Another amazing thing is how early the Chinese (with significant inland natural waterways) were building mega-scale artificial waterways for this purpose. See h

Another amazing thing is how early the Chinese (with significant inland natural waterways) were building mega-scale artificial waterways for this purpose. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China) (~6th century) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_canals_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_canals_in_China .. also how different (and in some ways superior) their sail plans were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_rig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_rig