A stone tablet inscribed with the local government's commitment to shipments of tributes was found in the Sixian-section Grand Canal on March 2, confirming that the channel served as a major historic travel route between South and North China.

The county's cultural regulator speculated that the tablet, measuring 35 centimeters high and 41 cm wide, was erected in or after the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The fragmentary inscription includes Chinese characters for Hongxian, a county established in that dynasty now known as Sixian.

Written in vertical columns from top to bottom, the inscription shows the then government promised to comply with the royal family's directive on the imposition of taxes or tributes in forms of grain and silver, which were to be shipped to the capital at that time, Beijing, through the Grand Canal, an official of the Sixian cultural bureau said.

The Grand Canal, the longest artificial river in the world, runs from Hangzhou in the south to Beijing in the north, with the oldest parts dating back to the 5th century BC. The various sections were combined during the Sui Dynasty (581-618).