aluable new market for the producers in the north-east and
the south. It was at this time that the first forerunner of the 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