Civilizational Canons · LC11

Infrastructure

Walls fortifying frontiers, grand canals unifying veins: utilizing the consolidated will of a grand governance to expand and structure human habitat and survival spaces.

11works

5dynasties

10authors

Infrastructure focuses on roads, passes, rivers, and water systems that connect regions and shape settlement and governance. Li Bai's Hard Road to Shu evokes the challenges of mountain travel; Qu Yuan's Crossing the River and Liu Zongyuan's Autumn Floods turn to waterways and their force; Wang Wei's Mission to the Frontier traces routes and frontier passes.

Zhou

3 works

1046–221 BCE

  1. Yu the Great Tames the FloodMencius · IdiomsYu the Great channels the floods, passing his own door three times without entering; selfless public service.
  2. Great Yu Tames the FloodAnonymous · Ancient MythsGun stole the Lord's self-swelling soil to dam the floodwaters.
  3. Meng JiangnüAnonymous · Folk LegendsQi Liang died in battle; his wife came for his remains. Duke Zhuang of Qi condoled on the road; she stepped aside, not daring to accept. She wept for her husband at the wall, and the wall came down; having no kin left, she went into the Zi and died.

Tang

4 works

618–907

  1. Mission to the FrontierWang Wei · Regulated OctavesAcross the vast desert a lone column of smoke rises straight; over the long river the setting sun hangs round.
  2. The Hard Road to ShuLi Bai · Old-Style SongsAh, alas, how perilous and towering! The road to Shu is harder than climbing to the cerulean blue sky!
  3. Army Life: Part IVWang Changling · Regulated QuatrainsThrough a hundred battles in yellow sands, our golden armors wear thin; until we defeat Loulan, we shall never return.
  4. Great Tang Records on the Western RegionsXuanzang (narrator), Bianji (writer) · Travel WritingSeventeen years alone on the road, through more than a hundred lands: a firsthand record of seventh-century Central Asia and India.

Qing

2 works

1636–1912

  1. Everlasting Longing: A Stretch of Mountains, a Stretch of RiversNalan Xingde · Short LyricsA stretch of mountains, a stretch of rivers, heading toward the far side of Shanhai Pass; deep into night gleam a thousand camp tent lamps. A watch of wind, a watch of snow, clamoring and shattering the homesick heart so dreams cannot form—in my homeland there is no such sound.
  2. On Reading the Comprehensive MirrorWang Fuzhi · Essays & MemorialsThe system of commanderies and counties has endured two thousand years and could not be undone.