Yellow River breach and its management

Timeline

1. 1597Yellow River dikes, Xuzhou and Pei County · XuzhouDikes between Xuzhou and Pei County collapsed, floodwaters spreading south and seizing the Huai River channel, submerging fields and homes, obstructing grain-transport barges, and displacing people along the Huai.
2. 1597–1598Xuzhou · XuzhouThe Ming court ordered a vice minister of works and the Grand Coordinator of River Conservancy to supervise the closure, conscripting hundreds of thousands of laborers along the river to dump materials and seal the breach while dredging the Huitong Canal to keep the Grand Canal open.
3. 1598–1599Huai'an Prefecture · Huai'anThough the breach was sealed, Yellow-Huai flooding was not fundamentally relieved; court and officials continued debating diversion schemes and how to balance the Grand Canal with people's livelihood, at enormous cost to the treasury, exposing accumulated late Ming river-policy abuses.