The situation in the world depends on the mountains and rivers, and the mountains and rivers are related to the capital. However, without archaeology, there is no way to see the changes due to the revolution. Without a comprehensive source committee, there is no way to understand the whole situation.

Yu Zhenyi felt that the gods of the mountains, rivers and rivers in the world should pray for the Tang Dynasty in their fiefdoms at this time. The big war is about to start, and these people should all contribute. In this dragon pool, he thought of the canal of the Tang Dynasty.

The mountains and rivers are beautiful, and one of the most critical links is the artificial canal.

Compared with natural rivers, artificially dug canals play a more important role in human production and life. In addition to shipping, canals are also used for irrigation, flood distribution, drainage, water supply, etc. It can even be said that the history of social development, to a large extent, can be regarded as the history of the ancestors' continuous expansion, connection, and guidance of natural water systems and the transformation of nature by digging canals to connect the four seas.

Compared with land transportation, waterway transportation has obvious advantages: large volume, low cost, low loss, and high stability...... However, the course of natural rivers cannot be transferred by human will, and they are often affected by topography, and it is difficult to connect with each other.

The effectiveness of waterway transport is very limited by natural waterways alone. It is only by digging canals and connecting rivers that the power of water transport can be truly unleashed. Therefore, the canal can be said to be a "lifeline" for society.

The oldest existing man-made canal is the Xu River in present-day Suzhou City, which is still running one after another, just as in the past.

In the more than 1,000 years before the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the ancestors of China have dug many regional canals on the land of China, which are like scattered pieces that form a grand puzzle, until that special node in history, one by one, connected one by one, and finally converged into this unique in the history of the world, the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

The poet Bai Juyi has a poem "Sauvignon Blanc":

Bianshui flows, Surabaya flows, and flows to Guazhou Gudutou. Wu Shan was a little worried.

Thinking about it, hating it, hating it until it is time to return. The moonlight people leaned on the building.

This poem is Bai Juyi's twilight years, after a stroke, he couldn't bear to delay the young Ai Ji Fan Su, and sent him back to the south. Several geographical concepts that appear in the poem, such as Bianshui, Surabaya, Guazhou, and Wushan, are exactly the routes that Fan Sunan should take.

It flows east from Kaifeng to Xuzhou, flows into Surabaya, crosses the Yangtze River through Guazhou on the south bank of Yangzhou, Jiangsu, and goes straight down to Yuhang along the Jiangnan Canal.

This route is the Sui-Tang Grand Canal ordered by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty. The appearance of this Grand Canal,

According to the "Miscellaneous Records of the Great Cause", only one section of the Jiqu was opened, that is, "more than 100,000 men and women in the counties of Henan, and the 14th Five-Year Plan for the deceased servants". The speed of construction is unprecedented in human history. But this is also the most controversial aspect of the Grand Canal and its presiding builder, Emperor Yang of Sui.

In the Sui Dynasty, a unified dynasty after the turmoil of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, there were only two masters, Emperor Liwen and Emperor Yang, but both father and son were masters of canals.

Emperor Wen dug the Guangtong Canal from Chang'an to the Yellow River through Tongguan along the old road of the Han Groove Canal, which is about 300 kilometers long and small in scale; Emperor Yang led the construction of the main body of the Grand Canal, which is in the shape of "human" from the map. Taking Luoyang, the capital of Sui, as the starting point of the word "people", the Tongji Canal connects the Huanghuai River to the south, and the Yongji Canal connects the Yellow River and the Haihe River to the north, which are respectively used as the apostrophe of the word "people", and further connects to the Hangou and Jiangnan Canal to the south to reach the bank of the Qiantang River.

As far as the Grand Canal is concerned, the contribution of Emperor Yang of Sui is commendable. However, this must be based on a common sense perception:

Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty made more contributions to connecting, widening, and connecting the regional artificial canals and natural rivers built by successive dynasties for thousands of years since the Spring and Autumn Period, rather than building such a huge basic water conservancy project by himself. There is no doubt that the Grand Canal is the crystallization of the common wisdom and hard work of the working people for thousands of years in ancient times.

Why was it Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty? Why did such an epic project as the Grand Canal appear as late as the Sui Dynasty? In order to understand this question, we need to broaden our field of vision.

During the more than 1,000 years from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Sui Dynasty, the time for real unification was actually only more than 400 years between the Qin and Han dynasties, and the remaining two-thirds of the time was divided and divided into territories. The completion of a national water conservancy project such as the Grand Canal requires three resources: a strong national will, sufficient human scale, and strong economic power, so it must rely on a strong and unified dynasty to do so.

In the previous unified dynasty, the Qin Dynasty was too short, and in the era of the First Emperor, the Great Wall and the Qin Straight Road were first built (these two projects, the urgency and benefits brought by the completion of these two projects were far greater than the development of the Central Plains Water Conservancy Canal Project; secondly, the regional canals we talked about earlier had not yet appeared, and without these basic conditions, talking about the canal project at the national level was like a castle in the air.

During the Han Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, due to various rigid constraints such as the low level of development of social productive forces, the insufficient population size, and the serious lag in the development degree of the southern region, the national level did not have the strength and motivation to develop such a large-scale project. Therefore, in the Han and Han dynasties, it was common to build core projects in key locations, such as the trough canal from Chang'an to Tongguan, the rebuilding of the ditch to open up the Jianghuai water transport, and a series of regional canal projects in North China during the Cao Wei period in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.

The heavy responsibility of history has gone through thousands of years, and finally handed over to the rulers of the Sui Dynasty who reunited themselves, or more precisely, to the hands of Emperor Yang of Sui.

Yang Guang, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, in the pen of later historians since the Tang Dynasty, is undoubtedly an image of a ruined country, ruined family, and debauchery and tyranny. But only in terms of talent, courage, literary and martial arts, and strategic vision, Emperor Yang of Sui was not useless.

The ruling class of the Sui and Tang dynasties were all from the Guanlong military group of the Western Wei Dynasty, and Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty and Li Yuan, the ancestor of the Tang Dynasty, were cousins.

Emperor Yang received a systematic and strict cultural education since he was a child, and his history records his "less sensitive and wise, beautiful posture". "Quan Sui Poems" has nearly 50 poems handed down. The words are magnificent and open-minded, with the style of Wei Wu, and the literary circles of later generations have a very high evaluation of his poems: "Mixing the north and the south, the talent of the emperor, is really high." ”

In the fourteenth year of the Great Cause, Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty was hanged to death by Yu Wenhua and mutiny in Jiangdu, and soon the Sui Dynasty was destroyed. Later generations talked about Yang Guang's death and the destruction of the country, and the construction of the Grand Canal has always been regarded as one of his most important "crimes".

But if you think about it carefully, Emperor Yang took such a big risk to build the Grand Canal, is there really no more far-reaching consideration?

Ten years after Ping Chen, he sat in Yangzhou, led the affairs of Jiangnan, and read countless beautiful scenery of Huaiyang beauties, Jiangnan was not so attractive to him at this level. But on another level, Jiangnan really made Emperor Yang "haunted by dreams".

Those ten years gave Emperor Yang first-hand experience, and he deeply understood that after nearly 300 years of governance in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties, Jiangnan was rich and prosperous. This is also the key reason why he chose to open the Jiqu Canal and Shanyang Desecration as soon as possible in the construction of the Grand Canal after his accession to the throne. In the ten years after the destruction of Chen, the local gate forces in the south of the Yangtze River launched two large-scale rebellions, and the Sui Dynasty was unable to deliver the counterinsurgency forces in time due to the lack of suitable transportation channels in the process of counterinsurgency, which also made Emperor Yang determined to open up this channel.

However, for Emperor Yang of Sui, who was born in Guanlong aristocracy and had the unique temperament of "Xianbei Han Chinese", Jiangnan was, after all, only a corner of the world; his real strategic vision was not limited to the Chinese territory, but also looked at the neighbors of the Chinese territory from a very high strategic height.

At that time, the Turks were rising in the Mongolian steppes and Central Asian steppes in the north, and their strength was extremely strong; the Khitan and Korean Peninsula forces in the east were also watching the vast world in the northeast, the most direct example was that Goguryeo sent 40,000 troops to attack Liaoxi, and the Tuyuhun in the west, which occupied the border of present-day Qinghai and Gansu, would be cut off from the Silk Road passage of the Hexi Corridor together with the Turks, and the result would be that the entire Western Regions would be stripped out of the Chinese territory.

As a result, the strategic national policy formulated by Emperor Yang can be summed up in four words: attacking the west and defending the east.

The westward offensive contains two specific policies: repair the Turks and eliminate Tuyuhun, that is, one pull and one dozen. The reason for the Tuyuhun is even simpler: the Turks are so powerful that they cannot be defeated for the time being; the reason for fighting Tuyuhun is even simpler, it is the softest in a few persimmons, and the position it occupies is the most threatening, lying directly on the side of the Hexi Corridor, if it is not eliminated, the Silk Road will be cut off, and the national capital Chang'an will never have a day to sleep.

Defending the east is a strategic defense, and after the western issue is resolved, it will turn back to deal with the Khitan and Korean Peninsula forces in the east.

In order to realize such a strategic plan, it must be built on one foundation: the Sui Dynasty must have the ability to unleash the full potential of the Central Plains. Under the transportation conditions of the time, there was only one possibility to achieve this: the construction of a nationwide canal system would have the ability to concentrate the people, money, and goods of the empire on a single point and maximize its efficiency.

This is the essential reason why Emperor Yang of Sui immediately began the Grand Canal project as soon as he took over.

The canal is also successful, and the canal is also defeated.

The construction of the canal system made the power of the Sui Dynasty like an arrow full of strings, and the strategic plan of Emperor Yang began to be implemented. After the completion of the Yongji Canal, the Tongji Canal and the Shanyang Canal, Emperor Yang personally conquered Tugu and destroyed his country. And then it took half a year, through thousands of dangers to patrol the Silk Road, across the Qilian Mountains until Zhangye, the 27 countries of the Western Regions sent envoys to meet.

Shi Zai: "Breaking the Tugu Hun and expanding the land for thousands of miles...... Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars are lost, and the vassals are subdued, and the tributes are paid one after another. In this battle, the vast land from the east bank of Qinghai Lake in the east, to the Tarim Basin in the west, the Kuruktag Mountains in the north, and the Kunlun Mountains in the south were all in the bag, and four counties such as Xihai and Heyuan were set up and returned to Wang Zhi. Tang Taizong once sighed to his subordinates about Emperor Yang of Sui's western tour: "At the beginning of the great cause, the Sui lord entered the Turkic realm, and the strength of soldiers and horses was only one or two generations since ancient times. ”

After the Grand Canal was completed, Emperor Yang of Sui conquered Goguryeo three times in three consecutive years. History records its first expedition: "The army is gathered in Zhuo County...... One hundred and thirty-three thousand eight hundred in total, two million, and its feeders were multiplied...... In ancient times, there was no such thing. "The majestic division is mighty, but such a majestic scene also hides the shadow of crisis.

You must know that the three expeditions to Goryeo were carried out at the time of the construction of the new capital Luoyang, the opening of the Grand Canal, the construction of the Sui Straight Road, the opening of the Taihang Mountain Pass and many other national projects, and "sent the people south of the river and Huai and the ships to transport Liyang and Luokou Zhucang rice to Zhuo County, and the ships were more than 1,000 miles." ”

It is really unimaginable that such a vain waste of people's manpower, the use of millions of soldiers, and the war of thousands of miles should be fought three times in a row. "Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty" records the tragic situation of the people at that time: "At that time, the Liaodong soldiers and feeders filled the road, day and night, and the hard laborers began to be group thieves. ”

"The success is also the canal, and the defeat is also the canal".

Although the opening of the Grand Canal laid the foundation for Emperor Yang of Sui to realize his established strategic plan, the long-term exhaustion of popular forces, coupled with his efforts to bring the Central Plains and Jiangnan scholars into the ruling class, inevitably infringed on the interests of the ruling Guanlong clique itself. As a result, Emperor Yang of Sui surrounded the Universiade

What the river did made him stand on the opposite side of almost everyone. The loss of popular support and the support of the ruling clique was at the heart of the Sui Dynasty's rapid collapse in the midst of affluence.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the Sui Dynasty was rich. Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty had a great cause of five years, with 8,907,536 households and 4,6019,956 mouths. This record was not surpassed until the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty later in the reign of Tianbao. The economy and society were as prosperous as the Northern Song Dynasty, and the peak of population in the end was not too similar to that of the Sui Dynasty.

With the completion of the Grand Canal, dozens of national granaries have been built along the route, such as Liyang Warehouse, Huiluo Warehouse, Hanjia Warehouse, Heyang Warehouse, Changping Warehouse, Shanyang Warehouse, etc., which are used to store Jianghuai grain and rice transshipped through the Grand Canal. The core of China's more than 2,000 years of ancient Chinese history, which has supported its formation and continuous development, is nothing more than four pillars: the county system, the imperial examination system, the Great Wall, and the Grand Canal.

The county system ensured that the territory of China could be managed by a unified central government and provided an institutional guarantee for the effective use of the country's potential; the imperial examination system ensured a certain degree of mobility between classes, delaying the rapid accumulation of class contradictions and the irreconcilable situation.

The existence of the Great Wall enables the military defense forces in the north to concentrate on a few key nodes for effective defense, rather than being scattered and incapacitated for thousands of miles; the Grand Canal is the main artery of the country, ensuring the efficient accumulation of various resources and providing a realistic guarantee for dealing with any emergencies at the national level.

Coincidentally, the fates of the two emperors who set up these four pillars are so similar, they are like meteors in the long night of history, but they have left assets for future generations to influence the trend of thousands of years.

The core section of the Sui-Tang Grand Canal, due to the water from the Yellow River, from the Sui to the Southern Song Dynasty for more than 500 years, the river carried a large amount of sediment, and the waterways such as the chasm, Bianshui, Luoshui, and Jishui were silted up and flooded countless times.

The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is a north-south artificial canal, connecting the Haihe River, the Yellow River, the Huai River, the Yangtze River and the Qiantang River.

So, how did the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal be built, and how did the imperial waterway of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty take a dragon boat to tour the south turn into a golden waterway where commercial transportation flourished? Why did the transportation of the Grand Canal become the economic lifeline of the imperial court? In order to ensure the smooth flow of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the safety of the transportation, how did the successive dynasties organize and manage the transportation of the Grand Canal?

The Golden Waterway has been built for thousands of years.

The opening of the Grand Canal can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period more than 2,000 years ago. In the thirty-fourth year of King Jing of Zhou, that is, in 486 BC, Wu Wangfu sent troops to the north to attack Qi in order to dominate the Central Plains. At that time, there was no waterway between the Yangtze River and the Huai River.

In order to transport military rations for a long distance, the husband ordered a large number of people to be requisitioned, build a Hancheng on top of Shugang, and dig a ditch at the foot of Shugang, making it an artificial waterway connecting the Yangtze River and the Huai River. For the construction scene of building Hancheng and digging ditches, the history books used four words to describe it, that is, "lifting the gong like a cloud", which shows its momentum. Fucha was the last monarch of Wu during the Spring and Autumn Period, and he is known as the "first man" to dig the Grand Canal.

The excavation of the ditch became the beginning of the history of the construction of the Grand Canal, the total length of the ditch is about 200 kilometers, and the two famous historical and cultural cities of Yangzhou and Huai'an were born because of the excavation of the ditch. Since then, Hangou has always been an important part of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and it is also the water artery of the dynasties. The excavation of the ditch objectively played a huge role in the political, economic, and cultural exchanges between the north and the south in the eastern region of China at that time.

With the increasing political, economic and cultural development of the north and the south, the local canals built can no longer meet the needs of the society, especially the Jiangnan region occupies an increasingly important position in the national economic life, and the communication between the north and the south waterways has become the urgent need of social development and the strong desire of the people at that time.

Throughout the history of the construction of the Grand Canal, there have been two large-scale construction of the Grand Canal, the first in the Sui Dynasty. The Grand Canal built by the Sui Dynasty is called the "Sui Dynasty Grand Canal", also known as the Sui and Tang Grand Canals.

Subsequently, the Tang Dynasty carried out long-term and unremitting dredging, repair and management of the Sui-Tang Grand Canal, ensuring the unimpeded flow of the waterway and the normal operation of water transportation. In the first year of Dazu, that is, the imperial court built Xintan Wharf in the Luoshui River of the South Sui and Tang Grand Canal in Lidefang, Luoyang, "the world's boats and boats are gathered, often more than 10,000 ships, filling the river road, business and trade, and filling up the carriages and horses."

According to relevant historical data, at that time, "trough ships came and went, thousands of miles endlessly", "10,000 large ships, turning each other", "shipping trade was all over the three rivers and five lakes", and "half of the world's wealth was all advanced by this road".

Since then, Luoyang has become the largest port along the Grand Canal of the Sui and Tang Dynasties and the central hub of water transportation in the country. All kinds of commodities and materials can reach Yuhai from Luoyang in the east, Guanlong in the west, Suzhou and Hangzhou in the south, and Youyan in the north through the Grand Canal of the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Not only that, the water "Silk Road" with Luoyang as the eastern starting point can reach Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Red Sea coast, Northeast Africa and the Persian Gulf countries.

The shadow of the sail covers the sun, the mast is like a forest, and the ships come and go, and there is an endless stream. At that time, Luoyang had become the world's largest logistics park and commodity distribution center, as well as a transit station for import and export goods

After the imperial court sent relevant personnel to inspect Biankou, they believed that "the retreat beach is high and wide, and it can be dug into a canal to lead Luo into Biankou."

Due to the implementation of the construction of the project to divert Luoyang into Bianjing, it not only enabled Bianjing to have a smooth waterway connecting Luoyang in the west, but also raised the water level of the Bianhe River to the Huai River in the east, improved the conditions for the transportation of the Bianhe River, ensured the supply of commodities and materials in Kyoto, and allowed Bianjing to continue to maintain its status as the first prosperous city in the world.

Because the Grand Canal of the Sui and Tang Dynasties was easily silted up and even flooded the river, the imperial court and local officials had to dig frequently, dredge, renovate and treat it in order for the Grand Canal to continue to be used.

The fate of the Grand Canal has always been accompanied by the transportation system. The so-called Cao Yun refers to the economic activities of the ancient dynasty to transport grain and grass on a large scale to the capital and border passes, disaster areas and other designated places through waterways and rivers, and the whole set of systems, facilities, personnel and equipment formed around this economic activity together constitute a huge and complex transportation system. It can be said that Caoyun was the supply system for the ancient dynasty to maintain its normal operation, and it was also an important guarantee for the continuation of political life and social development of the ancient dynasty.

From the Qin and Han dynasties to the Northern and Southern Dynasties, because the political and economic systems of the dynasty were still in the imperfect stage, and the artificial canals had not yet formed a complete system, the Cao Yun was also in an underdeveloped period, and the Cao Yun trend in this period was mainly east-west. It was not until the completion of the Grand Canal in the Sui and Tang Dynasties that with the rise of the economy in the south, the center of Cao Yun gradually moved south, and the transfer of grain from the south to the north became the main task of Cao Yun. After entering the era of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Caoyun ushered in a golden age of great development.

With the convenient conditions of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal directly connecting the north and south, Cao Yun could transport grain and other commodities to most parts of the country, becoming an important measure for the imperial court to adjust materials and balance society. Especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties, Cao Yun could not only promote the balanced development of the economy of the north and the south, but also give full play to its social and historical role. The canal not only promoted the circulation of commodities and the prosperity of trade, but also accelerated the economic development of the towns along the canal. It is not difficult to see from the relevant historical materials that with the development of the canal and the expansion of the scale of transportation, as well as the improvement of transportation conditions, not only a number of new towns have come into being, becoming new commodity distribution centers and transportation service areas, but also a number of old towns have rejuvenated their vitality and become regional central cities with prosperous economy and convenient transportation.

In order to encourage the transportation of water, the emperor once stipulated: each boat is allowed to carry 20% of the goods, which can be sold freely along the way, and allows the boat to solicit goods along the way, transport wine, cloth, bamboo and wood and other daily necessities and production materials on behalf of passengers, and carry out trade.

In this way, the convenience of transportation and commodity trade brought by Cao Yun also contributed to the formation of a market network along the canal, which further promoted the prosperity of the town's economy. Many towns along the canal prospered because of the prosperity of Caoyun, and the decline of many towns was also due to the decline of Caoyun. This kind of dependence between the canal transportation and the towns is both prosperous and lossy, which shows the importance of the canal transportation economy in the development process of ancient society.

Since the Qin and Han dynasties, successive dynasties have set up administrative bodies and incumbent officials. After the Western Han Dynasty established Chang'an, a large amount of grain needed to be transported from the Kanto region every year to meet the transportation needs of all aspects in the Guanzhong region, and the transfer of cao was gradually institutionalized. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the annual grain transportation volume was hundreds of thousands of stones. In the early years of Emperor Liu Che's accession to the throne of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, it increased to more than one million stones.

Thirty years later, in the first year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Caoyun once increased to 6 million stones per year, and Caoyun died at 60,000. It is managed by the local guards and lieutenants, and the county orders along the way must also lead the cao affairs to protect the smooth and safe transportation of the cao.

In the Tang and Song dynasties, the Cao Yun management system was further developed. In the sixth year of the Zhenguan reign of Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, the imperial court set up the "Boat Bureau" to manage the administration. After the middle of the Tang Dynasty, due to the increasing burdensomeness of Cao Yun, the imperial court often ordered the chief minister and the transfer envoy to be in charge of Cao Zheng. In order to increase the capacity of Cao Yun, the Tang Dynasty implemented the program transportation system of "ten ships as the key link, and the military attache escorted the transportation" and the corresponding reward and punishment system, and instructed the main local officials to divide the labor and responsibility. Transportation is supplemented to ensure that military supplies are delivered to the barracks on the front line of the anti-gold war in a timely manner.

In the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal era, the management system and management system of the imperial court were improved and standardized. On the one hand, the imperial court vigorously developed the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, on the other hand, expanded the scale of the shipbuilding industry, strengthened the management of water transportation, and set up two major transportation institutions, the Gyeonggi Metropolitan Cao Transportation Department and the Jianghuai Du Cao Transportation Division, and the officials in charge were Zheng Sanpin. The Jianghuai Cao Transportation Division is responsible for transporting the grain to Zhongluan, and the Gyeonggi Cao Transportation Department transports the grain from Zhongluan to Beijing.

The management body of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has been set up directly under the central government, that is, the ministry of the governor of Caoyun, and the officials of the first or second product are generally sent to serve as the governor of Caoyun.

After the completion of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, it plays a special role in the country's political, economic and cultural life, and it connects the country's political center with the economic center of gravity with its unique communication function, and links the production areas of different river basins.

In a sense, the canal carried the empire and led to the development and prosperity of the commodity economy along the canal.

This is a river of commerce and culture with vitality. Cao Yun occupied a special position in the economic life of the state in ancient China: the state could obtain food supplies to maintain its survival and development needs through Cao Yun, and the centralized system created the conditions for the establishment of the Grand Canal system.

The establishment of the Qin Dynasty made Caoyun begin to move to the center of the stage of national economic life.

Since the Western Han Dynasty, off

In the strategic place, the required food and materials are gradually becoming more and more abundant, and the prosperity of Cao Yun can be described as "ten thousand big ships, turning each other, the east is comprehensive in the sea, and the west network is quicksand." ”

In order to ensure the smooth progress of the Cao Yun activities, the Western Han Dynasty government actively operated the river and Weiyun Road, and also excavated the 300-mile Guanzhong Cao Canal, renovated the chasm canal system, and built a wide range of warehouses. It can be seen that the canal provided sufficient material support for the construction of Chang'an and the emergence of a prosperous generation.

The Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties was a period of long-term division, and the Cao Yun of the various separatist regimes mostly responded to the needs of wartime, although the scale was small, but there was already a special management agency Duzhi Fu, and a regional Cao Yun system was established, which laid the foundation for the reconstruction and development of future generations.

With the excavation of the Guangtong Canal, Tongji Canal, Yongji Canal, Hangou and Jiangnan River in the Sui Dynasty, a national canal network and Cao Yun system centered on Luoyang were also established.

Granaries began to be built in various localities for the purpose of transporting or storing grain. So far, the canal system and storage system of the Sui Dynasty have become a major change in the history of Cao Yun. After the Tang Dynasty, the supply of grain gradually shifted from the Kanto to the Jianghuai, and the southeast region gradually became the main source of taxes for the imperial court, and its status rose significantly.

The development of the Cao Yun system in the Tang Dynasty pushed it to the peak, and the Tang Dynasty had the world, "the country stands by the soldiers, the soldiers take food as their life, and the food is based on the Cao".

Cao Yun is the most urgent and important thing, as Shen Kuo's "Pingshan Tang Ji" said: "From the west of Huainan, the east of the river, the south to the Wuling Shu Han, the migration and trade of the eleven roads and hundreds of states, all go out of it." The boat and car instilled the Beijing master day and night, ranking seventeenth in the world. ”

Although it could not be compared to today's modern transportation system, it was the most convenient and efficient thoroughfare available to people at the time.

The lack of transportation volume of the Grand Canal made the government of the Yuan Dynasty open up another sea transportation route, and in the 19th year of the Yuan Dynasty, it opened up the sea route of transporting grain from Liujiagang at the mouth of the Yangtze River to Dagu for the first time, which was a major innovation of the Yuan Dynasty.

There are three autumn laurels and ten miles of lotus.

The two dynasties continued to use the Grand Canal as a transportation channel connecting the economic center of gravity in the south of the Yangtze River, which not only enriched the modes of transportation, such as branch transportation, redemption transportation, and long-distance transportation, but also increased the strict grain collection and delivery system, coupled with the effective dredging management of the Grand Canal during the Kang Yongqian period, which ensured that the Grand Canal was relatively smooth for a long period of time, and the canal's transportation entered the last glorious period.

At present, it is the geographical, transportation, economic and cultural connections provided by the Grand Canal from ancient times to the present that have made the cities on both sides of the canal bigger and stronger, and at the same time, they have also developed into a higher-level and larger-scale urban community in the deepening connections.

The economic material, survival methods, and profit wealth created by the Grand Canal for the banks let us see the richness of the cultural heritage of the canal, and its future will surely move towards revival and rebirth.

These six dragon kings are all in the shape of kings in the world, wearing robes and boots, carrying attendants and dependents, lined with clouds and seawater.

In folk literature, the dragon king, the dragon palace things, such as the dragon king's function of calling the wind and rain, the dragon palace treasures, etc., are almost all inspired by the story of Buddhist scriptures, in the process of its interpretation, the literati give full play to their imagination, break through the shackles of Buddhist culture, and create many personified dragon king images.

The Dragon King is also closely related to Taoism. Taoism was formed in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, it was developed on the basis of ancient primitive religion by absorbing the five elements of yin and yang in the Spring and Autumn Period and the idea of ascending to immortals, and the ancient concept of ghosts and gods and the concept of dragons were absorbed by Taoism.

In ancient mythology, the dragon is a divine beast that ascends to heaven, and it is the mount of the ascending immortals. One of the Taoist spells is "Chengqiao", that is, flying in the air on a divine beast and communicating with the gods, and the dragon is called Longqiao.

According to the Taoist scriptures, the dragon rider travels to the cave and the blessed land, and all the evil spirits dare not invade, no matter where they go, there will be a god to greet them. In the early days of Taoism, although it recognized the dragon's function of spreading clouds and rain, it was only used as a foot force, and it was not until later when Buddhism took the dragon god as its own that it woke up and vigorously fought to grab the dragon god and worship it as the dragon master.

It is said that due to the fierce competition between Taoism and Buddhism in the early days, this competition is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is that the two sides compete to win over the feudal monarch to obtain political support, and the other is to try to conform to the people's psychology and obtain the people's approval. Therefore, when the content of Buddhism about the dragon king increasingly infiltrated Chinese culture and had a social impact, Taoism rose up to catch up, and attached the dragon in Taoism to the king, and later came to the top, and the variety of names exceeded Buddhism.

There are mainly hundreds of dragon kings of the four seas, Ao Guang of the East China Sea, Ao Yan of the South China Sea, Ao Qin of the West Sea, Ao Shun of the North Sea, and hundreds of dragon kings such as the Blue Emperor, the Red Emperor, the White Emperor, the Black Emperor, and the Yellow Emperor. Although the dragon of ancient primitive religion has divinity, it does not occupy a territory.

At this time, the dragon king of Taoism has the responsibility of guarding the land, there are dragons in the heavens, dragons in the four seas, dragons in the five directions, dragons in the thirty-eight mountains, dragons in the twenty-four directions, and even wherever there is water, whether there are lakes, seas and rivers, or deep ponds, ponds, marshes, wells, and springs, there are dragon kings stationed.

Buddhism and Taoism compete for dragon propaganda, which stimulates the worship of dragons among the people, and the traditional dragon has also changed from a mythical beast to a god, so that the dragon king does not exist everywhere in the north and south of the river. [9] From the Sui and Tang dynasties, with the prevalence of Buddhism and Taoism, the myths and legends of the dragon king in Buddhism and Taoism were blended with the early folk belief in the dragon king.

The widespread spread of the belief in the dragon king among the people has gradually attracted the attention of feudal rulers. During the time of Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, the dragon pool of the ancestral hall was set up, and the altar official was set up to sacrifice, and the dragon king was sacrificed to the rain master.

Emperor Jing of the Northern Zhou Dynasty ceded the throne to Yang Jian, who founded the Sui Dynasty, and later, Yang Jian went south to defeat Chen and unify the Central Plains. Although on the surface, it seems that the great cause of reunification has been completed, in fact, there is an open and secret struggle between the gates. In particular, the long-term pattern has formed a big gap between the economic, cultural and other concepts of different gate valves. True unification is not easy. In addition to the gate valves in the Central Plains, ethnic minorities also have the situation of separating various gate valves.

The Sui Dynasty set its capital in Chang'an, but in order to resist the invasion of the northern and western minorities, a large number of troops were stationed in the north, and the grain and grass required by the army were difficult to supply only by relying on the north, and the grain and grass in the south were difficult to arrive in a short time, which provided objective conditions for digging the Grand Canal.

There has always been a debate about Yang Jian's death in history, and the most common theory is that Yang Guang killed his father, and then Yang Guangci killed the crown prince Yang Yong. According to legend, Yang Guang was very well-behaved when he was a child, and he always looked soft and weak in front of Yang Jian. This is in great contrast to the image of killing his father and brother later. In history, some people once called Yang Guang the mad emperor, and judging from his move on the throne, this title is not exaggerated at all. And from these actions during his reign, it can verify the correctness of this title.

From the perspective of objective conditions, reunification can be said to be a matter of great cause, which is also one of the reasons why the emperors of all dynasties liked reunification. However, there must be a premise for reunification, that is, under the premise that the people are rich and strong, but Emperor Yang of Sui completely disregarded the life and death of the people in order to reunify. This also laid the foundation for him to become a faint king in people's mouths in the future.

As we all know, most of China's rivers run east-west, and it is difficult to have a north-south direction. This situation provided a prerequisite for the restoration of the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal is more than two kilometers long, such a large-scale project.

From this point, we can imagine that under the conditions of productivity at that time, it took only ten years to complete such a world-class project, and how much suffering the toiling masses at that time had to endure and how many people sacrificed in this project, but this was not in the scope of Yang Guang's consideration by Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty. He not only built the Grand Canal, but also built the Great Wall and built a lot of construction.

Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty insisted on going his own way, did no one raise objections? Of course there was, but Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty could not tolerate any objections from others, and once someone raised a different opinion, he killed him, and gradually no one dared to raise a different opinion anymore. Even the queen at that time dared to be angry and did not dare to speak.

Most of the men have been requisitioned to build the Grand Canal and overhaul civil engineering, who will farm the land?

In the face of heavy tax burdens, people's lives are becoming increasingly embarrassed and full of complaints. No matter which dynasty it is, if the people's life is too peaceful, then this dynasty will last for a long time, if the people's life can't go on, then it will be difficult for this dynasty to last long, which also paves the way for the later popular uprising.

During the reign of Emperor Yang of Sui, he waged wars many times, the most famous of which was the war with Goguryeo. If the Goguryeo War was launched three times, and nothing was gained three times, if the Goguryeo War was launched not only during the period of Emperor Yang of Sui, then why is it said that the Goguryeo War during the period of Emperor Yang of Sui was a waste of money and labor?

During the Li Yuan period, the Goguryeo War was also launched, but most of the troops he borrowed from the warlords, while Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty mostly recruited troops from the people, and there was a big difference between the two; Li Yuan's approach not only weakened the power of the warlords, but also gave the people a chance for peace, while Yang Guang, the Yang Emperor of the Sui Dynasty, weakened the power of the people and gave the warlords greater strength.

Although Sunshine has been the emperor for several years, he has only been in Chang'an for three years, and the rest of the time is in the field, which is not to say how upright he is as an emperor, but to show that he has a playful nature.

Later, various peasant uprisings broke out one after another, the most famous of which was Li Mi, who listed dozens of crimes against Emperor Yang of Sui. The people rose up one after another. Seeing that Emperor Yang of Sui, who had gone away, he didn't dare to return to Chang'an. He was ready to overhaul the palace in Luoyang and move the capital to Luoyang.

Later, Yu Culture and Uprising, Emperor Yang Guang of Sui wanted to escape, but he never thought that he was caught and killed by Linghu Xing.

Historically, it has been said that Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty contributed to the reunification of China, but in fact this statement is the opposite. The Sui Dynasty developed on the basis of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, which at that time was already a dynasty with no strong enemies outside and harmony inside. Let's take a look at what the Sui Dynasty left to the Tang Dynasty? If we describe it as a mess, it is not an exaggeration to say that from this point of view, Yang Guang, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, has regressed and has not played any positive role in the development of the times.

Any dynasty has its own meaning of existence, although Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang is known as a tyrant in history, but the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal that he further improved during his reign has to be said to be a kind of care for future generations, which is a miracle in the history of canals in the world.

The Grand Canal played a certain role in the economic development of later dynasties. It's really hard to judge a person or a dynasty by simply being good or bad, because it can't all be good or bad. Regarding the construction of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, there are mixed reviews. Some people say that this is a great cause for a thousand years, and some people say that this project costs the people and money, and the gains outweigh the losses, and some people even say that this project shows that Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty is ruthless.