Fushougou Underground Drainage System

The Fushougou (福寿沟) is an underground drainage network built over 900 years ago during the Song dynasty, and it still functions today. The system consists of two main channels running beneath the old city — one shaped like the Chinese character 福 (fú, good fortune) and one like 寿 (shòu, longevity) — that collect rainwater and sewage and channel it to the rivers surrounding Ganzhou's peninsula.

The engineering is remarkable in its sophistication: the channels account for natural gradients, include settling pools at intervals, and use a clever valve mechanism that prevents river water from backing up into the system during floods. You can tour sections of the network through entry points near the old city walls, walking through brick-vaulted tunnels that are remarkably intact. The visitor experience is genuinely unusual — few cities in China (or anywhere) allow you to walk inside a functioning piece of Song-dynasty civil infrastructure.

things to do sight
A story
The Fushougou drainage system was designed by a Song-dynasty official named Liu Yi around 1068. The key innovation was a one-way flap valve — a hinged wooden paddle over each outlet — that remained shut under river pressure when the Gan River was high and flooded open when city runoff needed to drain. The city walls that enclose Ganzhou are still partially intact, but it is this invisible plumbing that has protected the old town from flooding for nearly a thousand years.