Toqto'a's Yellow River Works

Name: Toqto'a's Yellow River Works
Start: 1344
End: 1351

Type Event Region China Time 1344–1351

After the Yellow River broke its banks in 1344, Emperor Shun of Yuan appointed Chancellor Toqto'a to oversee the works, organizing large-scale relief…

Timeline

1344Caozhou, Baimaokou · North ChinaIn the fourth year of Zhizheng the Yellow River breached at Caozhou, Baimaokou, and elsewhere; floods inundated present-day Henan, Shandong, and Anhui, destroying farmland and homes and displacing many people.
1344–1345Dadu · North ChinaEmperor Shun of Yuan appointed Chancellor Toqto'a to oversee river affairs; the court disbursed funds and grain, mobilizing soldiers and laborers to the disaster area for relief and dredging, while planning a river-diversion scheme.
1346–1350Along the lower Yellow River · Yellow River basinToqto'a organized dike construction and dredging of silted sections along the lower Yellow River, and surveyed new river courses, accumulating plans and manpower and materials for the formal new-river diversion project of Zhizheng 11; the corvée further burdened the grassroots and provoked resentment.

Sources

元史 — 宋濂等
The Cambridge History of China, Volume 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368 — Denis Twitchett, Herbert Franke (eds.) (1994)