The Large Channel of China
It constitutes the longest system of channels of the world
One of the shortest dynasties of the Chinese history, although of very great importance on the historical level, the dynasty of Sui reigned from 589 to 610.
It allowed the advent of Tang, component, after three hundred and sixty years of divisions, the starting point “Again Worsens”.
Towards end of period of Six Dynasties, (period of renewal which succeeded the period of the Three Kingdoms), the situation in China was extremely confused.
The foundation of the Sui dynasty Towards end of period of Six Dynasties, (period of renewal which succeeded the period of the Three Kingdoms), the situation in China was extremely confused. While the Chinese dynasty of Chen dominated the South, North was shared between two kingdoms resulting from the empire of the Turks Topa (Tabghatch), that of Tcheou septentrional, centered on the means Houang Ho, and that of Ts' I septentrional, more in the east. It is first kingdom which the unification will come, which will be the work of Yang-kien, descendant from a powerful family of the Chinese aristocracy. This one, after having reversed the two Scandinavian States, led towards the south an army of five hundred and thousand men, seized the capital of Chen and proclaimed the dynasty of Sui.
Reconciliation of two Chinas
In spite of a long barbarian domination, it is thus of a Chinese medium that the force able had come to ensure the reunification. During the process of assimilation, the nomads had however transmitted to the Chinese of many determining features (nobility of the family, nobility of the weapons). Once constituted, the empire of Sui had to face serious difficulties. The first was “to reconcile” two Chinas, tries all the more difficult as during the four centuries of partition the dialects had had time to be different (it was the starter of the two great groups of current dialects).
The Wen-Ti reign
A major hurdle resided in the differences in structures economic and social. The first emperor, Wen-Ti (Yangkien), acted as a soldier: it required obedience and direction of the duty, and did not want to compose with the well-read men Confucianists (the posterior historians made with its dynasty the same fate as with that of Ts' in, describing it as tyrannical).
Reforms
Having a direction of the economy pushed until avarice, Wen-Ti thought that only of great sacrifices could give the State on foot (the economic situation was such as one did not know if the taxes would return and so even there would be the means of conveying them). Its principal work consisted of a land reform: redistribution of the public grounds, as of the waste lands (80 % returned to the Treasury after the death of the peasant). The trade and the craft industry also accepted a new impulse.
The population increasing in a significant way, the imperial stores were filled. The Wen-Ti reforms had hardly reached the South, also the owners of low Yangzi, dissatisfied, made it assassinate to carry to the power his/her son Yang-Li (605). This last installed its capital with Luoyang, more close to the cereal centers, and made build the Large Channel to allow the best development of the southernmost territories.
End of the Sui dynasty
The external difficulties caused the loss of Sui: indeed, to make counterweight with the reconstituted Chinese Empire, the Turks had been combined to the Koreans. Wen-Ti had known to draw aside the danger by dividing the first by an astute diplomatic policy, but Yang-Li made the serious error to send in Korea an army of a million men: it was a disaster. Nonglad to undertake a so expensive war, Yang-Li was made build palates of an extravagant luxury, then constrained to ask for an advance payment of ten years of tax! Bloodied again by the rebellion, China would undoubtedly have plunged in stagnation if a young general, Li Way, had not been there to collect the heritage of Sui and to found the great dynasty of Tang.
The Large Channel of China
The most durable work of the dynasty of Sui is without question the Large Channel which the emperor Yang-Li made build to join the basin of Yangzijiang to that of Huanghe.
Economic link with the South
The long occupation of North by the Barbarians had supported the Chinese expansion towards the south, creating a very new situation: the southernmost grounds, from now on thickly populated, had become a center of attraction ignored by the old dynasties; moreover, they had very quickly been affirmed essential by their production with the survival of North. Yang-Li then made build the “River of the clouds”, or Yunho (Chinese name of the Large Channel), to mitigate the insufficiency of the inland waterways in the large Eastern plain (there existed already a certain number of small channels). Once finished, the work, which could receive freighters of 800 T (unknown tonnage in contemporary Europe), united the two large rivers and allowed a direct provisioning of the capital. A secondary junction served the area of current Beijing. An important administration was installation, as well in the localities crossed as in the capital, in order to ensure the organization of transport and the maintenance of the channel.
The unveiling
It is said that the emperor inaugurated the work on board a boat in the shape of dragon, abundantly decorated, and whose central turret reached a height of 15 Mr. to transport the escort of official and servants, a procession of boats, long, 100 km was drawn from the bank by more than eighty thousand men. In fact, this extravagant description was most probably propagated by the well-read men Confucian, eager to justify the advent of Tang in accordance with the Chinese theory of the cyclic history, with an only aim of discrediting the memory of the Sui emperors.