famous “Imperial Canal” was constructed, the canal that connects the Yangtze with the Yellow River.  Small canals, connecting various streams, had long been in existence, so that it was possible to travel from north to south by water, but these canals were not deep enough or broad enough to take large freight barges.  There are records of lighters of 500 and even 800 tons capacity!  These are dimensions unheard of in the West in those times.  In addition to a serviceable canal to the south, Yang Ti made another that went north almost to the present Peking.

Hand in hand with these successes of the north-eastern and southern gentry went strong support for Confucianism, and a reorganization of the Confucian examination system.  As a rule, however, the examinations were circumvented as an unimportant formality; the various governors were ordered each to send annually to the capital three men with the required education, for whose quality they were held personally responsible; merchants and artisans were expressly excluded.

2 Relations with Turks and with Korea

In foreign affairs an extraordinarily fortunate situation for the Sui dynasty had come into existence.  The T’u-chueeh, the Turks, much the strongest people of the north, had given support now to one and now to another of the northern kingdoms, and this, together with their many armed incursions, had made them the dominant political factor in the north.  But in the first year of the Sui period (581) they split into two sections, so that the Sui had hopes of gaining influence over them.  At first both sections of the Turks had entered into alliance with China, but this was not a sufficient safeguard for the Sui, for one of the Turkish khans was surrounded by Toba who had fled from the vanished state of the Northern Chou, and who now tried to induce the Turks to undertake a campaign for the reconquest of North China.  The leader of this agitation was a princess of the Yue-wen family, the ruling family of the Northern Chou.  The Chinese fought the Turks several times; but much more effective results were gained by their diplomatic missions, which incited the eastern against the western Turks and vice versa, and also incited the Turks against the Toba clique.  In the end one of the sections of Turks accepted Chinese overlordship, and some tribes of the other section were brought over to the Chinese side; also, fresh disunion was sown among the Turks.

Under the emperor Yang Ti, P’ei Chue carried this policy further.  He induced the Toeloes tribes to attack the T’u-yue-hun, and then himself attacked the latter, so destroying their power.  The T’u-yue-hun were a people living in the extreme north of Tibet, under a ruling class apparently of Hsien-pi origin; the people were largely Tibetan.  The purpose of the conquest of the T’u-yue-hun was to safeguard access to Central Asia.  An effective Turkestan policy was, however, impossible so long as the Turks were still a formidable power.  Accordingly,