Chapter 18 The second section runs through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal from north to south

The flow of the Great River is determined by China's topography, which is high in the west and low in the east.East-west rivers cannot provide convenience for north-south transportation. Therefore, the grand plan of digging the North-South Grand Canal to solve the north-south transportation has become the wish of the rulers of all dynasties.As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, Fu Chai, king of Wu, wanted to fight for hegemony in the Yellow River Basin. In 486 BC, he dug a canal connecting the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River——Han Hangou.This is the earliest beginning of the North-South Grand Canal.On the basis of continuously excavating regional artificial rivers between the north and the south, it was Emperor Sui Yang who completed the grand plan of opening the North-South Grand Canal.

After the unification of China in the Sui Dynasty, the south has become a rich and prosperous area where "the benefits of fish, salt and qizi are filled in all directions, and the world is covered with silk and silk".Both Sui Yang's army and the capital needed a lot of food and cloth.He wanted to enjoy the prosperity of the south of the Yangtze River. In the first year of Daye (605 A.D.), he mobilized millions of people. He spent six years on the basis of various old canals, dug the Tongji Canal connecting the Yellow River and the Huaihe River, and connected the Huaihe River. Shanyangdu with the Yangtze River, and the Jiangnan Canal that connects Zhenjiang-Suzhou-Wuxi-Jiaxing-Hangzhou.Finally, the Yongji Canal was dug through the waters north of the Yellow River and reached Zhuojun near Beijing.So far, a Grand Canal running through the five east-west water systems from north to south has been opened.In this way, a national water transportation network centered on Luoyang was formed.On the canal, there was a grand occasion of "connecting boats and boats for more than two hundred miles".

The opening of the canal has promoted the economic development of the coastal areas, the prosperity of towns and cultural exchanges between the north and the south.During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Yangzhou became a prosperous city with "one hundred thousand families" and "ten miles of long streets".The famous ancient city of Suzhou and Hangzhou, a paradise on earth, have become famous tourist cities.Du Sunhe, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem "Sending People to Wu": "When you come to Gusu to see you, everyone sleeps in the river. The ancient palace has little idle land, but there are many small bridges in the water port. The night market sells water chestnut lotus root, and the spring boat carries beautiful Luo. You know The moon is not sleeping, and the nostalgia is in the fisherman's song." Bai Juyi couldn't bear to leave the beautiful West Lake. In his "Spring Title on the Lake": "The spring on the lake is like a picture, and the chaotic peaks surround the level. A bead. The end of the blue carpet thread is rice, and the green skirt shows new pudding. If you can’t throw it to Hangzhou, half of it is this lake.”

With the transfer of the political center of the country, the center of the canal also changed places.The Northern Song Dynasty centered on Kaifeng, and the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties centered on Beijing.After Yuan Shizu Kublai Khan unified China, he needed a lot of food, mainly relying on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.According to the planning and design of the famous water conservancy expert Guo Shoujing, the section of the Shandong Canal and the Tonghui River in Beijing were excavated, so that the Grand Canal directly leads to Jishuitan (now Shichahai) in Beijing.So far, the entire line of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, from Dadu in the north to Hangzhou in the south, has been completed.The tank boats coming from the south sail directly from Hangzhou to Daducheng and berth in Shichahai.At that time, Shichahai was "covered by boats and boats", which shows its prosperity.

In the Qing Dynasty, some sections of the canal were dredged or diverted to make it unblocked.As a result, the volume of water transportation increased greatly, and the volume of water grain transportation in the highest year could reach 5.8 million shi, which played a huge role in the prosperity and development of Beijing. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has a total length of about 1,750 kilometers. It is the earliest artificial canal with the longest route and the largest project in the world.It is comparable to the Great Wall across mountains and mountains.This brilliant project fully embodies the scientific achievements of ancient China in water conservancy, architecture, surveying, engineering facilities, etc., and reflects the high wisdom and outstanding creation of the ancient Chinese people.

Starting from Hangou, for more than 2,000 years, the northern section of the Grand Canal has been open from time to time, but the Jiangnan Canal has been crowded with ships throughout the ages, and hundreds of boats compete for the flow.To this day, the South Canal is still the artery of transportation in the south of the Yangtze River.The North Canal will also be combined with the magnificent South-to-North Water Diversion Project to revive its north-south transportation function.