When it comes to tyrants in ancient Chinese history, the first thing that comes to mind is Qin Shi Huang, who realized the first great unification of the world, unified the six kingdoms, was a great politician, military expert, reformer, called the empress, he carried out drastic reforms of the country, divided the feudal system, unified the text of weights and measures, the southern conquest of the northern war, the construction of the Great Wall, these are all pioneering measures. But his life is also "pioneering", burning books to pit Confucianism, practicing tyranny, the Qin Dynasty was overthrown after only two lifetimes, which has a lot to do with him, but this did not prevent Qin Shi Huang from becoming an emperor for thousands of years.
But there is another tyrant, compared to Qin Shi Huang, his excesses are too obvious, covering his merits, he is the Sui Emperor, everyone will think that he is a complete tyrant. His faults are obvious, profligate, disregard for national strength, years of conquest, labor and wealth, the country was soon overthrown, counting his merits, it is absolutely groundbreaking, digging the Grand Canal, creating the imperial examination system, and smoothing the Silk Road. Today, just talk about this Grand Canal, its historical significance is extraordinary.
The Sui-Tang Grand Canal was built in 605 AD, requisitioning 3.6 million migrant workers to dig the Tongji Canal, connecting the Yellow River Huai River, and using 100,000 migrant workers to dredge the Guhan Ditch and connect the Huai River Yangtze River, thus forming the second half of the Grand Canal. Three years later, millions of migrant workers in Hebei dug the Yongji Canal to the south of Beijing, forming the first half, and two years later, the Jiangnan Canal was reopened to Reach Yuhang. The construction of the Grand Canal took more than five million migrant workers, took six years, and was 2,700 kilometers long, which was definitely the greatest project at that time.
The construction of the canal is from Yangzhou, first to the northwest, diagonally through the Anhui Huai River Basin, through the northeast of Henan, into the Yellow River Basin, to Luoyang, this is the lower half; Then go northeast, through the southeast of Hebei, into the HaiHe River Valley, to Zhuo County (Beijing South), which is the upper half, and the overall "Zigzag" character is taken. In fact, in the process of building local canals, some canal sections already exist, and the Sui Dynasty Emperor used some natural rivers on the basis of his predecessors to dig and connect them into the Grand Canal, so that the country could quickly build the canal in six years.
Among them, the chasm and the white ditch are the most famous, the chasm is the originator of the Central Plains Canal, as early as the Eastern Zhou Warring States period, and later here also happened chu and Han hegemony, so that the boundary is divided into Chu and Han. Baigou was dug by Cao Cao for military purposes during the Three Kingdoms period to open up the grain road.
After the successful excavation of this Grand Canal, it connected the east, west, south and north of the Central Plains, the original flow direction of the river was from west to east, and the Sui Dynasty Emperor dug out the North and South Grand Canal, so that all parts of the country were strung together with rivers to form a water network, and several natural water systems were connected into a large water system, and from then on, people no longer only had the way of traveling by land, they could also greatly reduce the distance by boat, and they could also use the waterway to transport goods, soldiers and horses, grain and forage, coal and stone, etc., which was much more convenient than driving by car. Perhaps the Sui Emperor wanted to strengthen his rule over the whole world, but the Grand Canal was indeed a great achievement.
At the same time, many cities along the Grand Canal began to develop, economic prosperity, not only that, but also the birth of many prosperous cities, the population gathered, from scratch, gave birth to all kinds of trade. Among these many cities, especially the starting point Yangzhou, the midpoint Xi'an, the end point Beijing is the most famous, large scale, dense population, their status in Chinese history is pivotal, quite influential, is the economic center, political center and so on. After the connection between the north and the south, the nomadic culture of the northern grasslands and the fish and rice towns in the south have merged with each other and developed together.
The Grand Canal not only promoted the integration of ethnic groups, but also promoted international exchanges between China and foreign countries, the Silk Road was expanded, and the Mediterranean periphery and Central Asian culture were introduced to China. Such frequent and friendly economic exchanges laid a good foundation for the development of the country, in the Sui Dynasty's short reign time has not yet been obvious, after the Tang Dynasty inherited, the benefits of the Grand Canal were fully exerted, and soon ushered in the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, long-term benefits.
So is the Grand Canal still useful? The Grand Canal has been operating for more than five hundred years, a total of tang dynasty, five generations, Song Dynasty, to the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, some of the rivers have been silted up, replaced by the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, until the Yuan Dynasty ruled the Central Plains, they will take the North and South Canal straight, do not go to Luoyang and Xi'an, shorten the canal for more than seven hundred years, after which the canal has been operating for more than seven hundred years, until today.
Where are the ruins of the Sui and Tang Dynasty Grand Canal? Through the comparison of ancient and modern data, we can continue until some sections of the river are merged into the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, one end at a time, such as the Jiangnan Canal south of the Yangtze River and the middle and north sections of the Yongji Canal north of Linqing in Shandong, which are still above the surface and can be seen. Some sections of the river have been abandoned, such as the Wei River, which has been abandoned in modern times, although it can be found, but now the Wei River has become a dirty ditch, which is seriously polluted and has insufficient water.
The Sui and Tang Dynasties Grand Canal is known as "half above ground, half underground", because the yellow river in history has had many major floods, river migration, which makes some sections of the Grand Canal buried in the ground by yellow sand silt, these river sections are very long, mostly in the lower half of the canal, from the surface, these river sections can not be found, can only be through archaeological excavations. In some archaeology, many antiquities, warehouses, ancient cities and so on have been excavated.
One of the most surprising discoveries is the granary, in Luoyang, Xi'an, Shangqiu area has been found seven or eight places, each of the warehouse pits can store 250 tons of grain, a total of more than 100,000 tons of grain storage. Such a scale is not an ordinary granary, but an official warehouse, and there are stone tablets in the warehouse that record the coming and going of grain in detail, as well as the management of the warehouse, and the management system is strict, such granaries are all over the place, built next to the Grand Canal, which shows that the Grand Canal is the lifeline of the whole country.