The Grand canal

The Grand Canal

The Grand Canal is a man-made waterway that runs north and south in eastern China. It is the longest man-made waterway in the world.
The canal is over 1,100 miles. The canal connects two major rivers of China that I’m sure you must know, they are the Yellow River and the Yangtze River.

The canal was built in order to ship grain from the rich farmland in southern China to the capital city in Beijing. This also helped the emperors to feed the soldiers guarding the northern borders (The great wall) from the Mongols the Chinese arch enemy north of them.

The Ancient Chinese people built canals to help with transportation. The canal stretched from the Yangtze River to another famous river called the Huai River.

It was during the Sui Dynasty that the Grand Canal was built. Emperor Yang of the Sui wanted a and more efficient way of transporting grain to the capital city of Beijing. He also needed to supply his brave army that guarded northern China from the Chinese arch enemy the Mongols from the North. So he decided to connect the existing canals and expand them to go all the way from Beijing to another city called Hangzhou.

Another famous ancient canal was the Hong Gou Canal which went from the Yellow River to the Bian River. These ancient canals became the basis for the Grand Canal over 1000 years later.

Building the canal took over six years of hard work to build by millions upon millions of workers also known as workers. Many people who were helping were actually forced to work on the canal, many of the people being mostly farmers. Many Because of this died during the construction. When the canal was finally completed in 609 AD China had a brand new waterway that would be benefit to the Chinese for hundreds of years to come.