Moonlight Over the New River

There was a time when people dreamed of cutting through Jiudian Gorge and flattening Huajialing, but that bold ambition eventually faded like smoke. An army of a hundred thousand dug and blasted, yet could not so much as scratch the skin of nature. The mountains remained mountains, and the cliffs remained cliffs. There was a time when the hills were bald as monks’ heads, the gullies ran dry, and nine years out of ten brought drought. Every year, people worried. In the loess hills, families scratched a living from the soil; sons longed for wives, while their mothers fretted. From November 2006 to December 28, 2014, the first phase of the Tao River Water Diversion Project was completed and began supplying water. On September 28, 2021, the entire project was completed. “Central Gansu is the poorest land under heaven,” yet a clear river now nourishes the Longyuan region. After half a century, the Tao River project finally fulfilled its dream. Beneath the moonlight on the new river, we drink and remember its source. This history deserves to be remembered...