This historical story is not about good people and bad people. It is about a lonely man who tried to outrun his age and was ultimately crushed by it. The road he left behind is still traveled by those who came after him; the spade he used to dig canals was later used to fill them in. The achievements were his, and so were the failings, but the road became everyone’s.” In the fourteenth year of Daye (618), Emperor Yang of Sui was murdered in Jiangdu. Twenty-two years later, Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, refined the imperial examination system, cleared the canals, expanded into the Western Regions, and pacified the Turks. History calls it the “Reign of Zhenguan.” And the canal that runs through the heart of China is still known as the Grand Canal of the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
