Grand Canal: Changing the Course of History

In our last podcast, we talked about China’s 1400-year-old inland waterway called the Grand Canal. Today, we’re going to further explore how changes in the Grand Canal’s course over the centuries also changed the course of history.

Transcript

Grand Canal: Changing the Course of History 

In our last podcast, we talked about China’s 1400-year-old inland waterway called the Grand Canal. Today, we’re going to further explore how changes in the Grand Canal’s course over the centuries also changed the course of history.

Last time, we talked about how the Grand Canal played a role in toppling the short-lived Sui Dynasty and its tyrannical emperor Yang about 1,400 years ago. Although Emperor Yang was both credited and criticized for the Grand Canal, he did not actually start the 2,000-kilometer-long waterway. 

It’s earlier, smaller sections also determined the rise and fall of rulers, cities, and the people who lived along them. 

The canal was dug by hand in only six years during Emperor Yang’s reign. But this speed was only made possible through the forced labor of millions of Sui citizens who connected smaller, fragmented canals built long before the Sui. 

In the year 605, Emperor Yang launched his canal project just eight months after ascending the throne. The canal began from the Sui’s new capital of Luoyang in what is today’s Henan Province, followed the Yellow River, and worked its way southeast toward Huai’an in today’s Jiangsu Province along the Huai River. It took only eight months to build the 650-kilometer-long canal known as the Tongji section. Part of the Tongji, in Honggou, Henan, was built nearly 1,000 years earlier during the Warring States Period. In 203 BCE, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu fought in the Honggou area after they united to overthrow the Qin. They brokered a fragile peace and created a border at Honggou, only for Liu Bang to prevail and found the Han Dynasty a few months later. One of the reasons was that there was a big granary on Liu’s side of Honggou.

Right after starting construction of the Tongji section, restoration of another canal even older than Honggou began. It was between Huai’an, the southeastern terminal of the Tongji canal, and Yangzhou, along the Yangtze River south of the Huai River. Construction of the canal, known as Hangou, began in 486 BCE, 1,090 years before Emperor Yang launched his canal project. It became the earliest part of what became the Sui Grand Canal. Its initiator was a ruler who was as ambitious and ill-fated as Emperor Yang. 

It was during the Spring and Autumn Period when the sovereign of the Eastern Zhou lost control over regional powers. Fuchai, the king of Wu in what is mostly in today’s Zhejiang Province, decided to attack the northern kingdom of Qi, now Shandong Province. The Huai River separated them. The Wu army would have to attack Qi by sea. The wind and waves were dangerous, and it was far away. Fuchai ordered the construction of a canal to connect the Yangtze and the Huai to the north. The result was Hangou. It made the Wu army’s trek much safer and shorter. It also allowed the Wu to deploy its strong river-savvy naval force, and thus, the Wu defeated the Qi. 

Wu Zixu, a senior Wu official, opposed the war against the Qi. He told Fuchai that the real threat was Wu’s closer southern neighbor, the Yue. The Wu had defeated the Yue and held its king, Goujian, captive for three years. But the Yue was regaining strength and plotting its revenge. Wu Zixu repeatedly urged Fuchai to kill Goujian. Fuchai refused, and adopted another senior official Bopi’s advice of returning Goujian to the Yue. Goujian had bribed Bopi. Wu Zixu lost Fuchai’s trust, and was forced to commit suicide. A few years later, competing regional powers held a meeting and recognized Fuchai as their leader. He made the mistake of taking his most elite troops to the meeting. That’s when the Yue attacked the Wu, ultimately defeating them. Nine years after Wu Zixu’s death, Goujian finally had his revenge. When Fuchai committed suicide, he covered his eyes with a piece of white cloth out of shame. He didn’t dare face Wu Zixu in the afterlife. 

Now, as for the Tongji and Hangou sections of the Grand Canal, they connected the Sui’s new capital Luoyang along the Yellow River and Emperor Yang’s favorite city, Yangzhou along the Yangtze River. Later in 605, in the same month when the Tongji and Hangou sections were put into operation, Emperor Yang took his first trip on the Canal from Luoyang to Yangzhou. He also ordered that another canal be constructed linking Luoyang with Beijing to the north, as the future capital would serve as the northern base for his campaigns against Korea. And he rebuilt a canal between Yangzhou and Hangzhou even farther south. Still benefitting from the efforts of former rulers, the Beijing and Hangzhou sections also included older, shorter, and smaller canals. For example, one was built by the Yue and another by Cao Cao, the founder of the Wei Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms Period, which lasted from 220 to the year 280.  

Following Hanggou, many canals were built in different parts of China by different regional powers. Their purpose was the same: transporting food, military supplies, and armies. Some of the canals were restored and included in the Sui Grand Canal. As explained in our previous podcast, when the Sui united China after nearly 400 years of division and unrest, the empire’s political center was in the north along the Yellow River, while the economic and cultural power was in the south along the Yangtze River. The Grand Canal connected the two rivers, consolidating the unity of the empire. And it was during Emperor Yang’s third trip on the Grand Canal that he was killed and his empire descended into rebellion. 

Cities along the Grand Canal also were affected as the length and course of the canal changed. In the more than 600 years from Emperor Yang kicking off the project to the end of the Northern Song in early 12th century, the Grand Canal saw heavy traffic. It sent food and troops from south to north. Businessmen, officials, and scholars on their way to take imperial exams also traveled on the canal. 

Luoyang and its nearby city Kaifeng served as the capitals of the Sui, Tang, and the Northern Song. During this period, the overall shape of the Grand Canal was that of a bow as it would look if it were shooting an arrow to the left. At the midpoint where the handle would be, you would see Luoyang and Kaifeng, and from there the Canal arched up and down to the right reaching Beijing to the north and Hangzhou to the south. Kaifeng developed as the most prosperous city during the Northern Song, which lasted from 960 to 1127.   

After the Northern Song was destroyed by the Jin, the Song moved to the south, establishing Hangzhou as its capital. Hangzhou was the southern terminal of the Grand Canal, and it was also connected with the sea via the Qiantang River. Since then, China’s south has remained the economic engine of the country. The northern part of the Grand Canal was completely abandoned as the north became a battlefield between the Song and Jin. 

Both the Song and the Jin were defeated by the Yuan, founded by Genghis Khan. His grandson, Kublai Khan, set the Yuan capital in Dadu, today’s Beijing. It was necessary to send food from the south to Beijing in a faster, more efficient way. So, in the late 13th century, Guo Shoujing, the top official for hydro projects, designed a new route linking Beijing and Hangzhou in a straight line, bypassing Luoyang and Kaifeng. At 1,800 kilometers long, the canal is about 800 kilometers shorter than the previous bow-shaped canal. 

Huai’an, Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou along the Grand Canal grew to be the most prosperous cities during the Yuan as well as the successive Ming and Qing dynasties. Suzhou and Hangzhou were major exporters of silk, porcelain, and tea. Their beauty and prosperity earned them the name “paradises on Earth.” Suzhou was the largest city during the Ming. In the mid-16th century, Qiu Ying, a famous artist during the Ming, painted a large scroll depicting everyday life in Suzhou. Zhang Zeduan, an artist at the end of the Northern Song, painted a bustling Kaifeng, the capital of Northern Song. But Suzhou was much more prosperous than Kaifeng. Both paintings are considered national treasures with Qiu’s painting being housed in the Liaoning Provincial Museum in northeast China, while Zhang’s painting hangs in the Palace Museum in Beijing. 

Emperor Kangxi and his grandson Qianlong ruled during the pinnacle of China’s last imperial dynasty, the Qing. They both traveled the Grand Canal waterway to the coastal regions of Jiangsu and Zhejiang several times to inspect water projects and the living conditions of their subjects, as well as to enjoy the scenery and culture there.

But prosperity also brought disaster to the cities. In 1850, the Taiping Rebellion swept the country. It was led by Hong Xiuquan, who claimed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Heavy battles ensued between the Qing army and the Taiping soldiers in those cities. Prosperous families there fled to nearby Shanghai, which seven years earlier had opened to trade with Britain. The transplanted residents brought wealth and a culture of commerce that would eventually make Shanghai a major economic center.

In 1855, the Yellow River flooded, making the Grand Canal unusable. The Qing government was struggling with the Taiping Rebellion and unable to address the problems. The Canal then fell into disrepair, and it was eventually replaced by other modes of transportation, such as railway and ocean-going ships. 

In 2014, the Grand Canal was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. And although there are many more options for transport these days, most of the Grand Canal is still in use, serving the people as it has for thousands of years. 

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Song Yimin, translator Li Jia, and copy editor JT. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.