Dongqian Lake: Where a Tycoon Retired and a Reformer Began

What's So Funny on Taogong Island

At the entrance of Taogong Island on Dongqian Lake, there's a statue of Fan Li. Behind it, carved into the stone wall: four characters reading "The Fortune Land of the Merchant Ancestor." A tourist leaned in, made a heart shape with his fingers, snapped a selfie, and walked away. He probably never saw those four characters.

I've been to Dongqian Lake three times. The first two visits were like that tourist's—photos, rushing, a bowl of machi at Hanling, then gone. The third time, I slowed down and sat on Taogong Island for an entire afternoon. Something about this place felt off.

Everyone comes to Dongqian Lake to "advance." Check in, bike the loop, power through the ten scenic spots in a day. But the lake's true owner, Fan Li, was someone who had "retreated"—withdrawn to these waters, fished, traded, gave away his wealth, and left his political triumphs behind.

That contrast stuck with me. Dongqian Lake holds two opposites: Fan Li came to retreat, Wang Anshi came to advance—a thousand years apart, same water. For two millennia this lake has asked the same question: when do you push forward, and when do you walk away? Visitors have been coming and going for two thousand years. The question hasn't budged. Now it's our turn.

Fan Li's Retreat

After destroying the State of Wu, Fan Li did something no triumphant minister would do—he left.

His merits were so great that no reward could match them. So he chose to vanish, taking Xi Shi on a boat across the five lakes. Legend says he eventually arrived at Funiu Mountain by Dongqian Lake—later renamed Taogong Mountain—where he called himself Tao Zhu Gong. The official history, Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, places him at Dingtao in Shandong. But local lore has insisted on Dongqian Lake for over a thousand years, and that's not the kind of thing you argue with.

I'm getting sidetracked. Back to how he "retreated." The Shiji records that "in nineteen years he amassed a thousand in gold three times, and each time distributed it to poor friends and distant kin." Made three fortunes, gave them all away. Later generations shortened this to "three gatherings, three scatterings." Either way, the point is clear: he had no interest in possession. Dongqian Lake's old name was "Lake of Ten Thousand Gold," and legend says Fan Li's treasures lie at the bottom. Gold was probably just a tool to him, earned and scattered. What kept him going was the freedom to leave at any moment.

Down to a Single Fishing Rod

"Taogong Fishing at the Rocky Shore" is one of Dongqian Lake's ten scenic views, said to be where Fan Li once fished. A man who had reshaped the balance of power among kingdoms, now sitting by a lake with nothing but a fishing rod. A winner's voluntary exit is a different animal from running away.

Fan Li proved that "retreating" can count as a kind of winning. Most people just never learn how.

At Twenty-Seven, He Chose Yin County

A thousand years later, another young man arrived at this lake. He did the opposite of Fan Li—he pushed forward.

In 1047, the seventh year of the Qingli era, Wang Anshi was twenty-seven. He didn't wait in the capital for a posting. He voluntarily filed for a vacancy at Yin County—modern-day Ningbo. In today's terms, think of a top university graduate actively requesting a grassroots assignment.

His first major project: dredging Dongqian Lake. Clearing reeds, scooping silt, establishing boundaries, building sluice gates, embankments, and weirs. An entire water management system rebuilt from scratch—work that would keep a modern water bureau busy for years. He later documented the thirteen-day survey in his Record of a Tour Through Yin County, all three hundred characters of it. The Southern Song gazetteer Baoqing Siming Zhi also noted: "In the eighth year of Qingli, County Magistrate Wang Anshi re-dredged the lake boundaries."

Some scholars see the dredging as a "grassroots rehearsal" for Wang Anshi's later reforms. He was testing a proposition: can an ambitious person start from the most concrete, unglamorous work? I'm inclined to agree. A twenty-seven-year-old choosing to dredge a lake—that act alone carries a certain force.

The Daughter He Left Behind

Wang Anshi left Yin County after his three-year term and never returned. But his beloved daughter, known as "Yin Nu," stayed forever. Born in 1047, she died in 1048—barely a year old. He wrote her epitaph and a farewell poem. She was buried northwest of Chongfa Temple, in a place later called Zuguanshan.

A man who chose to push forward—why did he leave the thing he could least bear to lose beside this lake?

Why Dongqian Lake, of All Places

Jiangnan has no shortage of lakes. West Lake has Bai Causeway and Su Causeway. Lake Tai has the Fan Li legend. Poyang and Dongting have inspired a thousand poems. But only Dongqian Lake holds both a man who retreated and a man who advanced.

West Lake belongs to literati—Su Shi and Bai Juyi governed here, wrote poems, built causeways. Lake Tai carries the hermit's legend. Each has its face, its strength. Dongqian Lake is stranger: it's two-faced. Fan Li came to retreat, Wang Anshi came to advance. A thousand years apart, same water.

Actually, "strange" isn't quite right. Better to say: it holds two contradictory things at once.

A Twenty-Square-Kilometer Exam Paper

Dongqian Lake covers roughly twenty square kilometers, with a forty-five-kilometer perimeter. It's the largest natural freshwater lake in Zhejiang, three times the size of Hangzhou's West Lake. Big enough to hold two opposing ideals.

Other lakes give you scenery. What Dongqian Lake gives you is a question.

Today's Visitors Come to Pause

On the lakeside cycling path, everyone pedals forward. Nobody stops to think: the owner of this lake was someone who walked away.

Today's visitors do a third thing—they "pause." Bike thirty kilometers, eat machi at Hanling, stare at the water, post photos. Is that retreat or advance? Hard to categorize. "Pressing pause" is the closest description. Between pushing forward and stepping back, most people choose "let me stop for a second."

The cycling path happens to be a loop. You ride a full circle and end up where you started. There's something metaphorical about that, though the people who built the road probably didn't intend it. The most zen scene I've witnessed: a family rented a four-person bike, rode halfway around, the dad gave up and walked, the mom kept pedaling with the kids, and not one of them looked at the lake.

Four Treasures and the Weight of a Bowl of Machi

At a farmhouse restaurant, I ordered the "Four Treasures of Qian Lake"—braised grass carp tail, whitefish, stir-fried snails, and boiled river shrimp. Locals call the snails "the kiss of Qian Lake" because you have to suck the meat out. The owner set them down and said, "Take your time, no rush."

Back in Guangdong, that sentence would probably translate to "table turnover rate." Here, it means exactly what it says.

Fan Li's trick of zeroing out every few years—I can't pull that off. Wang Anshi's all-in intensity? Honestly, that's a stretch too. Pausing for a bit, then going back to life as usual—that works fine.

Hanling Old Street: A Thousand-Year Market Still Selling Machi

When Fan Li was fishing by the lake, Hanling already had a market. Shi Hao, a Southern Song prime minister, passed through and wrote "fishing songs and woodcutter axes mingle in the air." A thousand years later, the fishing songs are still audible. The axes have been replaced by electric scooters.

Hanling Old Street is called "the first ancient street of eastern Zhejiang," white walls and dark tiles built along a stream. Today's Hanling has an old lady who's been kneading machi her whole life in one shop. A few doors down, the Hanling Art Museum designed by Kengo Kuma—begun in 2019, raw concrete reflecting the lake, billed as China's first village art museum.

The street isn't picky. New things show up, it takes them in. The old craft hasn't gone anywhere either. Old and new sitting side by side along the stream—that's the everyday version of advance and retreat.

A street that's lived a thousand years—does it survive by advancing or by retreating?

Stop Calling It "Little West Lake"

Dongqian Lake gets called "Ningbo's West Lake" or "Little West Lake" all the time. West Lake has Bai Causeway and Su Causeway, poems by Su Shi and Bai Juyi. But West Lake has no Fan Li, no twenty-seven-year-old Wang Anshi rebuilding a lake, no question about when to push forward and when to step back.

Guo Moruo once described Dongqian Lake as having "the charm of Xizi, the spirit of Lake Tai." He got it half right. The lake does have Xizi's charm and Lake Tai's spirit. But its most singular quality is something neither of those two lakes possesses—a dual nature of advancing and retreating.

The lake hasn't changed. The visitors come and go, wave after wave. The question stays the same. How you answer it is your business.

Zhou Ye is a middle-aged columnist. He's been a journalist, worked in corporate, started his own business, and now makes a living writing. He reads widely, argues stubbornly, and writes about things "everyone feels but nobody says clearly."