Li Chun

Also known as Sui Dai Zhu Ming Jiang Shi

Li Chun was a craftsman of the Sui dynasty whose life is otherwise unrecorded; his name survives only in an inscription preface by the Tang chief minister Zhang Jiazhen, which calls the stone bridge over the Xiao River in Zhao commandery the work of the Sui craftsman Li Chun, so unusual in design that people could not tell how it was done. That bridge is the Anji Bridge, popularly the Zhaozhou Bridge, in today's Zhao county, Hebei, generally dated to the years around 600. It is a single segmental stone arch spanning about 37 metres, with two small arches opened in each spandrel to lighten the structure and let floodwater through. Zhang's text notes the four openings at the two ends and says they were meant to break the force of rushing water. The bridge has survived floods and earthquakes and was placed on the first national list of protected monuments in 1961.