In the sixth year of the reign of Daye (610), Sui Yangdi, Emperor of Sui having effectively dredged the Canal in the North, gathered more than a hundred thousand conscripted laborers in the South to widen, deepen and link the waterway of the old Canal to construct the South of the-Yangtze Canal, that was 400-kilometers long and more than 33 meters wide. The completion of the Canal improved the traffic on land and rivers, and spurred the production and economic prosperity in this area, while strengthening the economic and cultural exchanges between the South and the North and the unity of the country. Henceforth, the grains and materials from the South and especially from the Wu area were transported continually to the North. As the saying goes, convenient transportation benefits the country. Convenient transportation also conduced to the high economic development in the Wu area.
In the Tang Dynasty, land opening up stopped temporarily because of the incessant seizure and enclosure of the farmland. With the ever growing population in the South, particularly in the Wu area, farming developed in depth instead of in width. Extensive farming changed to intensive farming, characterized in the improvement of the farming implements.

　　The most important improvement in farming implements was in the ploughs. As recorded by Lu Guimeng, a Wu scholar, in the “Book of Farming Implements”, the “Jiangdong” plough, or the curved-shaft plough comprised eleven parts. The mould board was of metal and the other parts were of wood, including the bottom, shaft, handles, etc., The plough share was made of iron . This new plough made ploughing much more effective. Lu Guimeng also made a detailed description of the method of using it . It could move forward and backward and plough the land either deeply or shallowly, and was easy to use.
Beside the new plough , there were other new farming implement , such as harrow , shovel , sickle , spade , hoe , etc., for smashing earth , leveling fields , excavating soil , hoeing , weeding and harvesting . The new , innovated implements and the intensive farming methods led to a such as “From Wu are shipped Corn and Silk” and “From Eastern Wu comes fine rice”, all reflected the increased grains production in the Wu area .