Aqueduct of Ages

The four Baxia (蝮) creatures guarding the main arch of Gongchen Bridge (拱宸桥), legendary statues of the sons of the formidable Dragon Emperor in Chinese mythology, look a bit nervous. This is natural considering their function is to stop unsteadily steered ships from hitting the bridge with nearly 400 years of history. Over the past decade, those Baxia have been hit multiple times by heavy coal barges and stone barges heading in and out of Hangzhou via the Grand Canal. Ignoring the occasional crash, these statues, hugging the side of the arches of one of China’s most beautiful bridges, have seen the best of Chinese history pass to and from one of the greatest cities in ancient China.

 

To some, the Grand Canal may seem like an ordinary river found in any Chinese city, olive water flowing and contained by cement banks decorated with sparse willow trees. Taking in this placid scenery, it’s hard to imagine that the Grand Canal was once the heart of the world’s global economy. Stretching nearly 1,800 kilometers from Beijing to Hangzhou, the Grand Canal was arguably the main contributor to the integration of southern and northern China more than 1,400 years ago. Wherever it flowed, it brought prosperity and communication, with Hangzhou as its most vital nexus.

The Grand Canal, in fact, made Hangzhou. Before 605, Hangzhou was an obscure town with a population of 15,000. However, with the Grand Canal completed in 610, Hangzhou quickly burgeoned into a cosmopolitan metropolis, in a miraculous transformation. By the mid-Tang Dynasty in the eighth century, Hangzhou already had over 30,000 shops, and the ships mooring in the canal stretched for more than ten kilometers.

The amount of commerce and communication generated along the Grand Canal during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), notably the Southern Song (1127–1279), triggered global trade that forged powerful links with Europe, Africa, and Asia—the very origins of modernity.

Carved from Time

Leaving from the Wulin Square Boat Terminal (武林门码头), the 30-minute Grand Canal water trip to the historic Gongchen Bridge shows how the tides of the past and present blend. Modern glass towers and apartments line this stretch of the canal today—so too do small pagodas, statues, and adjoining locks and canals.

The first sections of the Grand Canal were dug in the fifth century BCE from earth in northern China. Its southern terminus in Hangzhou, however, did not come into being until a thousand years later during the Sui Dynasty. Known for his cruelty, the Emperor Yang of Sui (隋炀帝) forced millions of workers to stretch the canal first down to Hangzhou, and then northwest to Zhuozhou in present Hebei Province. In four years, the Emperor built 2,000 kilometers of canals. The cost of such efficiency was a stunningly high rate of casualty: four to five workers out of ten died from the intense labor. To this day, in Chinese textbooks, Emperor Yang is still depicted as a tyrant in a feudal age, a callous oppressor of the poor.

 

Many scholars in the Tang and Song dynasties largely attributed the downfall of the short-lived Sui Dynasty to the building of the Grand Canal; but they were also grateful for the project. As Pi Rixiu (皮日休), a Tang poet, put it: “Heaven empowered our great Tang Dynasty with the tyrannical hand of Sui!” When it was completed in 610, the canal gave an interior link to five of China’s major rivers as well as access to the sea. Through further rivers and lakes headed south, it linked up through the Meizhou Pass to the Pearl River Delta, thus contributing to the Golden Era of the Tang and Song dynasties.

Swan Song

Though certainly grand during the Tang, the Grand Canal truly soared during the Song Dynasty. The population of Hangzhou reached 1.5 million, and the city became best known for her silk and tea—a fame it still enjoys today. Northern China was also reliant on Hangzhou’s grain production, as a proverb at the early Song Dynasty clearly states, “The nation will not starve as long as Hangzhou and Suzhou harvest.”

 

In 984, an ingenious engineer gave the Grand Canal further security from bandits by inventing the double-gate pound lock, permitting ships to wait in a safe gate and roofed hangar while the locks were drained.

 

The locks and tributaries of the Grand Canal still stretch through the city—harking back to a time when the shores were lined with small towns. Here in Hangzhou, these canal-side villages and towns sprang up like fields of mushrooms when the northern areas were destroyed and the capital relocated in 1129.

What remained preserved of the Grand Canal in Hangzhou during the Song made a deep impression on visitors. For example, two intrepid travelers, Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo, each marveled at the Grand Canal when they visited Hangzhou.

 

In the 1280s, Marco Polo visited the Grand Canal at Hangzhou: “At the back of the market places, there runs a very large canal, on the bank of which towards the squares are built great houses of stone, in which the merchants from India and other foreign parts store their wares, to be handy for the markets,” Marco Polo remarked. “In each of the squares is held a market three days in the week, frequented by 40,000 or 50,000 persons, who bring thither for sale every possible necessary of life.”

Xiangji Temple
香积寺

Opposite to Xiaohe Straight Street (小河直街) to the west bank of the Grand Canal, nestled in deep alleyways, is a monastery called Xiangji Temple, notable for being the only one worshiping Kinnara, in Chinese translated as “The Bodhisattva Supervising the Kitchen”. Built in 978, it was the first monastery to greet sailors and pilgrims that took the Grand Canal to Hangzhou. For pilgrims’ convenience, the waterway directly connected to the temple gate. The present monastery was rebuilt in 2009, featuring a lavish use of copper in its major buildings, including pillars, corridors, the drum tower, and prayer halls. The sole remnant of its former buildings is the eastern pagoda built in 1713.

 

In 1345, the Moroccan Sufi jurist Ibn Battuta visited Hangzhou, noting it was the biggest city he had ever encountered on his global travels. The painted Chinese ships and colored sails moored in the canals there caught his fancy, prompting him to write on the placid farm fields, orchids, and people in black and floral silks.

 

Bridge over Fabled Waters

Between 1411 and 1415, the canal saw further expansion with 300,000 laborers dredging it and building a new canal route through Shandong Province to increase its northern access. This drew Suzhou inexorably into the sphere of the canal’s influence, yet left Hangzhou as its primary southern feeder point. The Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) further staffed the canal with over 120,000 soldiers and officials in garrisons and courier posts every 35 to 45 kilometers. They managed the nearly 12,000 grain barges that floated along the canal well into the 15th century.

 

For centuries, merchants would mark their journey at the famous Gongchen Bridge, a place that demarcates where the canal officially intersected with the city’s internal aqueduct system, abuzz with ships of all kinds from around the empire.

 

Indeed, Gongchen Bridge means “Salute to Emperor’s Place” and is defined by three majestic arches. This “North Gate of Hangzhou” was built in 1631 and is 98 meters in length. The moon-shaped arches are crested with buttressed carvings of two dragons playing with a fire ball. They are also embossed with lotuses and inscriptions—the latter rubbed off with time.

 

In 1855 the Yellow River flooded and changed course, making it far more difficult to traverse the northern canal effectively. It also lost prominence as commercial hubs like Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong picked up steam. Later, railway projects in the early 20th century further cut into the canal’s usefulness.

 

The Grand Canal began to see more traffic after 1949 as local shipping gained more footing, and today the canal still sees important shipping through Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces. And, peppered throughout the Yangtze River Delta, small cities still rely on the ancient commerce and travel of this noble project from centuries ago.

 

As of 2014, The Grand Canal was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it’s no surprise considering how the Grand Canal shaped the Chinese nation. This, however, belies the importance the canal still serves, even after more than a millennium of history.

Historic Streets

Disembarking at Gongchen Bridge, one can comfortably come to grips with the captivating historical importance of this bridge and canal. Covering nearly 80,000 square meters, this was once the main ferry terminal during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty (1616 – 1911), during which the rulers sought to modernize China. Architecture from that time still stands preserved in these whitewashed lanes. Also maintained is the cultural legacy of the area, with museums dedicated to the early arts for which the people were known, including fans, umbrellas, knives, scissors, and swords. The umbrella museum in particular is a surprise due to its combination of avant-garde installations and colorful presentation; Hangzhou was, after all, the world capital for silk parasols.

 

For the perfect stroll along the Grand Canal, visit Xiaohe Straight Street. Located at the junction of the Grand Canal, Xiaohe River, and Yuhangtang River, the street flourished as a suburb during the Tang and Song dynasties before becoming a fully fledged commercial hub in the 20th century. Today it hosts some of the last living “indigenous dwellers” of the neighborhood along with working food shops, blacksmiths, and rice mills. They are adorned with traditional black matte Jiangnan tiles and flank the waterfront. Sitting in any of the cafes on these streets, the river’s flow is as hypnotic as its heritage is palpable.