Encyclopedia Britannica says, “This ancient waterway was first constructed as early as the 4th century BC, was rebuilt in 607 AD, and has been used ever since.”
The Great Wall of China and the Grand Canal are examples of Confucianism and the Chinese work ethic. To understand the significance, we will compare it to the Suez and Panama Canals.
In the 19th century, the French built a canal 100 miles across the Isthmus of Suez. When it opened, the Suez Canal was only 25 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom and 200 to 300 feet wide at the surface. About 20,000 ships use the canal each year. Source: History.com
China first applied for World Heritage status for the canal in 2009
The Panama Canal was started in 1881 by the French but ended a failure [more than 2,000 years after China first built the Grand Canal]. The Americans finished the canal between 1904 – 1914. The canal was 51 miles long. Today, it handles over 12,000 ships a year. Source: The Panama Canal
When I was in grade school, we learned about the Panama Canal in glowing terms. I’m sure the French and British brag about the Suez Canal in their textbooks too.
Until my first trip to China in 1999, I had never heard of the Grand Canal, which is the oldest and longest man-made canal in the world at more than a thousand miles from Beijing to Hangzhou south of Shanghai.
The construction started several hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ and was completed centuries later. The canal is still in use today. To finish it, the Pound lock was invented in the 10th century during the Song Dynasty. There are 24 locks and about 60 bridges. Source: Wikipedia
One example that China’s authoritarian, Confucian, collective culture is more than capable of innovation was the Pound lock pioneered by Qiao Weiyo, a government official and engineer in 984 AD, which replaced earlier double slipways that had caused trouble and are mentioned by the Chinese polymath Shen Kuo (1031–1095 AD) in his book Dream Pool Essays (published in 1088 AD), and fully described in the Chinese historical text Song Shi (compiled in 1345 AD).
In the 18th century the West built the Suez and Panama Canals that combined were 151 miles long. China first built the Grand Canal centuries before Christ, and when finished it was more than a thousand miles long. What do we learn about China and the Chinese?
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
Subscribe to iLook China.
There is a “Subscribe” button at the right- top of the screen.
This revised and edited post first appeared on April 30, 2010 as China’s Grand Canal
Professor Jeffrey Riegel, of the University of California, Berkeley traveled to China to unlock the truth behind one of the earth’s greatest legends, a man larger than life, the first emperor of China, Shi Huangdi (259-210 BC). This post comes from the documentary film of China’s first emperor.
The first time we visited his tomb was December 1999.
Shi Huangdi was barely thirteen when his father died (246 BC) after being king of Qin for three years. The legends say Shi Huangdi was a tyrant driven mad by power.
He had a tomb built the likes of which humanity has never seen. When the first emperor died, he was the most powerful man on earth. He created an empire that outlasted Rome by a thousand years, he ruled ten times the population of ancient Egypt, and today’s China owes its existence to this man.
Months after becoming king at thirteen, Shi Huangdi overcomes his mother’s desire to rule in his name and took his nation to war. He was the youngest king to wage war and soon proved he was also the greatest warrior.
He soon becomes known as the Tiger of Qin.
Shi Huangdi wages war against his enemies for ten years. At the time, there were seven countries in China besides Qin. The seven countries in what we know as China today were Zhao, Yen, Wei, Han, Chi, Chu and Qin.
During the war to conquer Zhao, Shi Huangdi’s army took ten thousand prisoners. The rules of war say these prisoners must be fed and sheltered. However, Shi Huangdi changed the rules.
He shows his troops what to do by beheading an enemy troop and calls on his army to do the same.
He says, “There is only one way to treat weakness and that is to exploit it. There is only one way for Qin to survive, and that is to conquer.”
All 10,000 Zhao prisoners were beheaded.
By the time Qin Shi Huangdi turns twenty, he had captured thirteen cities from the state of Han and twenty from the other states. Huangdi’s rival countries send a combined army to stop him but they are repelled.
Some of Huangdi’s success is because of the precision weapons Qin craftsmen make for his loyal, highly trained army. Discover more of China’s Warrior King
However, while the king of Qin is conquering China, there is an enemy scheming to replace him.
His mother, the dowager queen, has taken a lover, who masquerades as a eunuch. The queen has had two illegitimate sons with this lover, who steals two royal seals that gives him authority to mobilize troops in an attempt to replace Shi Huandgi with one of the king’s half brothers.
Qin’s prime minister discovers the plot and a trap is set to destroy the rebel army. The dowager queen’s lover is captured, tortured and his mangled body pulled apart by four horses while the queen mother is forced to watch.
While the death sentence is being carried out, Huandgi has his two half brothers strangled to remove this threat to his throne.
With this challenge to the throne removed, Shi Huangdi has learned a lesson. He is ruthless and rids himself of his mother and his prime minister.
There is a dramatic scene where the prime minister asks for forgiveness for letting the queen mother do what she did.
The prime minister is exiled and not allowed to see the queen mother again. Within a year, the disgraced prime minister kills himself.
A scholar, who believes in harsh laws, becomes Huangdi’s closest advisor.
By 227 BC, the Qin state has conquered the states of Han, Wei and Zhao.
The state of Yen knows it is next and sends professional assassins disguised as peace emissaries to kill Shi Huangdi. The emissaries arrive in Xian with gifts and an assassin strikes.
Since no weapons are allowed in the throne room, there are no armed guards to protect the king. Only the king has a weapon and only the king can call the troops to save him.
By 223 BC, Shi Huangdi is ready to unify China. Only the states of Chi and Chu are left, but the Chu army destroys his first invasion force.
Shi Huangdi raises another army and invades again. A million troops face each other and it becomes a standoff. To win, Shi Huangdi tricks the Chu generals to make a mistake, and the last great obstacle to the unification of China falls.
Chi is the last country that has not been defeated. To avoid the slaughter, Chi joins Shi Huangdi without a fight.
Qin is now China.
At the age of 34, Qin Shi Huangdi was crowned with a veil of stars as the first god emperor of the Qin people and China.
The system of governance put into place will long outlast the emperor.
Qin Shi Huangdi commissions a Terra Cotta army that will guard him in death, and the troops are larger than life. In one pit, more than two hundred sets of armor made of stone have been found with no bodies to wear them.
It is believed that the armor may have been made for the spirits of dead soldiers who suffered violent deaths in combat so the dead would not become vengeful spirits.
The totalitarian philosophy in the new Chinese empire was called legalism.
Rules govern every part of every citizen’s daily life with the punishment spelled out. Physical punishment could mean mutilation.
For example, if two are caught having sex, they will be beheaded. Every aspect of private life is part of Qin law.
In 220 BC, Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi goes on an inspection tour of his empire. With the major wars over, millions of troops are put to work finishing the Great Wall of China, which was designed to stop the nomadic tribes to the north from raiding into China, which they have done for centuries.
The Great Wall is the greatest engineering project of the ancient world. It is thirty feet high and more than three thousand miles long. At one point, over a million people worked on the wall and about a quarter died.
The emperor makes more demands. He sends hundreds of thousands to build a tomb that fits his rank as the first divine emperor of China.
The burial mound, larger than the largest pyramid in Egypt, is at the center of an above ground and underground city. His tomb is made of bronze surrounded by
mercury rivers and oceans.
Recently, using ground penetrating radar and other instruments, a three dimensional model is built of this underground complex.
By 215 BC, Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s tomb is almost finished. The chamber where his body will rest is the size of a football field and will be hermitically sealed.
Then the tomb will be covered with a million tons of earth creating the hill we see today.
However, the Emperor doesn’t plan to die. Seeking advice from his doctor, he is given mercury capsules. At the time, it was believed that mercury would increase longevity.
Having lots of sex with multiple partners was also considered another way to increase life. The emperor follows the doctor’s advice and sends his doctor on an expedition to find an elixir for immortality.
The emperor isolates himself and delegates the power to rule the empire to those he trusts most. These men suppress free thought.
Entire libraries are burned. Those who try to hide documents are branded on the face and sentenced to a life of force labor — mostly on The Great Wall. Anyone who resists is buried alive.
Professor Jeffrey Riegel, of the University of California, Berkeley, says that Chinese archeologists have no immediate plans to unearth the tomb, because there is no way to safeguard the contents from decay.
Chinese alchemists knew liquid mercury as the only substance that could dissolve gold. To the ancient mind, that meant mercury had power that might prolong life.
However, the human body cannot absorb pure mercury so the Chinese alchemists made a compound the emperor could digest.
As the mercury is absorbed, it slowly destroyed his nervous system and brain.
Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi becomes aggressive, argumentative and paranoid. He goes into hiding. Anyone revealing his location is killed. His kidneys’ are failing and he starts talking to the gods.
Thirty-five years after becoming the king of Qin at thirteen, he goes on another Imperial tour. But this time, he is blind to a nation that is bankrupt and near famine.
All the emperor can think about is living forever.
He’s told that giant fish guards the island of the immortals. The emperor dreams that he is a sea god who will kill the giant fish.
Near the end of 210 BC, he visits the ocean hunting the giant fish with a crossbow while wading in the surf.
His advisors plan what to do with China once the emperor dies. On the return to the capital, the emperor falls ill and the Imperial convoy stops.
In the seventh month of 2010 BC, the first emperor’s search for immortality ends. At the age of fifty, Qin Shi Huangdi is dead.
While China’s first emperor is being buried according to his wishes, a power struggle rages outside the tomb.
By tradition, the oldest son should have become the emperor but several ministers want a younger son on the throne. The others are assassinated and there is a slaughter.
The emperor will also not go alone to the afterlife.
While his chosen successors are being assassinated, hundreds of his favorite concubines will stay with their master and die with him.
The tomb’s designers and builders will be sealed in the tomb too. Everyone who knows the way dies.
Qin Shi Huangdi left a legacy—a unified nation with a single written language and a system of administration that is still in use today.
_______________
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
The Qing and/or Manchu Dynasty was established due to a revolution led by Li Tzu-cheng (1605-1645), who attacked Beijing in April 1644.
The Qing Dynasty survived from 1644 to 1911 AD.
After the rebels entered the city, the last Ming Dynasty emperor hung himself on a hill that is part of the Forbidden City.
Meanwhile, a Manchurian army led by Dorgan was allowed through the Great Wall, defeated the Chinese rebels, executed Li Tzu-cheng, and made Fu-lin, a Manchurian, the emperor of China, which was the beginning of the last imperial dynasty.
This was the second time in China’s history that foreigners ruled the Middle Kingdom. The first time was during the brief Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1277-1367 AD).
A CCTV 9 Travelogue History Special takes us on a tour of the Qing Dynasty.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many wealthy businessmen built large estates on the fertile lands of Shanxi province not far from Beijing.
The Wang family’s estate is situated in Lingshi county. This mansion is an example of the architecture of the Qing Dynasty
There was even a school for the family’s children.
The host of this program says that walking into the estate’s courtyard is like walking into a museum.
Everywhere you look, there are works of art. Every stone carving, every statue means something. The art represents either family tradition or the Qing Dynasty culture or the social status of the family.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of “The Concubine Saga”, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.
The Yongle Emperor’s father, Zhu Yuanzhang (Emperor Hongwu) would have seen his son as unfilial, which means not observing the obligations of a child to a parent—even after the parent is dead.
When Yongle opened China, he demonstrated disrespect for his parent. Instead, he should have continued supporting the closed-door policy his father had instituted.
In Chinese society, to maintain a well-controlled country or a peaceful world requires the children to love and respect his or her parents even after death.
In fact, filial piety is not only a foundation of morality in China but also a fundamental basis of Chinese culture.
This also explains why each of China’s current presidents continues supporting the policies of the former president and Deng Xiaoping.
For change to take place in China, it usually comes slowly. Filial piety is the reason the People’s Liberation Army did not remove Mao during the Cultural Revolution and waited until he was dead to act.
Mandarin with English subtitles
However, when the Yongle Emperor acted against his father’s wishes, he demonstrated courage because he knew many in the imperial court would consider him unfilial.
Emperor Yongle commissioned building the great fleet that Admiral Zheng He sailed as far as Africa.
Admiral Zheng He was selected to command because he was an organizer, a diplomat and could be trusted. He was not a merchant or a conqueror.
Although during this time, many Chinese immigrated to Southeast Asia, the Yongle Emperor had no interest in establishing colonies outside China.
In the north, it was a different story. Emperor Yongle had to deal with ceaseless attacks by the Mongolian tribes.
For the first time in centuries, an emperor sent a Chinese army of 100,000 beyond the Great Wall to end this threat and bring peace to China.
When the nomadic tribes retreated, a larger army was raised and sent after them.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
After moving the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, the Yongle Emperor ordered that a huge bell be made to commemorate his exploits.
The reason for moving the capital was to consolidate defenses in the north since the Mongols, Manchu and other nomads lived to the north and were a threat to an agricultural culture such as China.
In March of 1418, the master bell makers were called to Beijing. The Yongle Bell was to be 6.94 meters tall (almost 23 feet), 3.3 meters wide at the mouth (almost 11 feet) and weigh 46.5 tons.
Producing such a massive bell even today would be an extraordinary job. The master bell makers used the clay mould casting technique—a method used for three thousand years so the Chinese were experienced.
Since there wasn’t a furnace large enough to melt that much bronze, the bell makers used several furnaces at once — another example of an assembly line.
The bell was poured in one casting, which meant that the furnaces had to be coordinated to poor the molten bronze. To be successful, there could not be one mistake.
Because of the threats to China from northern nomads, the five thousand kilometer long Great Wall had been built as a first line of defense from invasion.
The Great Wall was high, long and solid since it was constructed of massive slabs of stone. Construction had started two thousand years earlier and work had continued up to the Ming Dynasty.
During the twenty-eight years between 1405 and 1433 AD, the fleet commanded by Zheng He made seven voyages to Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and Africa’s east coast.
Ming navigators kept detailed charts and the fleet was never lost while at sea.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
iLook China 