Huiluo Granary was the pantry of the Sui dynasty, and the scale of it is hard to take in. Built around 606, during the reign of Emperor Yang, on a rise northeast of the new eastern capital of Luoyang, it was one of the great state storehouses along the Grand Canal, designed to hold grain shipped in from the rich lands of the east and south. The Sui emperors dug canals at a furious pace to link the Yellow and Yangtze basins, and granaries like this one were the stockpiles that kept the capital, the army and the court fed.
Archaeologists have found hundreds of underground storage pits here, big circular cellars dug into the loess soil and lined to keep out damp, laid out in neat rows inside a walled compound. Some of the pits held remains of grain, and charred millet has been found, a sign of fire or decay in the final days. The Sui dynasty collapsed in 618, partly because of the cost of such projects, and the grain stores were fought over in the civil wars that followed. The granary site was included in the Grand Canal's UNESCO listing in 2014.
On the ground, expect an excavated field with protective structures over some pits, boards explaining the work in Chinese, and wide skies. It is not decorative, but a good place to understand the logistics behind imperial China. Luoyang, one of the ancient capitals of China and only five kilometres away, has far more to see, including the Longmen Grottoes, with thousands of Buddhist carvings, the White Horse Temple and a famous peony festival in April.
The roads around Luoyang are busy, with trucks, buses and scooters, and the ride to Zhengzhou along the Yellow River plain is long and flat. Spring and autumn are the best seasons, and summer can be sweltering. Luoyang is a big city, with plenty of fuel, workshops and hotels, and a local speciality, the Luoyang water banquet, a set of dishes served as soups. Check the rules for foreign motorcyclists in China well before you plan a trip.