Zhang Jian wrote a lot about water conservation. Based on the perspective of digital humanities, the 2012 edition of The Complete Works of Zhang Jian is used as a digital resource to analyze the word frequency of Zhang Jian’s involvement in water conservancy in terms of time, place, co-presentation of characters, emotional tendency and educational proposition, and to draw a portrait of Zhang Jian’s life in water resource with family and national sentiments, which opens up a new way of document utilization and a new path of celebrity research. In terms of timeline, Zhang Jian’s experience can be divided into four periods: Yellow River goverance, controlling and guiding Huai River, water conservancy education and returning to his hometown to protect the collapse. In terms of location and context, this paper sorts out Zhang Jian’s thinking and practice of water control in Nantong period, simultaneous development of dredging and plugging to govern the Yellow River during the Zhengzhou and Kaifeng period, promoting the transformation from traditional water conservancy to modern water conservancy in Nanjing and Beijing period. In terms of character co-existence, it is found that Zhang Jian was good at using the power of celebrities to achieve his water ambition, but with little success. In terms of the emotional tendency of water conservancy, it is portrayed that Zhang Jian went through four emotional enrichment processes: “full of enthusiasm and melancholy returning to the south”, “worrying about the country and the people, pragmatic and rational”, “ambitious and determined to reform” and “resigning and returning to his hometown”. In terms of water conservancy education, Zhang Jian’s education proposition of “putting morality first, emphasizing practice and rigorous research” is summarized.