Yangtze River

10 dated entries naming Yangtze River, drawn from 10 separate years between 486 BCE and 1403 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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5th century BC

486 BCEThe first part of the Grand Canal of China is built during the reign of King Fuchai of Wu. It links the Yangtze River with the Huai River, and is a measure to ship ample amount of supplies north for intended wars with the northern states of Song and Lu.source

4th century

318The Eastern Jin dynasty loses its territories to the north of the Yangtze River, to the benefit of the Xiongnu and the Xianbei. The Former Zhao state is proclaimed; Liu Can and the state ruling family at Pingyang is executed in a coup d'état by Jin Zhun, who is in turn overthrown by Shi Le and Liu Yao.source

6th century

577Winter – Northern Qi, one of the Northern Dynasties, is conquered by Northern Zhou under Emperor Wu Di. He orders the last ruler (Gao Wei) and other members of the Gao clan to commit suicide. Northern China, above the Yangtze River, is once again brought under the control of a single power.source
587Fall – The Liang dynasty ends: Emperor Wéndi of the Sui dynasty abolishes Western Liang and expands his territory into the lower valley of the Yangtze River. He sends his official Gao Jiong to the capital Jiangling, to pacify the citizens. The former emperor Xiao Jing Di becomes a vassal and is named the Duke of Liang.source
588Emperor Wéndi of the Sui dynasty prepares a campaign against the Chen dynasty. He amasses 518,000 troops along the northern bank of the Yangtze River, stretching from Sichuan to the Pacific Ocean.source

7th century

609Emperor Yángdi completes the Grand Canal; it provides an unbroken inland ship transport between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. The canal network is 1,776 km (1,400 miles) long—linking five river systems—and extends from Beijing to the city of Hangzhou.source

14th century

1371The Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty in China introduces the census registration system of lijia, or the hundreds-and-tithing system, throughout the Yangzi Valley. This system groups households into units of ten and groups of one hundred, whereupon their capacities for paying taxes and providing the state with corvée labor service can be assessed. The system becomes fully operational in 1381, when it counts 59,873,305 people living in China (the historian Timothy Brook asserts that the number was much higher, somewhere between 65 million and 75 million).source

15th century

1401December 2 – Jingnan campaign: Rebel General Zhu Di adopts a new approach in his war against the Chinese Imperial troops and departs from Beiping to drive troops southward to the Yangtze River, capturing Dong'e, Dongping, Wenshang, and Pei over the next two months.source
1402June 3 – Jingnan campaign: After crossing the Huai River into what is now Jiangsu province, and taking Yangzhou (May 18) and Luhe (May 19), the Yan Army of Zhu Di crosses the Yangtze River at Guazhou and is within striking distance of the Imperial Chinese capital at Nanjing by June 8, forcing Emperor Zhu Yun Wen to prepare terms of surrender that include granting the Yan Kingdom areas north of the Yangtze. Zhu Di refuses.source
1403In China, the Emperor Cheng Zu moves the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, commissions the Yongle Encyclopedia, one of the world's earliest and largest known general encyclopedias, and orders his coastal provinces to build a vast fleet of ships, with construction centered at Longjiang near Nanjing; the inland provinces are to provide wood and float it down the Yangtze River.source