Cruising China's Grand Canal: Part 2
 Wake up everyone! We'll be cruising on the Yangtze River for a short stretch here as we near Zhenjiang. The city's name means Garrison of the River and there were settlements at this strategic site as far back as the eighth century BC. When Emperor Qin Shi Huang, a firm believer in Feng Shui, occupied the place in 221 BC, it was calculated that the site had too much power to be confined, so the emperor ordered his prisoners to dig a tunnel through a hill to disperse the power away from the town. Zhenjiang prospered with the building of the Canal during the Sui dynasty and became the chief collection and forwarding center for tax grain paid by the Yangtse delta region. During the Song dynasty the merchants of Zhenjiang manufactured fine fabrics and silverware for the Imperial court. Zhenjiang is also well known for a distinctive brown rice vinegar produced here.
There is a very old Buddhist temple here. The Jinshan Temple is located in a beautifully landscaped park and is the very temple in which the legendary Lady White Snake was held captive. Landscape artists have long been attracted to the hills in the south of the city. There is also a famous spring in Zhenjiang from which is reputed to flow the best water in Jiangsu province for making tea. Zhenjiang was also the early childhood home of Pearl S. Buck who wrote many novels set in China, the best known of which is The Good Earth.
There's an old tale about the building of the Canal in Zhenjiang. Seems one of the overseers was a most vile man called Ma Shumou, commonly known as Mahu the Barbarous One. Each day at the end of work, he ate a steamed two- year old child for his supper. Mothers are still trying to get their youngsters to behave by threatening them with becoming Mahu's dinner.
Ah! Here is the turn into the Li or Inner Canal, which we will follow all the way to Huai'an. In just a short time, you will see the outskirts of Yangzhou to your left. When the city was founded in the fourth century BC, it was called Guangling and served as the capital of the Wu Kingdom for a short time. During the Tang dynasty, Yangzhou was the hub of commerce in the Yangtze region and a center of administration. Marco Polo acted either as governor or as an official in the salt industry here during his time with Kubilai Khan in the late thirteenth century.
The city has long been attractive to artists and poets. Of particular fame are the poet Li Bai of the Tang era, Shitao, a painter and calligrapher during the early Ming dynasty, and a later group called Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou. Fine lacquerware and jade carvings may be purchased here as well as regional dishes such as Yangzhou pickles and a special fried rice.
We won't be stopping in Gaoyou today, but it too has a long and interesting history. Archaeologists have recently excavated a 7,000 year old village just to the north of the town. Among the many artifacts found were over 4,000 carbonized grains of cultivated rice which have aided in tracing the spread of agriculture in early China.
In the Qin dynasty, a postal relay station was built at the site, from which Gaoyou gets its name - High Post. The coming of the Canal furthered development in the region. Marco Polo visited Gaoyou during his travels, calling it Kao-yu. He described it as "a large and splendid city" where the people used paper money and lived by trade and industry. "They are plentifully supplied with...fish without stint and game in abundance, both beast and bird". Three pheasants could be had for just one Venetian groat. During the Ming dynasty the Yucheng Post Station here was one of the forty-six mail post stations along the Canal between Beijing and Nanjing. Horses were kept at the ready at these post stations, enabling Imperial messengers to immediately change mounts to speed along their way. Boats and ferries were also available should they be needed at any time by the servants of the empire.
That body of water you see stretching to the west is Gaoyou Hu, a lake which evolved from several centuries of engineering projects designed to control the frequent flooding and course changes of the Huai River. We will be keeping this lovely lake in sight until we reach Baoying, which is known for its beautiful lotuses. The people there ship lotus plants and all sorts of derivative products all over China, and to Korea and Japan.
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