Qingjiangpu: how a water-control problem made a city
At Qingjiang Lock, follow Chen Xuan's canal intervention from imperial grain transport to towlines, bypass channels and urban life.
Qingjiang Lock and the Li Canal
A modest-looking water-control site that makes the Grand Canal's engineering and human effort tangible.
Qingjiang Lock belongs to the waterway landscape of Qingjiangpu. It helps explain why canal history is about controlling currents and levels as much as digging a channel. Read the lock together with the surrounding banks and bypass watercourse, then connect the local scene to the larger imperial system of grain transport. Today's leisure waterfront is a later chapter, not a direct image of working conditions in the past.
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Photo credits and rights
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The Qingjiangpu waterfront in Huai'an, photographed in July 2025.Cz2018764171 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized and converted to WebP.