A Town Surrounded By Waters,Looks Like Floating When Standing On A High Place

Hankow,one of the three towns of Wuhan municipality,is a town that has a close relationship with water.It is named after water,and it is also made by water.Water causes a lot of problems to the town,especially in the floods,at the same time it brings a lot of historical opportunities to Hankow.Hankow developed very fast,since the mid-Ming dynasty,but it has faced threats of floods all the time.This paper examines floods in Hankow from the early Chenghua reign of the Ming to the late Qing dynasty,and analyzes the causes and calamities of frequent floods in Hankow.This paper argues that frequent floods in Hankow are due to its situation in the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Han River,the low-lying topology,heavy rain in summer,and so on.The floods in Hankow have been harmful to the safety of local people's lives and property,and the development of.the town as well.Hankow has been fighting against floods.Building dikes is the most important measure for Hankow to prevent floods.This paper takes Yuangong Dyke,Hankow Fort,Zhanggong Dyke as examples,and it points out that the constructions of these three dikes were to prevent the floodwater from the north.Not only did people focus on flood control,but also took military and economic initiatives into account,when constructing these dikes.In addition,the problems of fund and technology in the construction of these dikes were different,and their solutions and consequences were also different.The local government of Hankow and the merchants were actively involved in the process of disaster reliefs after floods.In the late Qing dynasty,as a city elite,merchants played a more and more important role in such enterprise.During the late Qing dynasty,disaster relief in Hankow did not go beyond a traditional framework,but it was already reshaped largely by the West technology and thought,with activism of merchants in this realm.All these indicated that disaster relief in Hankow in the late Qing was in midway between tradition and modernity...