When did the Yellow River turn yellow?

When did the river turn yellow after flowing through the Loess Plateau? This "river" is called "Yellow River", obviously because of its color. If the name "Yellow River" began in the Eastern Han Dynasty, does it mean that the river didn't turn yellow before, and it didn't turn yellow until the Han Dynasty at the earliest? In fact, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, someone wrote that the river was not clear. For example, in the eighth year of Xianggong in Zuo Zhuan (565 BC), Zheng's son quoted Yi Shizhou as saying: "Initiating a clean river, life is geometric!" It can be seen that the ambiguity of the Yellow River has long been known. However, some people made it very clear. For example, Feng Wei's "Cutting Tan" in The Book of Songs has poems of "Clear the sorrow in the river" and "Clear the sorrow in the river". This may be a special moment. Generally speaking, it is turbid. "Erya Shi Shui" said: "The river flows from Kunlun, and the color is white. The canal is 1,701 rivers, and the color is yellow." People think that the yellow color of rivers is due to too many rivers. This involves some geological conditions, but it is not complete. Because this is not a problem of soil erosion on the Loess Plateau. However, the yellow color of this river is very striking, and people call it "Yellow River", which shows that its sediment concentration increased in the Han Dynasty. For example, in the middle of the Han Dynasty, a Fu named Zhang Rong said, "The river is heavy and muddy, with a quantity of one Shi Shui and six buckets of mud." This is a phenomenon that no one said in the early Han Dynasty. In the mid-Han Dynasty, water mirrors were famous for their turbid flow. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, "a stone in a well is worth several buckets of mud". At that time, well water was used to irrigate farmland and improve soil. Shuijing and Weishui Watershed are the earliest areas of agricultural development in the Loess Plateau. With this development, the original vegetation was destroyed, soil erosion increased, and the river became more and more turbid. It was likely to become noticeable in the Eastern Han Dynasty, hence the name "Yellow River". There are differences and close connections between the surnames of the Yellow River and the Yellow River. When did the Yellow River take "Huang" as its surname? In the ancient books of Qin and Han dynasties and pre-Qin dynasties in China, the four hydrates of Jiang, Huai, He and Han are called Sidu, and "He" is the ancestor of Sidu, and its status is equivalent to that of a doctor. The so-called blasphemy, "Erya" said that it is "the one who originated in the sea." A river that has its own source and flows directly into the ocean. The "river" in the four blasphemies is the Yangtze River today, the "river" is the Yellow River today, the "Huai" is the Huaihe River, and the "Ji" is to save water. Today, the Huaihe River has entered the river many times instead of directly entering the sea. Due to the migration of the Yellow River bed, the lower reaches of Jishui River have already fallen. There are only "rivers" and "rivers" left in the "four blasphemies". This "river" is the proper name of the Yellow River before Qin and Han Dynasties, not the general name of flowing rivers. Many examples can be found in pre-Qin ancient books. Such as "Shangshu Gong Yu": "Longmen, Huayin in the south, Shizhu in the north and Jin Meng in the east." Shan Hai Jing: "The river flows out of the Kunlun sky." The Book of Songs Feng Wei: "Whoever has a wide Weihe River will hang on it." The same book "Chen Feng" said: "If it eats fish, it is a river!" The Analects of Confucius: "The river doesn't draw pictures", Mencius: "If Hanoi is fierce, move its people to the east of the river", and Chunqiu Zuozhuan: "Jiang is respectful." "Mandarin": "The river runs out and the business dies" and so on. This "river" refers to the Yellow River. As for the common name of this river, it is called "Chuan" in pre-Qin classics. Such as "famous mountains and great rivers", "landslides and rivers are exhausted" and "Confucius said that Sichuan:' The deceased is like a husband!' "。 Li Zhouzhi's Local Records also uses the word "Chuan" when describing the rivers in China: "Yangzhou, whose Sichuan is Sanjiang", "Jingzhou, whose Sichuan is Han", "Yuzhou, whose Sichuan is Xing and Luo", "Qingzhou, whose Sichuan is Huai, Si and Yanzhou. It also illustrates this point. "Hundred Rivers Irrigation" means that thousands of rivers (rivers) flow into the Yellow River (big river). In the pre-Qin period, the Yellow River was still customarily called the River, but there was no name for it. The word "Yellow River" cannot be found in historical records. It was written in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (92 BC to 89 BC). However, some people think that the word "Yellow River" appeared as early as the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, and it is supported by Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty. Because this oath is like this: "Make the Yellow River as a belt, Mount Tai as a firm, the country will last forever, and love the Miao people." It means that even when the Yellow River becomes a river like a belt and Mount Tai becomes the size of a grindstone, the enclosed land will always exist and be passed on to future generations. These words are in line with the geological point of view: rivers and mountains are constantly changing, rivers will gradually disappear and mountains will eventually be razed. If this proof is credible, then the word "Yellow River" will undoubtedly appear in the sixth year of Emperor Wudi's reign (20 BC1year). However, as long as you look at Sima Qian's historical records, you will find that this is not the case in his Chronicle of Great-impedance Heroes (hereinafter referred to as Chronicle). Because for the same thing, that is Liu Bangda's "oath of knighthood". This "oath" is: "If the river is like a belt, if Mount Tai is strong, the country will be Yongning and love the people." The difference is that the word "yellow" is missing from the first sentence, and the word "Yongning" in the third sentence is not "forever". Obviously, the "oath" was revised by Han Biao. Wang Niansun (1744- 1832), a scholar in Qing dynasty, had long noticed this problem. After his textual research, he proposed that the extra word "yellow" in Han Biao was added by later generations. However, according to the author's investigation, the term "Yellow River" was also used in the explanation of "Yuanshi County, Changshan County" in Ban Gu's "Geography of Hanshu": "Qushui first connects with Quangu from Zhong Qiu Xishan and enters the Yellow River from Dongtangyang." Dangyang is now Xinhe County, Hebei Province. This Yellow River was the channel before its diversion in the late Western Han Dynasty. Therefore, it is very likely that Ban Gu changed "making the river like a belt" to "making the Yellow River like a belt", not those people later. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Yellow River began to be surnamed Huang, and the word "River" gradually replaced the position of "Chuan" and was used as a general term for rivers. There are Li Yan's poems in The Biography of Li Yan in the Later Han Dynasty. There is a line in the poem like "Han Xin Fishing Hequ". Li Xian (the son of Wu Zetian), who made a note for the Book of the Later Han Dynasty in the Tang Dynasty, noticed that Han Xin was fishing for Hequ in Huaiyin City, but not the Yellow River, so he used it. "River, the floorboard of water." This is of course the understanding of the Tang people, and it seems to be in line with the reality of the Eastern Han Dynasty. From "River" to "Yellow River", there is a transformation process. Can it be considered that it began in the Eastern Han Dynasty and was determined in the Tang Dynasty? During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the word "Yellow River" was common in literary works. For example, there is a sentence in the "He Da Fu" by Cheng Gongsui, a writer in the Western Jin Dynasty, "Shang Mo is more beautiful than the Yellow River"; Fan Yun's Crossing the Yellow River in Liang Dynasty takes the Yellow River as the topic. Li Daoyuan, a scholar in the Northern Wei Dynasty, also used the word "Yellow River" many times in the annotation of "Water Mirror Notes", but he used the word "river water" more often. In the Tang Dynasty, people often used the word "Yellow River" and regarded "River" as the general term for rivers. Li Bai's "How the water of the Yellow River moves out of heaven and into the ocean, never to return" and Wang Zhihuan's "Mountains cover the day, and the sea drains the golden river" are all women and children.