| Ximen Bao | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 西門豹 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 西门豹 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ximen Bao was a Chinese hydraulic engineer, philosopher, and politician. He was a government minister and court advisor to Marquis Wen of Wei (reigned 445–396 BC) during the Warring States period of ancient China. He was known as an early rationalist, who had the State of Wei abolish the practice of sacrificing people to the river god He Bo.[1] Although the earlier statesman Sunshu Ao is credited as China's first hydraulic engineer (damming a river to create a large irrigation reservoir), Ximen Bao is nonetheless credited as the first engineer in China to create a large canal irrigation system.