu, Yingchun
(greeting spring) stone of Baxian and Lianhua (lotus) stone of
Jiangjin. None of them compare with Baiheliang in artistic and
scientific value, for Baiheliang has the most complete and
systematic inscriptions.
About the old saying that "stone carp jumping out of water
promises a good harvest", some expert's research concludes it has a
scientific basis.
Analysis of relevant departments on hydrological data of the
trunk of the Yangtze River shows that the river experiences low
water and floods about every 10 years, which is identical with the
record of Baiheliang. The water level change is closely related
with annual rainfall. Sichuan Province saw severe drought years
before the stone carp appeared because the fish marked the lowest
water level. The year they came out signified the end of the dry
season. From then on, the water level would gradually rise. The
rising water level was largely contributed to by the increase in
rainfall, which certainly created favorable conditions for
agriculture.
Our ancestors were unaware of the scientific reason, just
thinking the stone carp brought to them a good harvest. They called
the carp "auspicious fish".
However, the emergence of the stone carp did not always bring
people happiness. Sometimes the river continued to be dry, and
sometimes it saw flood havoc. Therefore, Baiheliang also carried
poems to tell of the ominousness the fish might foretell.
Plan to protect Baiheliang discussed for 10 years
Since 1994, China's cultural relic protection departments have
researched how to protect Baiheliang. Experts have raised several
solutions, such as building an underwater museum, or reproducing it
and laying it on the bank but submerging the original one. Finally,
the solution issued by Prof. Ge Xiurun, academician of the Chinese
Academy of Engineering, was accepted.
He suggested the covering of the Baiheliang reef by a water
pressure-free container with an arch shape. Fresh water will be
instilled in the container, making the inside and outside water
pressure balanced. Two underwater channels will be built from the
riverbanks, so visitors can see the stone inscriptions on
Baiheliang by walking through the underwater channel.
Due to capital and technology limitations, however, the
container will be only 70 meters long and 25 meters wide. But it
includes the most valuable stone inscriptions of the eastern
section of Baiheliang. The relevant departments have also decided
to take underwater natural protection measures on a few
inscriptions in the western section. They will daub a layer of
protective chemical material on them first and then seal them with
a reinforcing steel bar, cement and mortar after.
The Baiheliang will no longer threaten navigation in the
Yangtze River as it is being submerged in the vast Three Gorges
Reservoir. As the Baiheliang ridge reaches 138 meters at its
peak height, it will be 30 meters below the final water surface of
175 meters when the entire project is finished by 2009.
(Beijing Youth Daily translated by Li Jinhui for
China.org.cn, October 17, 2003)