"Happy Canal": Red Water Conservancy Project in Yan'an Period

The former site of the Zaoyuan Revolution in Yan'an was the seat of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee from October 1943 to March 1947. During this period, the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee continued to lead the rectification movement of the whole party and the mass production movement of the army and the people in the liberated areas. In the former revolutionary site, there is a canal called "Happiness Canal" (Peizhuang Canal) that crosses the jujube garden. Although the canal is not long, it is a historical witness of the mass production movement and the spirit of Yan'an.
It is unreliable to depend on the weather for food. The Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border region is located in the northwest, with less rain and more wind, and is often subject to drought. The so-called "a small drought in three years and a major drought in ten years". In addition, the border area is vast and sparsely populated, and most of the agricultural production still uses fairly primitive and crude technologies and tools. Therefore, the harvest of the masses here every year is almost entirely determined by the amount of rainfall, which shows that it is unreliable to rely on the weather for food in this place.
However, trying to increase agricultural harvest by building water conservancy is not easy in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region. First of all, historically, there have been three water conservancy projects in northern Shaanxi, but these three times have failed without exception. In the view of the local people, it is better to open up wasteland than to build water conservancy, which costs both labor and money. Therefore, at the beginning of the construction of the Peizhuang Canal in Yan'an City, the local people also doubted whether the water conservancy project could be effective. Some said, "It's too difficult to repair water. If you don't succeed, you'll spend money for nothing." Others said, "if you tidy up a lot of water, you might as well open three or four fields of wasteland to fight for more than one mile!" Some people even hold such an attitude that they would rather leave the land than share the repair costs.
In view of these situations, in-depth publicity and explanation work has become a prerequisite. The border region government used a lot of propaganda methods to explain to the masses why water conservancy projects are built and the benefits of water conservancy projects, and at the same time publicize scientific and technological knowledge to them. Among them, educating the masses with concrete and vivid examples is undoubtedly the only choice to gain the real trust and support of the masses. The construction of the Peizhuang canal bears the mission of such a demonstration water conservancy project. The significance of building it is to break the wrong views of the general public on water conservancy construction, show them to the people in the border areas and tell them that it is not difficult to build water conservancy. Only the construction of water conservancy is an important way to prevent drought, and it is possible to increase agricultural income and achieve adequate food and clothing.
The construction of water conservancy should be "everyone's hands". The Peizhuang Canal in Yan'an City was built under the leadership of the government of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and extensively mobilized the people nearby. In order to build this canal, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Construction Department still allocated 4000 yuan despite extreme financial difficulties, and assigned Ding Zhongwen, a border region water conservancy expert who graduated from Beiyang Institute of Technology (the predecessor of Tianjin University), to be responsible for the survey and design and guide the local people to build it. Due to the lack of scientific and technical personnel at that time, except Ding Zhongwen, the other workers and peasants who participated in the design and construction were all cadres who had no scientific knowledge of civil engineering. As a result, Ding Zhongwen taught hand in hand, and finally made everyone learn to use instruments, design dam sites and other scientific knowledge. In the absence of financial resources and modern building materials, Ding Zhongwen worked with everyone to find a way. They overcame the difficulties by using local materials, using gravel dams to block water and using wooden boards as shutters. Under such difficult and difficult objective conditions, the construction of the Peizhuang Canal in Yan'an City started in August 1939 and the main project was completed before the land was frozen in November. The construction will continue after thawing in March of the following year, and the construction will be completed at the end of April and the sluice gate will be opened to release water.
In addition to direct funding, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government also mobilized nearby people to buy shares at 2 yuan per mu of land, and established the Peizhuang Canal Water Conservancy Cooperative, and the people participating in the water conservancy cooperative democratically elected as the director, accounting, publicity, organization, and The five committee members of the project are responsible for the care and irrigation of the canal.
In order to improve the utilization rate of Peizhuang Canal and educate the masses with "visible" harvest fruits, since 1942, the Construction Department of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government has also sent technical staff to form the Peizhuang Water Conservancy Management Office, which personally operates the Zaoyuan 30 acres farm. Due to good management, it took only 7 months to make a profit of 45700 yuan.
The first test of "new water conservancy project. The construction of water conservancy is an important part of the development of agricultural production in the economic construction of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. It is also the exploration and practice of the Chinese Communists using scientific and technological means to protect and transform the agricultural environment in the Border Region. This is a great innovation in the Border Region. Therefore, at the beginning of the construction of the Peizhuang Canal in Yan'an City, it was praised as a "new water conservancy project" by the "New China News", saying that "this is the first test in the border area".
Of course, the exploration and practice of water conservancy in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region has not been smooth. In fact, less than two months after the completion of the Peizhuang Canal, that is, at the end of June 1940, the counties near Yan'an City were hit by mountain torrents. "when the mountain torrent broke out, the water head was about 20 feet high, and tens of thousands of jin of boulder and a tree with a diameter of 2 feet were pulled up and rolled down, with a greater impact." The raging mountain torrents directly caused the destruction of the Peizuangqu Dam, which was not long completed.
Although the Peizhuang Canal was severely affected by mountain torrents this time, with the active efforts of the Border Region Government Construction Department and the local people, construction started again in October of the same year in accordance with the principle of "small expenses and large results. This reconstruction of the canal has learned from the previous experience and lessons, and paid attention to combining the content of the new method with the specific local conditions and the historical experience of the people, and renovating the canal inlet. With the joint efforts of the army and the people, the new Peizhuang Canal was completed on April 19, 1941.
The "happiness canal" is endless. After completion, the Peizhuang Canal in Yan'an City has passed through Miaozui, Mojiawan, Zaoyuan and Houjiagou from Peizhuang to Yangjiaya, with a total length of about 6 kilometers and an irrigated area of 1500 mu. As the canal with the largest irrigation area in the extended sub-district of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, according to statistics in the spring of 1943, 1072.5 mu of water can be released. Each mu can increase the income of fine grain by 321.75 stone (1 stone is about 50kg) per year, thus solving the vegetable problem of Yan 'an municipal authorities. It should be said that the completion and use of the Peizhuang Canal has changed the people in the Zaoyuan and Peizhuang area from "relying on the sky" to ensure the harvest of drought and flood, which has greatly benefited the local people. Therefore, the Peizhuang Canal is also known as the "Happiness Canal".
It is also driven by the demonstration of the "Happiness Canal" that large and small water conservancy projects in the border areas have sprung up and generally developed. According to statistics, in 1943, there were 13647.6 mu of water in the whole border area, and the refined grain with increased income could be eaten by about 10,000 people a year. In general, the construction of water conservancy has greatly increased grain production and basically achieved the goal of self-sufficiency.
 

Source: Learning Times