Wouldn't you be surprised to say that Beijing has been a canal city since ancient times? Yes, this is a historical fact, Beijing has long been associated with the canal, let's start with the historical canal.
Ancient waterway transport was the first choice for transportation?
Speaking of history, canals are a ubiquitous topic.
Why were canals so important in ancient times? Why did the ancients do everything they could to dig canals?
To answer these two questions, let's first look at a record of Yuan Huang of Baodi County in the Ming Dynasty on the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal.
Yuan Huang once wrote a book entitled "Water Conservancy in the Imperial Capital", which reads: "According to the three Wu people's transportation of white grain from Susong to Zhangjiawan Fan more than 3,700 miles, from the bay to Beijing is only 60 miles, and the price of water transport boats is slightly equivalent to the price of land transport, which is the cost of 60 miles to 3,700 miles." "White grain in the text is a kind of cao grain, which is specially used to supply the civil and military officials and nobles of the imperial court. Before the seventh year of Ming Jiajing (1528), cao grain was transported from the south to Zhangjiawan and then land to the city of Beijing. According to the book, the water and land mileage of Caoliang transported from Suzhou to Zhangjiawan is more than 3700 miles, and it is only 60 miles from Zhangjiawan to Beijing, but the land freight rate is slightly equivalent to the water and land freight rate, so it can be seen that the water freight rate is equivalent to 1/60 of the land freight rate, or even lower. Just from the point of transport cost, water transport completely crushes land transport.
The advantages of water transport are not only reflected in the cost of transportation.
We can also see some other advantages of water transport from the ming dynasty's tour of The Imperial History Wu Zhong. Wu Zhong's book "Tonghui River Chronicle" once recorded: "The transportation of grain and storage, the state's grand plan, tolerate a lot, the car is not as good as the boat, the rainy trip, the land is not as good as the water, the boat and the car go hand in hand, the foot price is doubled, and the lock river cannot be abolished." "The Zha River in the text is today's Tonghui River. Since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Tonghui River has been abandoned and has not been used to transport grain, so Wu Zhong and others in the sixth year of Jiajing suggested re-dredging the Tonghui River. In the compromise, two major advantages of water transport were also mentioned: first, the volume of water transport is large, "the transport of one boat, about ten cars"; second, water transport is less affected by climate, land transport is greatly affected by climate, spring and summer rain, when the road is muddy, land transport is very difficult, and rainy climate has little impact on water transport, and can be transported throughout the day.
According to the old people along the North Canal, during the annual water transport, the porters on both sides of the canal pulled the boats up against the water, and the canal trumpets rose and fell, day and night, resounding through the clouds, and the people called these porters "108,000 howling ghosts". It is precisely because water transport has the advantages of low cost, large volume, all-weather and so on, suitable for long-distance transportation, so it became the first choice for transportation in ancient times.
Even today, although water transport has taken a back seat, it still has a strong vitality. According to the study, the cost of water transport is much lower than that of roads, railways, etc., and the comprehensive freight rate per ton-kilometer of waterways is only 1/3 of that of railways and 1/6 of highways. If you look at energy consumption, the energy consumption of water transport is about 1/8 of that of road transport and about 1/2 of that of railways. Today, the inland navigation capacity of the Grand Canal from Jining to Hangzhou is second only to the Yangtze River, ranking second in the country. From this point of view, the use of canals in ancient China to carry out water transportation is to take advantage of the extremely low cost of canal transportation, and we will understand the status of canals in transportation.
Youzhou's status has jumped, and the canal has contributed to it
Beijing has been inseparable from canals since ancient times.
Historically, the geographical environment of Beijing is completely different from today, according to ancient documents, the southeast of Beijing and even the seaside, mostly for the water town zeguo, only the plains in front of the mountains are high and dry, suitable for farming. The southeast of Beijing is widely covered with rivers and lakes, and this geographical environment has caused the beijing small plain to have a high groundwater level and a large salinity, so the land is seriously salinized, so Beijing has always had the saying of "bitter sea and youzhou". It is recorded in the "Records of History" that "Yan Tu Qiao is accurate", that is to say, the land in the Beijing area is barren. Today, in the Yongding River Basin in the south of Beijing, there are many villages called so-and-so, such as Yufa, Fatou, Dasongfa, etc., these place names are cultivated on saline and alkaline land and adopt a method of reducing salinity and alkali. Moreover, in the early days of Chinese history, Beijing was a border town under the rule of the Central Plains Dynasty in the northeast and Mongolia regions, and a large number of troops were stationed all year round, and Beijing could not provide enough grain and grass for military supplies.
As early as the Qin Dynasty, in order to defend the Xiongnu in the north, a large number of troops were stationed in the Beijing area, and at that time, the grain from the Shandong Peninsula was shipped to the area of Tianjin, and then transported to the Beijing area via the "North River"; Liu Xiu, the Guangwu Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, sent the general Wang Ba as the Taishou of Shanggu and guarded the frontier. Shanggu is today's Yanqing area of Beijing, in order to solve the supply of grain and grass, Wang Ba once used "warm water" to transport grain to the upper valley area, about "warm water" some people say that it is Wenyu River, some people say no, so far there is no consensus. The ancient documents are brief, and cannot be verified by modern people. But in any case, there is no doubt that the early canals in Beijing were roughly inseparable from today's North Canal system. The fact that the Beijing area needed inland assistance during the Qin and Han dynasties is clearly recorded in the literature, and the Book of Later Han records that Youzhou "at the time of Anping, Shangzi Nei County" and "the old Youbu should be outside the wilderness, the fees are very extensive, and the years are often cut and the Ji allocates more than 200 million yuan to give enough."
During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the status of Youzhou city took a big leap forward and became an important frontier town of the Central Plains Dynasty. This historical transformation was precisely due to the excavation of the Sui and Tang Dynasties Grand Canal. The Sui Dynasty Emperor marched on Goryeo, dug the Yongji Canal, used the Yongji Canal to transport troops and grain and grass to Liaodong, and used Youzhou as a base to march to Liaodong, thus laying the foundation for Youzhou's important political and military status. Liang Qichao wrote in the "Theory of the Great Trend of China's Geography": "Since the Sui Dynasty, the canal has been coherent, and the lower reaches of the two rivers have opened up a road of transportation. The convenience and inconvenience of transportation are actually the biggest reasons for the political changes in a country. ”
The Yongji Canal connected Youzhou with the Central Plains, greatly enhancing the status of Youzhou as a city. According to the Old Book of Tang, The Tang Dynasty was in "the land of guarding and placketing in the town of Yuanbian, setting up the governor's office to unify the army", and Youzhou was one of the five major administrative offices and became the political and military command center of the zhenyu side. Therefore, Liang Qichao said: "The opportunity for its conversion lies in the canal. ”
Wen | Chen Xibo