Makers › Engineer / Architect
Li Yizhi
Hydraulic engineer, born Li Xie, who built the Jinghui Canal in Shaanxi, drew up the plan for the eight Guanzhong irrigation canals and chaired the Yellow River Conservancy Commission.
Mural of the event “China Builds Its Own Works”, which this person took part in.
Irrigation from the Jing River began with the Zhengguo Canal, but by the early Republic its head works had largely fallen out of use; the lower Qiantang, wide, swept by a violent tidal bore and deep in shifting sand, was long thought impossible to bridge. After 1930 Li Yizhi took charge of the Jing River works, and the Jinghui Canal opened in June 1932, irrigating 590,000 mu of farmland. In 1934 construction of the Qiantang River Bridge began under Mao Yisheng, and the 1,453-metre double-deck road and rail bridge opened on 26 September 1937. Together they showed that Chinese engineers could carry out large modern works on their own.
Also known as Original name Li Xie · Zi Yizhi
- Roles
- Engineer / Architect
Li Yizhi, born Li Xie with the courtesy name Yizhi, came from Pucheng in Shaanxi, where he was born in 1882. In 1909 he went to Germany to study civil engineering at the Royal Technical College in Berlin, moved to the Technical University of Dresden in 1913, and on graduating in 1915 returned to become dean of studies at the Hohai Engineering School in Nanjing, training a generation of hydraulic engineers. In 1922 he became director of the Shaanxi Water Conservancy Bureau and chief engineer of the Weibei irrigation works. From 1930 he built the Jinghui Canal and drew up the plan for eight irrigation canals across the Guanzhong plain. He was elected president of the Hydraulic Engineering Society in 1931 and in 1933 became chairman and chief engineer of the Yellow River Conservancy Commission. He died in Xi'an in March 1938.
Life and times
Dates 1882–1938
- 1930China Builds Its Own WorksTook partage 48
- 1932Jinghui Canal First Stage Opensage 50