Why did most ancient emperors build canals?

When it comes to canals, the first thing that comes to mind is the famous "Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal", and then it will be associated with Emperor Yang's extravagance and immorality, which led to the death of the Sui Dynasty in the second century, and it feels that the death of the Sui Dynasty had a lot to do with the opening of the canals, but in fact, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was not only constructed in the Sui Dynasty, but it was only built on the basis of other dynasties. Emperor Yang is only in other dynasties built on the basis of further communication only.

Taking the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal as an example, this is a great canal that connects from Beijing to Hangzhou, with a total length of nearly 1,800 kilometers, flowing through Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and connecting five natural waterways such as the Haihe River, the Yellow River, the Huaihe River, the Qiantang River, and the Yangtze River, which are constructed into a great project.

The history of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period, when the state of Wu, located in the Jiangdong region, defeated the state of Yue, the state of Wu was located in today's north-central Zhejiang Province to the area of south-central Jiangsu Province, and after defeating the king of Yue, Goujian, the king of Wu, he began to move towards the Central Plains, and so Wu began to prepare for the attack on the state of Qi, located in the Shandong Peninsula, and in order to the transportation of grain, the state of Wu opened near Yangzhou, and constructed a For the transportation of grain, Wu built a canal near Yangzhou, which was called Gan Gan at that time, and was used to communicate the water of the Yangtze River with the water of the Huai River

Then Wu used Gan Gan Gan to transport grain and soldiers to start a war against Qi, which is what the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was originally like. Therefore, the earliest form of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was called Gan Ditch, and the function of this Gan Ditch at that time was to transport soldiers and grain, and the ultimate purpose was still to start a war to attack other countries, which was a military purpose.

After the completion of the Generala Gorge, successive dynasties expanded and repaired it, and connected it with other canals, such as the Zhedong Canal located in Zhejiang Province, which was first built by the Yue State during the Spring and Autumn Period and expanded into the "Shanyin Old Waterway", and became an artificial canal connecting Xiaoshan, Shaoxing, Yuyao, Shangyu and Zhenhai in Hangzhou and Zhenhai in Ningbo, which is the same as the previous one. It became an artificial canal connecting Hangzhou Xiaoshan, Shaoxing, Yuyao, Shangyu, Ningbo Zhenhai, and connected with the previous Generala Gully. Wu built the "General Purpose" canal to attack Qi to the north, while Yue built the "Shanyin Waterway" canal to attack Wu to the north

This shows that no matter whether it was the "General Purpose" canal or the "Shanyin Waterway" canal, it was the same as the "General Purpose" canal, which was built in the north of the city. General Purpose" or "Shanyin Waterway", its ultimate purpose is military, was built to attack the enemy. During the Western Jin Dynasty, He Zhuan, the inner historian of Huiji, utilized the "old waterway of Shanyin" to continue the construction of the Xixing Canal, building a complete canal from the Qiantang River in the east to the Shunjiang River in the west (today's Cao'e River), which opened up the canal waterway in the entire northern part of Zhejiang Province, and formed the embryo of the Zhedong Canal, as well as the embryo of the entire Beijing-Hangzhou Canal south of the Huaihe River.

Here, it can be seen that, whether it is "Generali Gul", "Shanyin Old Waterway" or the Zhedong Canal, the initial purpose was military, used to transport soldiers and food, because water transportation at that time was a cheap, convenient and fast transportation, there was no one. One of them. During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao's northern expedition against Wuhuan led to the construction of a canal between the Yellow River and the Hai River, and during the Sui Dynasty, Emperor Wen of Sui built the Guangtong Canal, and Emperor Yang of Sui built the Yongji Canal and the Tongji Canal, the Guangtong Canal being the canal from Chang'an (present-day Xi'an) to Luoyang, Henan Province

The Yongji Canal was the canal from Zhuozhou, Hebei Province, to Luoyang, Henan Province, while the Tongji Canal was the canal from the Yellow River in Xingyang, Henan Province, to the Huaihe River in the territory of Xuyi, Jiangsu Province. Once these three major canals were successfully constructed, they connected all the original canals in the north with those in the south, forming the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. This was not the end of the story. After that, the canal was repaired during the Tang Dynasty, the canal from Beijing to Tongzhou was built during the Yuan Dynasty, and then it was further improved during the Ming and Qing Dynasties to reach the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal of today.

However, it should be noted that from the Sui Dynasty onwards, the government's purpose of building canals was no longer for the military purpose of war. For example, the Guangtong Canal was built during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty for the purpose of transporting grains from the southern part of the Yangtze River to Guanzhong, and the Yongji Canal and the Tongji Canal were constructed during the reign of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, firstly for the purpose of transporting grains and secondly for the purpose of enjoyment and pleasure for themselves. As for the Tang Dynasty and the later Ming and Qing Dynasties, due to the southward shift of the economic center of gravity, as well as the close communication between the north and the south, the canals became the major lifeline for north-south and east-west transportation, and the construction of canals in the later period was already for the development of the economy, the promotion of north-south exchanges, and the convenience of transportation.

Additionally, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor in history to call himself emperor system, was also an emperor who liked large-scale infrastructure construction, not only built the Great Wall, the Straight Road, the Chi Road, but also built canals, Qin Shi Huang, after the unification of the whole world, launched the war of pinpointing the Hundred Yue region

But the first war was because of the inconvenience of transportation, the 500,000-strong Qin army led by Tusui suffered a disastrous defeat, and the southern expedition to the Hundred Yue war failed. The war failed, so Qin Shi Huang built a canal called Lingqu from Ocean River (source of Xiang River) in the east of Xing'an County, Guilin, Guangxi to Dasol River (source of Li River) in the west of Xing'an County, connecting Xiang and Li Rivers, which greatly shortened the transportation of Qin's army's supplies and soldiers, and waged the war again, and finally won the war of the Southern Conquest of Baiyue.

Speaking of the ancient emperors like to build the secret and purpose of the canal, in fact, it is to be divided into phases, before the Sui and Tang dynasties, the opening of the vast majority of canals are to wage war, the use of canals to transport troops, food and supplies of convenience, which is the military purpose; and after the Sui and Tang dynasties, the center of gravity of China's traditional economy shifted to the south, the economy of the south is no less important than that in the northern economy, the opening of the majority of canals are for the purpose of the government transportation convenience, it is the economic purpose, of course, like Sui Yang Emperor so as to enjoy the purpose, after all, less.

In ancient times, waterway transportation had a great advantage over land transportation in terms of cost, convenience, and transportation volume. Land transportation in ancient times mainly rely on horses, mules and other animals to transport, transport volume is small, high cost, but also limited by the topography of the terrain, the advantages of the canal is very obvious.