Text | Yang Ziqiang
Briefly
Before the advent of trains, nothing was more important to the economic development of Jiaxing than the Grand Canal, and it can be said that Jiaxing was a city that should be "transported".
After the Sui Dynasty dug the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the Jiaxing section of the canal (Jiangnan River) is the dry river of the Hangjiahu Plain water system, and it is also the main artery of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal connecting the Taihu Lake and Qiantang River from north to south.
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Relying on the canal, Jiaxing has integrated into the big market of the country. Jiangnan Canal "Hongge giant ship, thousands of ships, trade and return, eternal day", Jiaxing's Chang'an Gate, can accommodate 12 boats and more than 20 barges at a time, is worthy of the name of the "golden waterway". On both sides of the canal in Jiaxing, there was first a "grass market", then a block, and finally an economic town characterized by commerce, trade and transportation. Economic development, in turn, promoted the expansion and improvement of the canal network. It was in the Sui and Tang dynasties that the backbone water system of the canal in Jiaxing of "the canal hugging the city and the eight rivers converging" was basically formed, which also created the urban pattern of Jiaxing's "one stream hugging the city with twists and turns".
The canal has also enabled Jiaxing, a traditional grain-producing area, to get rid of the dilemma of relying on the sky for food to a certain extent. Through the canal and its surrounding water conservancy projects, canal water is used for irrigation during droughts, and the stagnant water is discharged into the canal during floods, making it possible to produce stable and high grain yields.
During the Great Calendar period, Zhu Zimian's Jiahe Tuntian enclosed a large field with a radius of several miles or even dozens of miles in the low-lying area in the way of "polders", and drained or diverted water through the canal, thus constituting a perfect water system network and bringing the canal's effect on agriculture to the extreme. Zhu Zimian "chooses the idle land and barren soil in the enclosure, and the people who do not cultivate it are its tun", and its scale is "27 tuns of Jiahe Datian, and there are more than 1,000 miles of twists and turns in the wide wheel", which means that Jiaxing has added 10,000 hectares of fertile land.
"Xiuzhou Guze country, water floats in the soil two-tenths. After the Tang Dynasty and the five dynasties, the population gradually increased, the water was opened, the fishing pond was formed, followed by the rice furrow, and it was the mulberry garden and the village villa for a long time, which laid the foundation of Jiaxing's "land of fish and rice, the house of silk". Jiaxing can be designated as "Wangxian" (a county with more population and taxes) in the Middle and Tang Dynasty, which can be said to be inseparable from the nourishment of the canal.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the world was in turmoil, smoke was everywhere, various separatist regimes appeared one after another, and the five dynasties and ten countries were fighting endlessly. Fortunately, Jiaxing is a rare pure land in this troubled world. Wu Yueguo took "protecting the territory and the people" and "relieving the soldiers and caring for the people" as the basic national policy to avoid war, develop production, and prosper culture. "It is because its people do not know the military revolution until they are old and dead, they play at four o'clock, and they hear the sound of singing and dancing."
As far as Jiaxing is concerned, Wu Yueguo vigorously built water conservancy, attached importance to handicrafts such as salt drying and sericulture, especially the construction of "defending the sea pond" to resist the sea tide, which can be described as immeasurable merit. As for the Yanyu Building built by Qian Yuanhui, the son of Qian Bi, by the South Lake, which became Jiaxing's business card, this can only be regarded as a small episode. Jiaxing's economy continued to develop in the decades during the period of Wu Yueguo, first in the southwest of Jiaxing County, Chongde County, and then Jiaxing County was upgraded to Xiuzhou, under the jurisdiction of Jiaxing, Haiyan, Huating, Chongde four counties, Jiaxing's status further rose.
If Jiaxing before the Sui and Tang dynasties has been struggling to climb the slope, then, with the opening of the Grand Canal, Jiaxing is like a light boat, after crossing the Wanzhong Mountain, there is an open field in front of it, and it can sail straight forward.
So far, thousands of miles have been relaid
- The inflection point of development due to "luck".
In the sixth year of the Sui Dynasty (610), the arrogant and lascivious Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty, after living in the palatial new capital of Luoyang, came up with a new way to play - to travel on a big boat, which was definitely an imaginative and advanced entertainment project at that time. According to the romance of later generations, Emperor Yang went to Yangzhou to see Qionghua, which naturally cannot be taken seriously.
As an emperor, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty toured the south of the Yangtze River, and there should be various considerations politically (declaring the authority of great unification), economic (attaching importance to the development of Jiangnan), and military (pacifying the hometown of Nanchen). This naturally can't be studied in detail, anyway, this faint gentleman, who is famous for his hard work and money, and his stubbornness, once he decides to take a boat trip to the south of the Yangtze River, no one can stop him.
The boat is easy to do, no matter how big the dragon boat is, just build one, but the swim is a bit difficult to do, because the waterway is impassable. Therefore, the "Zizhi Tongjian: Sui Ji V" recorded: "In the sixth year of the great cause, (Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty) crossed the Jiangnan River, from Jingkou (now Zhenjiang) to Yuhang (now Hangzhou), more than 800 li, more than 10 zhang wide, so that the dragon boat can be passed, and the post palace and Caodun are juxtaposed, and they want to tour the east to meet the Ji. ”
It is said that to dig a river that spans several provinces and is 800 miles long, even today it will be very painful. However, whether it is in the official history, the wild history, or even the romance, there are surprisingly few records about Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty digging the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. Emperor Yang is not a person who is willing to be an unsung hero, which can only show that Emperor Yang's canal project is not as vast as later generations imagined, from a variety of historical materials, what the Sui Dynasty did was mainly to connect, dredge, and expand the original canals in various places, so that it became a "highway" that traveled unimpeded from north to south.
The situation in Jiaxing is much the same.
As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, Jiaxing had a history of digging canals. When Wu Yue fought for hegemony, in order to transport troops, grain and grass, both sides excavated and dredged a lot of rivers, such as Changshui Pond, Zixu Pond, etc., the most famous is "Hundred Feet Desecration". "Yue Jue Shu" Huang: "Hundred feet of desecration, play the river, Wu Yida grain." "This river refers to the Qiantang River.
Baiqi desecrated from the fist (now Jiaxing), through the Yanguan to the Qiantang River, after crossing the river into Yuedi, this is the earliest communication channel between the Taihu Lake Basin and Zhejiang (Qiantang River), to the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang in order to control the Jiangnan that was once the Chu land, in the southern tour of the Lingshui Road.
"Yue Jue Shu" cloud: "Qin Shi Huang built the Lingnan, can pass the Lingdao, to the box, with the Matang, Zhan thought to be Pi, the Lingling waterway to Qiantang, Yuedi, through Zhejiang. Qin Shi Huang sent a meeting to Ji Shi Shi, governing the Lingdao south of Linggao, and the county belonged. ”
The core area of the south of the Yangtze River in the Qin period, in the area of Wu County (now Suzhou) to Huiji (now Shaoxing), this Lingshui Road starts from the fist in the north, passes through Qiantang (now Hangzhou), and finally reaches the Yue land, and opens up the two places of Wu and Yue, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in order to levy and lose the tribute of Fujian and Yue, and organize manpower to dredge a river channel more than 100 miles long along the swamp area on the eastern edge of Taihu Lake.
The river was connected to the Lingshui Road to the south, and a section of the canal between Quan and Taihu Lake was opened that had not yet been opened in the Qin period, and the later Jiangnan Canal was used to use this channel.
Because it is the "imperial road" of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty to cruise in the southeast, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is indeed worthy of a "big" word, "Zizhi Tongjian" said that the canal is "more than 800 miles, more than 10 zhang wide", one foot in the Sui period is equivalent to 24.6 centimeters now, and more than 10 zhang is more than 30 meters. And the boat that Emperor Yang was riding on was "a four-fold dragon boat, forty-five feet high, and two hundred zhang long." There are the main hall, the inner hall, the east and west courts, and the middle two have one hundred and twenty rooms, all decorated with gold and jade, and the lower weight is the inner servant" ("Zizhi Tongjian, Sui Ji IV"). For such a heavy and huge thing, the draft must not be shallow, and the depth of the river should be very considerable.
When Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty dug the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, there must have been two "unexpected": one is that he could not imagine that the Sui Dynasty died because of it, but later generations benefited a lot because of the canal, and Jiaxing, the city of the canal, ushered in a turning point in development. There is a poem by the Tang Dynasty Pi Rixiu: "The end of the Sui Dynasty is this river, and it has been thousands of miles to the end." If there is no water temple dragon boat matter, Gongyu will not have much merit. ("Bianhe Nostalgia" II) said that although it is Tongji Canal (called Bianhe River and Bianshui in the Tang and Song dynasties), it is also suitable for use in Jiaxing.
Prior to this, although Jiaxing was developed by the Six Dynasties, the economy and culture began to grow upward, but after all, it was located in a corner of the south of the Yangtze River, and the traffic with the outside world was not smooth, so it could not enter the national market. After the opening of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the Jiaxing section of the canal (Jiangnan River) became the dry river of the Hangjiahu Plain, and it was also the main artery of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal connecting the two major water systems of Taihu Lake and Qiantang River from north to south.
From Jiaxing to the north, it can be connected with Suzhou, Changzhou, Zhenjiang and other places through the canal; from Zhenjiang to the Yangtze River, it can reach Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and other places; from Zhenjiang to the north through the Grand Canal, it can be connected with the Huai River and the Yellow River basin. Jiaxing not only relies on the canal to integrate into the national water transport system, but also becomes an important node in China's southeast water transport transportation network due to the geographical advantages of "left Hangzhou and right Soviet Union" and "north and south thoroughfare".
Smart Jiaxing people are born with the gene of doing business, naturally will not let go of this opportunity, they rely on the canal this golden waterway, to do business from south to north, and outside businessmen are also willing to deal with Jiaxing people. The Jiangnan Canal "Hongge giant ships, thousands of ships, trade and return, and eternal days", so the "Tang Dynasty History Supplement" said: "All the southeast counties and towns are all open to water, and there are more than 20 heavenly ships and barges, which shows the busyness of water transportation."
As a result, the so-called "grass market" - a local near the water, rich and large, mostly living in the middle. "Slowly, canal blocks were formed on the basis of grass markets, and towns were formed on the basis of blocks. Even now, it can be clearly seen that the famous ancient towns of Jiaxing are all along the canal. It is the leading function of Cao Yun that has promoted the development of the town in terms of commerce, trade, transportation, warehousing, etc. The economic development further strengthened the expansion and improvement of the canal network, and it was also in the Sui and Tang dynasties that the backbone water system of the canal centered on Jiaxing City was basically formed.
Among these water systems, Suzhou Pond, Hangzhou Pond, Changshui Pond, Sandian Pond, Haiyan Pond, Pinghu Pond, Jiashan Pond, Xincheng Pond and other 8 rivers start from Jiaxing City and reach the surrounding areas in a radial shape, so there is the saying that "the canal hugs the city, and the eight waters converge". Jiaxing's urban pattern of "a stream of twists and turns hugging the city limit" is formed from this, and the beauty and prosperity of Jiaxing are also born and prospered in response to "luck".
For Jiaxing, a traditional rice producing area, the wide canal is an inexhaustible reservoir, "to the pond to run water, to Jing even water, to the water to resist, to store water, in case of obscenity can be discharged, every early age can be irrigated" (Zhu Changwen: "Wu County Tujing Continuation: Water Control"). Through various water conservancy facilities, it can rely on the irrigation of canal water in times of drought, and can discharge stagnant water into the canal during floods, which is simply a drought and flood harvest.
It was precisely in order to ensure the transportation capacity of the canal and the water conservancy of farmland that the government specially demarcated the water level that the canal must maintain and prescribed the method of discharging river water. Bai Juyi said in the "Stone Records of Qiantang Lake" made during his tenure as the assassin of Hangzhou: "From Qiantang to Yanguanjie, the river fields of Jiaguan should be irrigated, and the lake should be released into the river, and from the river into the field. Quasi-salt iron makes the old method, and must first measure the shallow depth of the river water, and after the irrigation of the field is completed, but the size of the water is returned, often dry base, that is, the lake water is not full. This year, the embankment of the lake will be built, and the height will be increased by a few feet, and the water will also be added, that is, it will be enough, and the water will be insufficient, that is, it will be more decided to face the Ping Lake, add the official river, and there is more than enough. Although it is not watered, if the official river is dry and shallow, but the lake water is added, you can set up a boat. ”
The canal is interconnected with the lake ditches all over the Hangjiahu Plain, which not only ensures the irrigation of farmland, but also maintains the smooth flow of the waterway, which can be said to be suitable for both sides, and the people of Jiaxing rely on the convenience of the canal to develop a large number of polders. They built dams in low-lying areas, enclosing a large field with a radius of several miles or even tens of miles, with channels and gates outside, connecting lakes and rivers and direct canals, which can both drain and divert water, forming a perfect water system network.
The polder laid the foundation of Jiaxing's "land of fish and rice, the house of silk", during the period of Tang Wenzong Yamato (827-835), Bai Juyi came to the two Zhejiang regions, and what he saw along the way was "seven hundred miles of Pinghe, two or three states of fertile soil", and he injected clouds: "From Chang and Hangzhou, where three hundred miles." ”
Jiaxing's Wangjiangjing Town had a "Sui embankment" in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the town chronicle "Wenchuan Chronicles" quoted these two poems of Bai Juyi, and said complacently: "It is said that this embankment is also." And quoted the poem: "Hugh said that the clothes smelled the stream, and a total of 700 Pinghe rivers." Whether what Bai Juyi said about Wangjiangjing's Sui embankment is naturally not too strict, but there is no doubt that Jiaxing is full of "flat rivers" and "fertile soil".
The excavation of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has become a turning point in Jiaxing's economic and social development. It is difficult to make a quantitative assessment of Jiaxing's economic situation in the Sui and Tang dynasties, but there are two figures that can indirectly see the rapid development of Jiaxing in the Tang Dynasty.
After the Kaiyuan Dynasty (713-741), 7 million stone of grain was transported from Jiangnan in three years, more than 2 million stone per year, and the grain output of Jiangnan increased tenfold. From the perspective of population, in Suzhou, where Jiaxing is located in the thirteenth year of Zhenguan (639), there are 11,859 households and 54,471 people, and the population density is 3.94 people per square kilometer.
In the first year of Tianbao (742), just over 100 years before and after, Suzhou has reached 76,421 households and 632655 people, with a population density of 45.8 people per square kilometer, and the number of households and population have increased by an astonishing 5.4 times and 10.6 times respectively, which shows that the Grand Canal has played a key role.
[From Jiaxing Literary and Historical Memory.Jiaxing Volume]
--to be continued