A bird's eye view of the canal at Yangzhou. [Ma Yongkuan/For China Daily]

Yangzhou was where the journey of China's Grand Canal began, if you went by the book.

Construction on the world's longest manmade watercourse - and also one of its earliest, as records show the canal has existed since at least the 5th century BC - started right here.

"Yangzhou is associated with the earliest recorded instance of digging for the canal," says Gu Feng, a spokesperson of the information office of Yangzhou municipal government.

Barges carrying coal dust sail down the canal at Shaobo.

"That was in 486 BC. About 2,000 years ago, the canal was the only mode of transport around these parts."

Grand tales of the canal: 1. In 1996, a sunken boat was found near Java, Indonesia. It contained 17,000 pieces of porcelain and copper-based mirrors. Inscriptions on the back of these mirrors showed they were manufactured in Yangzhou in 828 AD. 2. Archaeological discoveries have supported the fact that a major supplier of porcelain to the world worked out of Yangzhou in 700 AD. Specimens of porcelain dating back to that time found in Iran, Iraq and Thailand and elsewhere in western Asia matched those manufactured in Yangzhou. 3. As early as the Song Dynasty (960-1279), a double-gated contraption was built to manipulate the water levels at Yangzhou, as scientist and historian Shen Kuo, who belonged to the same period, wrote. 4. A department for shipping merchandise to the imperial household in Beijing was set up in Yangzhou in the 16th century and thrived until around early 20th century. Its decline coincided with the Qing Empire's. By then, local salt manufacturers were no longer keen to supply their wares to the king. The canals in the north were developed and the department was shifted north. 5. Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) Emperor Kangxi made six trips from Beijing to Yangzhou to supervise the building of the canal. The canal was intended to ensure smooth passage of water to alleviate the impact of the potentially devastating floods caused by the swelling of the Yellow River.

We are on our way to the ancient town of Shaobo, roughly 85 km away from Jiangsu's provincial capital, Nanjing.

Shaobo is the viewing point nearest to Yangzhou where one might connect with the history of a waterway that has served as a vital link between China's north and south - from Beijing to Hangzhou - for more than 2,500 years.

The canal was conceived as a strategic conduit by Fuchai - the King of the State of Wu, who ordered its construction in the late Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC).

It was primarily intended to carry supplies to feed his army as he had ambitions of invading the northern states.

Later, the Grand Canal evolved into a principal trade route.

During the Tang (AD 618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, the canal - by then a well-entrenched network of waterways, connecting the major towns and marketing hubs in the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong and Hebei - reached its peak. It transported merchandise from the South to the emperor in Beijing.

My research showed Shaobo still had traces of Song Dynasty architecture.

Shaobo sounded like a place that had taken on the imprints of the significant milestones in the canal's life and preserved these in an album - and that, too, as we later found out, all within a 1-km radius.

But first stop, Yangzhou.

Here's where we meet Gu - a repository of information and anecdotes about Yangzhou, with whose history the canal is indelibly linked (see sidebar).

By AD 600, the waterway linking Beijing to Hangzhou and subsidiary streams feeding the main channels were all connected, Gu says.