Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Mongols referred to Zhāngjiāk
ǒ
u as Kalgan, 'the Gate'. This trading route, leading to in-
ner Asia's grasslands, was also the favourite route chosen by invaders, such as Genghis
Khan.
The Lifeline of the Grand Canal
The Khitans relied on the Grand Canal to ship goods like silk, porcelain, tea and grain
from the Yangzi River delta. Each successive dynasty shortened the Grand Canal. It was
originally 2500km long when it was built in the 5th century by the Chinese Sui dynasty to
facilitate the military conquest of northeast China and Korea. From the 10th century it was
used for a different purpose: to enable these northern peoples to extract the wealth of cent-
ral China. Běijīng's role was to be the terminus.
Remaining Traces
For 1000 years, half a million peasants spent six months a year hauling huge barges from
Hángzhōu up the Grand Canal to Běijīng. You can still see the canal after it enters the city
from Tōngzhōu, now a suburb of Běijīng, and then winds around the Second Ring Rd.
The tax or tribute from central China was then stored in huge warehouses, a few of which
remain. From Běijīng, the goods were carried out of the West Gate or Xīzhí Mén (where
Xizhimen subway station is today), and taken up the Tánqín Gorge to Bādálǐng, which
once marked the limits of the Chinese world. Beyond this pass, the caravans took the road
to Zhāngjiākǒu, 6000ft above sea level where the grasslands of inner Asia begin.
End of 'Barbarian' Rule
The ultimate aim of the Khitans, Jurchens, Mongols and Manchus was to control the luc-
rative international trade in Chinese-made luxuries. Chinese dynasties like the Song faced
the choice of paying them off or staging a bloody resistance. The Southern Song did at-
tack and destroy Běijīng, but when it failed to defeat the Liao dynasty of the Khitans it re-
sorted to a strategy of 'using the barbarian to defeat the barbarian'. It made a pact with the
Jurchens, and together they captured Běijīng in 1125. But instead of just helping to defeat
the Khitans, the Jurchens carried on south and took the Song capital at Kāifēng. The
Jurchens, however, chose not to try to govern China by themselves and instead opted to
milk the Southern Song dynasty.
