The literary inquisition (文字獄; literally: "imprisonment due to writings") or speech crime (以言入罪) refers to official persecution of intellectuals for their writings in imperial China. The Inquisition took place under each of the dynasties ruling China, although the Qing was particularly notorious for the practice. The last and by far most famous of assassins in Sima Qian’s chronicles is Jing Ke, the man who tried and nearly succeeded in killing the king of Qin, better known for his later... The Jing-Hang Grand Canal linking the Yellow River and Yangtze River nominally runs between Beijing and Hangzhou over a total length of 1,794 km. Its main role throughout its history was the transport of grain to the capital. The alleged misdeeds of Qin Shihuang climaxing in his order to bury four hundred and sixty Confucian scholars alive, made material for an often-recalled story during two millennia.