In the later period of Song Dynasty, the celebrated poet, calligrapher, painter, Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian Su Dongpo was the governor of Hangzhou for two times, firstly it was the time between 1071and 1074, secondly between 1089 and 1091. In 1089, Hangzhou encountered the drought and famine. He learned of the people's disastrous life and requested the central government to decrease 1/3 taxes for redressing the victims of natural calamity. Besides he also donated some of his income to help those people. Later, Hangzhou suffered from the flood and many people became destitute and homeless. He requested to decrease the quantity of rice for government for saving those people in flooding area. Meanwhile, he appealed to donation for establishing the institution of medical treatment. After these two disasters, he felt the importance and function of irrigating construction, but at that time the West Lake had been severely stagnated for a long time, he recruited the peasant workers roughly 200,000 to dredge up this lake and built up the bank and six stone-arch bridges. The later generations named the bank as Su Causeway to memorizing him.

Source: absolutechinatours.com

Editor: Feng Hui