Waters of Unification: The Yuan Grand Canal as an Engine of Imperial Administration

When the Mongols established the Yuan Dynasty in 1271, they inherited not only the vast territory of a fragmented China but also the structural challenge of ruling it. Their decision to build a northern capital at Dadu, far from the agrarian and economic heartlands of the south, raised an urgent logistical question: how could a steppe-based empire sustain power across such a spatial and cultural divide? This study explores how the Grand Canal, redesigned and extended under Yuan rule, became a crucial infrastructure that supported imperial governance. It focuses the canal's role in facilitating long-distance movement of both essential goods and high-value commodities and uses porcelain as a proxy to investigate how the canal supported imperial logistics, cultural exchange, and regional integration. Through GIS modeling and archaeological evidence, the project evaluates how the redesigned canal improved transport efficiency and reshaped economic connections across the Yuan Empire.