A talented writer described Zhenjiang like this:
The "Tuyang Canal" in the pre-Qin period, also known as the "Dantu Waterway", was the prototype of the northern end of the Jiangnan Canal, which played an important role in the hegemony of wuyue going northward one after another, and also made Zhenjiang, an ancient city, in the geographical advantage of the confluence of rivers from the beginning.
Qin cut Changgang and Yunyang Beigang into curves to slow down the discharge of river water, thus becoming the predecessor of the northern section of the Jiangnan Canal, connecting the Yangtze River system with the Taihu Lake basin, and strengthening the connection between Huaxia civilization in the Central Plains and the southeast barbarian areas.
As early as the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, it was already a big county with a population of more than 10,000 households.
In the Six Dynasties, because it was adjacent to the capital, it developed rapidly and became the second largest city in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River after Jiankang. The north-south waterway with Zhenjiang as the hub was the economic lifeline of the feudal dynasty.
Zhenjiang at this time, as Zhu Mu praised in Yu Fang Sheng Lan in the Southern Song Dynasty: "The Six Dynasties will win, with Wuhui in the east, Hanmian in the west, the gateway to western Zhejiang, controlling the great river, covering the capital of Japan, looking at the sea and the river, and crossing Jintang and Sandi Mansion. "
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, with the completion of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal formed the largest golden cross waterway in China, further establishing Zhenjiang's position as the main entrance to the Yangtze River in the south of the Yangtze River. Zhenjiang's smooth water transport began to have national significance in a unified feudal country.
Zhenjiang's status as a city rose further and became one of the famous cities in the southeast at that time.
Since the middle Tang Dynasty, Zhenjiang has been the throat of grain transportation, and the rice transported from Zhejiang accounts for more than a quarter of the national grain transportation.
Zhejiang West Road was set up in the Tang Dynasty, which governed Runzhou, Changzhou, Suzhou, Mu and Hangzhou in the Jiangnan Canal Basin, and Runzhou (Zhenjiang) was the governing place. From this point of view, Zhenjiang at that time had become the political, economic, cultural and military center of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.