Geology presents a more concrete mental challenge than most disciplines, particularly when envisioning genuinely plausible geological conjectures—what realistically feasible alternatives could have altered the planet’s four-billion-year trajectory—it becomes evident that the opportunities are rather restricted. Historians, in comparison, enjoy a certain convenience: it is fairly straightforward to speculate, for example, about the potential chain of events that might ensue if Hitler had opted for chamomile tea rather than a double espresso on a particular afternoon in Berchtesgaden; or, in more recent times, if the American defense secretary had fractured his neck instead of his arm when falling on his Chevy Chase driveway curb. In the realm of history, everything is plausible, hence everything is feasible.
However, Earth does not entertain such malleable speculations. It is not logically conceivable for a volcano to erupt in Manhattan; and it would be challenging to convince a reputable geophysicist that the Atlantic Ocean could stretch ten thousand miles wide instead of its current three. The unyielding realities of Earth’s rigid surface confine such whims. Even where some theorizing may reasonably occur—what if the Bering Strait remained unsealed, or what if the English Channel never opened, scenarios that fall within the bounds of geological possibility—the envisioned implications tend to be rather limited as well.
On the other hand, pondering Britain’s evolution as a peninsula rather than an island nation might yield some intriguing scenarios. The English tend to ascribe their singularity to the maritime barrier separating them from France. However, it is equally plausible to argue otherwise. It is just as conceivable that Britain’s remarkable genetic blend has been more consequential, with geology carrying less significance than any narrative expounding on scepter’d isles and precious jewels set in silver seas may affirm.
Nevertheless, in a remote corner of the globe, there exists a geological likelihood—a genuinely reasonable and plausible one at that—which, if realized around forty million years ago by the planet’s subterranean machinery, would have triggered a profound transformation. It concerns the hypothetical displacement by just a few hundred yards of a modest, unassuming mountain rising two thousand feet from a flower-strewn valley in the southern reaches of China’s Yunnan province. Had Cloud Mountain, as it is locally named, been positioned merely half a mile from its current location, the entire world would be vastly different.
It all revolves around the Yangtze River and a geological formation renowned across China as the Great Bend.
Five of the loftiest rivers in the Eastern sphere originate at elevations exceeding fifteen thousand feet in the marshy expanses of the Tibetan Plateau. To circumvent the Himalayas, all five initially veer eastward, though one among them, the Brahmaputra, sharply diverts southward to meander through Bengal’s lowlands. The other four, however, make a more leisurely collective turn. They flow in close proximity, almost parallel like a pair of railway tracks. The Irrawaddy eventually diverges towards western Burma, while the trio of Salween, Mekong, and Yangtze embark on an extended and topographically unparalleled descent. They cascade due south through adjacent valleys not more than thirty miles apart. All maintain their resolutely steady course. The Salween slices its path towards Rangoon. The Mekong surges into the forests of Laos and Vietnam. And the Yangtze—known to the Chinese not by its Western moniker but as Chang Jiang, Long River—would have followed suit. Yet, after traversing nine hundred miles in an unwavering southerly trajectory, the river encounters the abrupt obstruction of Cloud Mountain.
If you navigate the alleyways of Shigu Town nearby and ascend the mountainside, skirting past rhododendron thickets, slipping under camellias and stunted camphor trees, until reaching the summit where the grasses sway lazily in the warm breeze and cows graze contentedly, you will notice the mountain’s apparent incongruity. Whereas the other indigo-hued hills feature ridges oriented north-south, aligned in orderly formations receding into the distance, this unassuming peak stands out like a rebellious sentinel disrupting the pattern, its elongated shape extending eastward and westward. Standing atop the hill and gazing northwesterly, the contrast becomes immediately apparent.
Before you lies the unmistakable shroud of the Yangtze River: six hundred feet wide, brimming with vigor, cascading through a sinuous declivity that seems to trace back all the way to the azure Tibetan Hills. It gradually advances, resolute and true, until it abruptly collides with Cloud Mountain’s base, emitting a resounding and perpetual thud. The impact is so formidable—the river crashing so vehemently against the cliffs—one can envision the rocks quivering under the ceaseless onslaught of water. The expansive brown flow instantaneously churns with an intricate interplay of currents, eddies, and frothy swirls—and then, just as swiftly, the entire river rebounds off the rock face and hurtles back northwards once more.
This dramatic course is solely made possible by what China now designates as the Great Bend—the most pronounced arc executed by any major river globally, an extraordinary about-face, a sudden change—now visible even on the smallest scale maps. A maritime compass illustrates the river’s sharp hairpin bend: it hurtles southward into the bend at a bearing of 190 degrees and reverses direction northward at a bearing of 25 degrees—in justNearly a hundred feet down, embarking on a turn of 165 degrees, essentially retracing its steps. Once past the geological obstacle, the Yangtze elegantly sways off to the northeast towards a turbulent white water expanse now globally renowned: the Tiger-Leaping Gorge, positioned as one of China’s responses to the Grand Canyon.
From this Gorge, the river then sets course towards the east for a distance of three thousand miles—initially crossing into Sichuan, skimming past Chongqing (now by some reports the most populous city globally), onward through the yellow-soiled food storehouse often referred to as China’s “red heart.” It then flows into the 244-square-mile reservoir formed by the massive Three Gorges Dam project initiated in 1994. After this somber pause, the river, increasingly murky and denser, continues its journey towards the urban areas of Wuhan and Nanjing. By this stage, it carries millions of tons of sediment and is tainted by a noxious mixture of chemical substances and heavy industrial metals. The river’s marine life and remaining mammalian species, such as the delightful pink-skinned Yangtze dolphin, are mostly perishing and decaying along its greasy banks. Eventually, slow and fatigued, the river seeps into the East China Sea through the immense and ostentatious metropolis of Shanghai. Upon reaching the sea, the river will have crossed almost four thousand miles of terrain—a thousand miles south, then three thousand miles east—and descended sixteen thousand feet in altitude.
Nonetheless, none of its unwavering eastward descent would have happened if Cloud Mountain had not nudged the river mightily towards the east at Shigu Town. A brief glance at any topographic map reveals precisely what would have unfolded otherwise. Similar to the Mekong and the Salween, the Yangtze would have persisted in its southern trajectory. It would have united with a tributary named the Yuan River in southern Yunnan, crossed over to Vietnam, gracefully flowed through Hanoi, and ultimately emptied into the Gulf of Tonkin. The river would have stretched about fifteen hundred miles in total length. Yes, it would have been a substantial river, but not significantly distinct in either form or impact from the other colossal watercourses streaming into the sea between Calcutta and Hong Kong.
And it could have been so. Findings published in 2002 by a Beijing geologist named Zeng Pusheng have conclusively revealed that a sudden outburst of Eocene volcanoes approximately forty-two million years ago spewed lava in the path of the river near where Cloud Mountain now stands, creating a vast upstream lake promptly. Concurrently, the rising Himalayas exerted pressure, elevating this lake higher and higher, tilting the landscape towards the east to a point where the waters had no choice but to spill out eastward—which eventually transpired, bursting out in an unimaginably forceful stream that gorgeously carved its way through the Tiger Leaping Gorge and eventually into the heart of China.
stations—but Mao didn’t foresee that his dam would be so poorly constructed, nor maybe did he consider that millions of individuals would encounter the same possibility of basin-flooding: not natural and seasonal this time, but state-approved and permanent.
Illustration of the Universal Spirit of Nature, c. 1798.
The seasonal Yangtze flooding in summertime spurred a transformation in ancient China that has persisted like few others: a supranational bureaucracy. Wise ancestors recognized that the complications arising from a meandering river, flowing from one region to another, could not be properly handled by local authorities alone. A cross-border institution had to be established to tackle the challenges of a river that is genuinely transnational. As a result, about four thousand years ago, an emperor called Da Yü—Yü the Great, a legendary figure venerated even today, a courageous innovator who undertook the responsibility of controlling and domesticating his nation’s untamed waterways—took the initial actions.
Legend has it that Yü constructed cofferdams, excavated spillways, dug diversion channels, and, importantly, helped initiate the first pan-China bureaucracy to oversee the construction work and address the nation’s yearly flooding issues. Along with this bureaucratic system came governance, leading to consistent governance, laws, and shared objectives. Gradually, these initiatives led to the unification of the entire China. From the chaotic Warring States Period emerged a unified China.
The birth of China, in essence, resulted from a direct intellectual and physical response to the whims of a river—and a river that may not have even existed. If the volcano in Shigu Town had erupted just a short distance to the west of where Cloud Mountain now elegantly stands, the Yangtze would have taken a different course. Due to a few hundred yards of geological chance, the world’s oldest civilization could have never come to be, and the nation that is on the verge of becoming the world’s wealthiest, most magnificent, and most influential might have never existed.
Image Source: Daniel Doerfler / Shutterstock
