Shi Lu

Also known as Jianyu Shilu

Shi Lu was a Qin army supervisor named Lu; later writers called him Shi Lu or Jian Lu after his office, and nothing else is known of him. When the First Emperor sent armies against the Yue peoples of the far south, supplying troops beyond the mountains proved difficult, and the Huainanzi records that the supervisor Lu, having no way to move provisions, used soldiers to cut a canal and open a grain route. A memorial by Yan An quoted in the Records of the Grand Historian likewise says the supervisor Lu was made to dig a canal to carry grain deep into Yue. The canal is the Lingqu at Xing'an in modern Guangxi, which joins the Xiang River to the Li River and so links the Yangzi and Pearl River systems. Its spade-shaped divider and spillway weirs took shape through repairs from the Han and Tang onward, and the Shrine of the Four Worthies at Xing'an honors him alongside three later canal builders.