Fixing the Huai River: Engineering Designs and Earthwork Methods Across the 1949 Divide. The Control of the Huai River System was the first massive hydraulic project after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. A close comparison of the 1932 and the 1950s Huai Control projects illuminates important differences in the hydraulic planning and engineering styles of the Nationalist and Communist regimes, and complicates the thesis of historical continuity across the 1949 transition.