Sui: the reunification of China and the Grand Canal
After four centuries of division China is one again, and the Grand Canal joins the Yellow River to the Yangtze—for a thousand years to come.
In 581 the general Yang Jian takes power in the north, and in 589 conquers the south: for the first time in four centuries China is one. The Sui dynasty rules briefly, but manages to build what the country will live by for a thousand years: the Grand Canal from the Yellow River to the Yangtze, along which the rice of the south will go north, to the capital and the armies. Millions labour on it; together with the campaigns in Korea this ruins the country, and in 618 the second Sui emperor is killed. The Tang dynasty takes power—and inherits a united country and the canal. In the same years, at the other end of Asia, Islam is taking shape.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the Chinese dynastic histories — the reunification of 589, the canal and the fall of the dynasty
Scholarship
- studies of the history of China — the canal's importance for the thousand years to come
Basis: documents and evidence.