(in Chinese, Da Yunhe), canal in China. The Grand Canal has often been paired with the Great Wall as the two great engineering feats of ancient China. Few construction projects of the classical world can rival the political and economic significance of the waterway, which linked the early military and political centers of northern China to the granaries of the south. The Grand Canal, and others that preceded it, permitted the rapid movement of troops from the dynastic capitals in northern China to the south. This relatively fast route by water was most instrumental for the early southward territorial expansions from the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) onward. Throughout the many dynasties that followed, the canal provided a safe and reliable means of grain and freight transport that was not hampered by the activity of Chinese and Japanese pirates as was the case for the coastal marine route. It was much faster and safer than the trip over land. At the canal's peak during the Sung Dynasty (960–1279 BC), more than 340,000 tons of grain was shipped by barge to northern China each year. The origins of the Grand Canal are not as clear as might be expected for such a famous and extensive construction. There were many north-south canals built along a similar route in ancient times, and controversy remains over the initial date of construction for several portions of the route recognized formally as the route of the Grand Canal. The first recognized segment of the Grand Canal route that exists today covered a length of 140 miles (225 kilometers) and was traditionally known as the Shanyang Canal. This early portion ran south from the city of Qingjiang (Huai-yin) in northern Jiangsu Province, to the Yangtze River. This segment appears to have been constructed by a prince of the Kingdom of Wu in the 6th century BC. In the years that followed, additional segments were added, and the entire canal was widened repeatedly, with the last improvements taking place during the early years of the Ch'ing Dynasty (AD1644–1911). Generation upon generation of canal builders lived and died without seeing its completion, and the effort required for its construction rivals the labor required to build the Great Pyramids of Egypt. The Grand Canal in its present configuration was completed during the short-lived Sui Dynasty (581–618). The Grand Canal, in its completed state, extended over 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) from the city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province in the south to the capital of China, Beijing, in the north. The canal crosses five major rivers, including the Wei, the Yangtze, the Hai, and the Huang He. The connection of so many east-west rivers to the Grand Canal greatly expanded the territory accessible via the canal. The challenge of crossing large rivers while assuring that seasonal overflow from the rivers did not flood croplands along the canal required that the gradient of the canal be carefully managed, with frequent dredging. Along some low-lying areas, levees had to be constructed as well. During the first half of the 20th century, political chaos and civil war in China limited maintenance dredging on the canal, and some portions silted in. The navigable distance was severely limited. Following the construction of major north-south rail lines such as the Tianjin-Nanjing route and the Beijing-Wuhan route, some northern portions of the canal north of the Huang He were not properly maintained and were sometimes closed for some portion of the year. Only from the late 1980s were efforts made to dredge the entire length of the Grand Canal. The expanding rail system reduced the importance of the canal for long distance shipping, but it remains extremely important for local and medium-distance freight, especially for the areas served by the southern third of the canal. There is a Chinese expression meaning “Above there is heaven, below there is Suzhou and Hangzhou.” These two major centers that developed at the intersection of minor canals with the Grand Canal were famous not only for their role as ancient centers of transportation and commerce, but also for the beauty of the cities and their surrounding areas. To a great extent, the wealth that permitted the development of these beautiful cities came from the grain and silk trade made possible by the Grand Canal. During dynastic times, more than two thirds of all the grain controlled by the central government of China came from Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province—the southern provinces accessed by the Grand Canal. In the mid-1990s the canal not only served as an important element of China's transportation system, but its modified barges carrying Chinese and foreign tourists provided many local areas with a new source of income , , |