ABSTRACT

The origin of water-control works in China is traditionally linked with the historical fiction of the great Yu and the half-fiction of the Well-land System of ancient China. Enthusiasm in the field of textual criticism of the classics by Chinese scholars has produced interesting and illuminating results. Pending confirmation from archaeological excavations and allowing for new interpretative insights which may alter the conclusions without new evidence, the best conclusions of recent textual criticism can justifiably be treated as no more than valuable hypothesis. Chinese scholars always refer to the irrigation system of ancient China as the “System of Ditches and Furrows,” which is regarded as an integral part of the “Well-land System” of ancient China, particularly of the Chou period. The “Well-land System” has been a subject of bitter controversy ever since it was first described by Mencius. Traditional Chinese scholars who regard Mencius as correct in every detail have evidently placed their loyalty to the master of historical scholarship.