The Song government expanded the postal route nationwide. At that time, the road from Shaanxi and Gansu to Sichuan Ni Qing Post Road (now south of Huixian County, Gansu Province) was blocked, and the Northern Song Dynasty government was presided over by Li Yuqing, the host and guest doctor transferred from Lizhou (now Guangyuan, Sichuan Province), and reopened a Baishui Post Road. It took only half a year to build a post road from Hechi Post (now Huixian) to Changju Post (now Baishui River in Lueyang, Shaanxi) and then enter Sichuan. There are 2309 kiosks and 389 postal kiosks on the way. Because of the success of this project, the host Li Yuqing and others have been awarded by the government continuously (The Story of Baishui Road). The Song Dynasty government built many post-road bridges in today's Gansu. The famous Lanzhou pontoon bridge and Anxiang pontoon bridge (now Linxia) were built in the Northern Song Dynasty. These two pontoons greatly facilitate the postal transportation between Gansu and Xinjiang, and between Gansu and Qinghai.
According to the different natural conditions in different places, the Song Dynasty also developed various postal facilities such as water mail and camel mail. In Dunhuang, Gansu Province, camel post and donkey post along the desert post road have been developed vigorously. Up to now, there are still images of camel carrying in the Song Dynasty in Dunhuang murals. In Song Taizong, many water delivery shops have been set up between Jiangling, Hubei and Guilin, Guangxi, and thousands of fishermen and woodcutters in the two lakes and along the river in Guangxi have been used as "water delivery shops". In the dangerous places along the Xiangjiang River, there are also the same post roads as Lu Yi (Volume 18 of "Continuing the History as a Mirror").
2. Militarization of the postal system
During the Song Dynasty, the feudal centralization in China developed further. In order to meet the needs of autocratic rule, the postal service at that time also tended to be militarized, and various systems had a strong military color. First of all, the Ministry of War is the central organization in charge of postal management, specifically asking about postal rules and regulations, personnel deployment, horse transportation and so on. At the same time, the Privy Council is also in charge of postal service, and its management scope is the distribution of post horses, the promulgation of postal credit cards and so on. These two institutions restrict each other and are not allowed to monopolize power without authorization. This disposal method and the Song Dynasty "have the right to send troops, without the weight of holding troops;" ..... have the weight of holding troops, but have no right to send troops "(Volume 26 of Fan Taishi Collection) has the same preventive significance. Secondly, in the Northern Song Dynasty, people were replaced by ranks as postal personnel, and the organization for delivering letters was completely established according to the army. This change happened because of the sharp national struggle and class struggle in the Song Dynasty, and the severe situation forced the Song government to take the military content in communication as the top priority.
In the Song Dynasty, the delivery of mail and documents was completely separated from the hotels where officials stayed in the past. This inn has evolved into a simple government guest house. Wang Yinglin, a poet in the Song Dynasty, said: "The house where counties stay overnight is called Jingfu; The Post-Riding Post Station is called Sifang Post Station (Jade Sea in Wang Yinglin), which is only used as a place for officials and messengers to stop and rest. Organizations that deliver government documents and letters have another name, which is always called "delivery" and can be divided into "urgent delivery", "horse delivery" and "step delivery".
Handing a "delivery man", also known as "laying a soldier", is generally filled by local "soldiers", mainly people who deliver documents. Postal personnel changed from civilians to soldiers, which began in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty. In the second year after the establishment of the Song Dynasty, Mao Zhao Kuangyin ordered that "all philatelic products should be transported by the army" (Song Shi Mao Ji), and then customized. At that time, Wang Yi [yǒng Yong] once commented on this measure: "Putting postal materials on behalf of the people in the past" added a great burden to the people. Song Taizu "corrected this shortcoming" and began to "let soldiers be messengers on behalf of the people", and later set up a special postal courier. They got better treatment, thus reducing the burden on the people (Yi Yan Ji Mou Lu). At the beginning, this reform did have a certain effect. The soldiers in the Song Dynasty "rushed around day and night, and their preparations were extremely hard" (Chi Cheng Zhi, Jiading). According to the regulations, although they are paid by the state every month, they can't help being deducted by officials, and they are often in a situation of food and clothing. Some are "hungry and cold without travelling expenses" (Yongle Dadian 14575). The aforementioned water couriers along the Xiangjiang River also lead an inhuman life. They often "have no food and clothing", and because of the difficulty of water transportation, the distance is often the same as that of land transportation, or it rains continuously, misses the deadline and is beaten at the rate. In order to survive, these soldiers and drivers had to gather in the mountains and become bandits. In the history books of the Song Dynasty, there are many records of soldiers fleeing and rebelling. In order to prevent soldiers from escaping, the rulers of the Song Dynasty took vicious measures, forcing them to get tattoos on their bodies, some on their faces and some on their arms, and treating them as prisoners. In doing so, the resistance of paving soldiers was aroused even more.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, "exclusion" was established in the southeast coast and the northern coastal defense areas. This is also a measure to militarize postal communication. The so-called "reprimand" originally refers to the sentry post on the border, and the station is often chosen in the highlands for easy observation. At this time, observation, reconnaissance and communication transmission are combined to establish a "no-stop shop" with military nature. This kind of messenger mainly delivers military emergency documents and serves military activities. Later, the Song government set up a "shop", and the soldiers were still engaged in communications, which brought out the best in each other.
3 "Feel at home" Song Dynasty Inn
As mentioned earlier, in the Song Dynasty, the inn was completely divorced from the postal service and only performed the duties of a government guest house.
The inn in Song Dynasty was divided into several different grades and levels. At the national level, there are high-class hotels to entertain national envoys from neighboring countries. At that time, there were four important hotels in Bianliang, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty. Among them, Banjing Pavilion and Duting Inn are specially used to receive the northern Khitan envoys, Laiyuan Inn is specially used to receive the envoys of northwest Xixia and other ethnic regimes, and Huaiyuan Inn is specially used to receive guests from Xinjiang and Central Asia. These high-class hotels have luxurious facilities, and sometimes state banquets are held here to entertain diplomatic envoys and ministers stationed in the DPRK.
Government guest houses at the local level are also gorgeous. From the outside, it looks like a spectacular temple, a government with style, and a mansion of a rich family. There are all kinds of internal equipment, which simply makes passengers forget to return. Su Dongpo, a great writer in the Song Dynasty, wrote an article entitled "The Famous Records of Fengyi", which described it as follows: "Visitors live in houses such as houses, temples, and houses of rich people all over the world, and people from all directions are happy to forget them." In the Southern Song Dynasty, another writer, Mao Kai, described another posthouse in a delicate style: "It is a house with twenty-four rows and fifty-seven steps. The hall is divided into two rooms, with two wings and heavy walls around it" (Hefeng Posthouse). It means: the house is spacious, with 24 rooms on the left, right and front, with a living area of 57 steps, a hall, a living room, a corridor and high courtyard walls around it. The service staff here is very complete: "there are guards at the door, people in the room, etc.", which is simply "feel at home" (wind post) and the stay is extremely comfortable.
The Song government spent a lot of manpower and material resources to build these luxurious hotels. Fufeng, located in today's Shaanxi Province, used 36,000 civilian workers when its magistrate built Feng Ming Post where Su Dongpo lived, and the silver used for wood and stone alone amounted to more than 202,000 pounds.
At that time, there were also post stations where ordinary people lived, especially small post stations that were not strictly managed. Ordinary people temporarily fill their houses as a shelter from the cold. A short story of Zhang Yongde, a general in the early Song Dynasty, is recorded in A Brief Introduction to the East Capital. It is said that when he was down and out, he once lived in Geyi, Songzhou (now Shangqiu, Henan) and "made his own food". There was a woman in distress who also stayed in Geyi for a while. The local elders pity them, provide them with food and clothing from time to time, and introduce them to be married. One day, Guo Wei, the Emperor of the Later Zhou Dynasty, came here and lived in Geyi. The woman suddenly shouted in the crowd: This is my father! Guo Wei ordered him to go forward, that's his long-lost daughter. So Guo Wei left with his daughter and son-in-law. Later, they finally became nobles. This story reflects the situation of ordinary post stations in the Five Dynasties and the early Song Dynasty.
In the Song Dynasty, hotels were generally strictly managed. Visitors should register and abide by the rules of the post office and must not damage public property. The most interesting thing is that it is stipulated that accommodation passengers should not occupy the hotel for a long time, and the period should not exceed 30 days at most. If they insist on doing so, those who exceed the one-day limit will be sentenced to one year in prison. This rule seems a bit harsh for decent officials who are on a business trip. It is estimated that this provision may not be fully implemented at that time.
4 "Express Shop" the emergence and development
According to Shen Kuo, a famous scientist at that time, there were three main forms of postal delivery in Song Dynasty: one was step delivery, the other was horse delivery, and the third was "express delivery". Step-by-step delivery is used for the delivery of general documents, which is a relay walking delivery. At the same time, this kind of transmission bears heavy official transportation tasks, and the speed is slow. Horse delivery is used to deliver urgent official documents, generally not official documents, and it is faster. However, because most of the horses undertaking this kind of transmission task are old, weak, sick and disabled horses selected by the army, they cannot undertake the transmission of the most urgent documents at the fastest speed. Therefore, in an emergency, since the Northern Song Dynasty, a new form of document delivery has emerged, which is called "Ji Jiao Delivery".
The spread of technical school hands began in northern Song Zhenzong, that is, at the beginning of 1 1 century. It may be used in the military at the earliest. Originally, it was a form of fast delivery at the border, and it was said that it could "walk 400 miles a day". This kind of "rapid transportation" was used in the war against Liao in northern Song Zhenzong and in the war against southern China in Song Shenzong. Zongshen also established a special "express shop" from Kaifeng, the capital, to Guangxi. In the war between the Northern Song Dynasty and Xixia, express delivery was also used to deliver urgent military documents.
The form of express delivery reached its peak in the Yuan Dynasty, with complete system, tight organization and developed network, far exceeding that in the Song Dynasty. In the Yuan Dynasty, express delivery completely replaced the step delivery form in the Song Dynasty, and the horse delivery gradually disappeared at this time, so express delivery became the only communication tool for document delivery. If the Song Dynasty was only set up in some areas, the express shop in the Yuan Dynasty was a common facility in the whole country. At this time, except for a few urgent items, almost all the documents were sent by the express shop.
In the Yuan Dynasty, there was a courier shop every 10 to 25, and each shop was equipped with a twelve o'clock wheel as a sign, a red gatehouse and a license plate. Pavers prepare a pair of splints and climbing clocks, a tassel gun, a travelling bag and a hemp fiber. It looks rain or shine. "Military Records of the Yuan Dynasty" says that when soldiers help, "they all wear belts, hang bells, carry guns, carry raincoats, carry documents and hold torches at night. If the road is narrow, cyclists and load-bearing people will ring the bell to avoid all directions, and the night will also scare the tigers and wolves. " How did they send the official document for the second time? Kyle Poirot, a great Italian traveler to China, gave a very vivid description of the work of laying soldiers in China at that time: "There are small villages every five kilometers or so between the post stations ... there are walking messengers living here ... they are wearing belts and a few small bells, so that when they are still far away, people will know that the couriers are coming. Because they only run about five kilometers ... from one messenger station to another, the bell rang to announce their arrival. So, the messenger from another station came prepared. As soon as the man arrived at the station, he set off immediately with the parcel. Such stations are handed down in turn, which is extremely efficient. It only takes two days and two nights for the emperor to receive news from far away, and it takes ten days at the usual speed. In the fruit picking season, fruits picked in Kangbaluke (now Beijing) in the morning can be transported to Shangdu the next night. This is the ten-day mileage on weekdays (The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II). Through this narrative, we can imagine the speed of sending letters on foot in the Yuan Dynasty.
Unfortunately, this express delivery system failed to develop smoothly and declined at the end of Yuan Dynasty. There was no development in the Ming Dynasty, and it gradually disappeared in the late Qing Dynasty, and it was replaced by another postal system.
5 "Gold medal" system
As we all know, the famous anti-gold star Yue Fei was forcibly recalled from the front line to Lin 'an (now Hangzhou) with 12 gold medals and executed. Amin poet Li Dongyang wrote a poem called "The Golden Plate", angrily accusing the capitulators in the Southern Song Dynasty of killing Yue Fei. A few words: "Golden board, falling from the sky, the general came back crying, demoralized and angry." What about this "golden disk" system?
In the Song Dynasty, the golden plate was originally a communication voucher. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the original national postal certificate of postal communication was a piece of paper, which was also called "collar" at that time. With this voucher, it is unimpeded on the post road. However, when we arrived in Song Taizong, there was a riot that cheated the post horses. The son of a middle-level official, posing as a post official, asked for a post horse and took a privately bought horse tassel as a fake letter. He wandered around many post counties and plundered the property of many officials. Later, local officials saw through it and designed to arrest it. Song Taizong was surprised and decided to change the postal voucher into silver coins as a postal voucher. This silver medal is two and a half inches wide and six inches long. It has an official script with flying phoenix and unicorn engraved on it, with dates on both sides. Later, it developed into three types: gold plate, green plate and scarlet letter plate.
Gold-lettered signboards began in Song Shenzong. Shen Kuo, a Song Dynasty poet, said: This kind of gold-lettered signboard is sent urgently, which is equivalent to the ancient "feather sales", that is, it is similar to the "chicken hair letter" used as an emergency document in later generations. According to historical records, the appearance of gold plate is related to the state of emergency of war. When Song Shenzong and Xixia fought fiercely, Xixia sent 800,000 troops to besiege Lanzhou. In order to make the military situation pass quickly, the Song government ordered the emperor to take the gold plate directly, instead of taking the ordinary delivery shop according to the usual procedure. The golden signboard is a wooden communication signboard more than a foot long. There is a golden book engraved on it, and the bottom is red paint. There are eight big characters on the book: "The words of the imperial court are not allowed to enter the store." It means very urgent. Don't delay in the delivery shop. This kind of gold medal transportation takes 400 to 500 miles every day. At that time, people described the gold-lettered signboard as "bright and dazzling" and "those who look back on it will avoid its path" (Meng Qian Bi Tan, Volume 11), so they can reach their destination quickly. In the 11th year of Emperor Gaozong of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (A.D.11), Yue Fei was ordered to retreat with twelve gold medals, which prevented him from attacking the Jin Army again and ruined the excellent situation of the struggle against gold.
In addition to gold plates, there were green plates and scarlet letters in the Southern Song Dynasty. The green signboard is green with ivory background and is also made of wood. It is required to walk 350 miles a day, and it is also an urgent communication voucher. The scarlet letter card is a scarlet letter painted in black, and it is limited to 300 miles a day. At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, due to the increasingly chaotic postal management and frequent replacement of communication cards, this system was gradually eliminated.
6 Ancient complete communication laws and regulations-"Jin Yu Xin Zhu"
Earlier, we talked about the first postal money order in China during the Cao Wei period. In the Tang Dynasty, most of the laws and regulations on postal services were stipulated in the Law of the Tang Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, there were also some regulations on postal services in the Song Criminal Code.
Since the former dynasty, the postal system in various places has gradually become chaotic, and some government officials have arbitrarily increased the burden on postmen and ordered them to carry parcels and "run with heavy loads"; There are also some post road management officials who accept bribes and issue post tickets indiscriminately, which makes the post road task too complicated and the post station overwhelmed. In order to rectify this situation, in the fourth year of Jiayou (A.D. 1059), the government, based on Han Qi's suggestion, ordered the Third Secretary to draw up 74 Rules on Postal Vouchers, which were promulgated everywhere. This example is also called Jiayou mail order. The Jiayou Post Order added several detailed rules to the criminal law, such as: "Those who shouldn't join the post will be fined 40" and "Those who take bribes and bend the law will be beaten with a hundred sticks" (Song Criminal Law). Since then, the post road has been much more peaceful. In the Southern Song Dynasty, due to the development of postal service, involving a wide range of social life, it formed its own relatively complete and special communication regulations, which is "Jinyu New Book".
The so-called "golden jade" is the abbreviation of the ancient term "golden rule". It is not clear who made this provision. However, its writing date can be traced back to the 19th year of Shaoxing (A.D. 1 149) or later. At that time, the fierce war with the Northern Jin had just ended, and everything needed to be sorted out. However, most of the original laws and regulations used in the Northern Song Dynasty have been lost, and the postal system is also very chaotic. Song Gaozong ordered some courtiers to compile old laws about postal services scattered among the people. Unfortunately, after the wars of past dynasties, this law did not spread among the people. Now 14575 keeps the original text of Yongle Dadian, a large-scale book compiled in Ming Dynasty.
According to the current Yongle Grand Ceremony, there are 1 15 new books on Jinyu, among which 5 1 articles are related to postal criminal law, 5 10 articles are related to lattice appreciation, and 54 articles are related to postal delivery organization and management. Laws and regulations cover a wide range and strictly safeguard the inviolability of official documents. For example, today Shu Xin stipulates that people who steal, dismantle or destroy official books are criminal acts and must be punished. If they steal or reveal important state secrets, they will be hanged. Those who dare to steal or disclose the contents of military intelligence letters involving the border are beheaded, and those who instigate or instigate violations are also sentenced to beheading. If the theft is a general certificate, it is also a violation of the criminal law according to the regulations. Sentenced to prison, divided into five hundred miles. It is worth noting that "Today's Comfort" stipulates that the punishment should not only punish the post bearers who deliver documents, but also deal with his superior officials, including Cao Guan and Ji Jie who participate in the delivery of urgent documents. Those who fail to perform their duties will be killed by a stick.
Yu Shuxin has specific legal provisions and different sentencing standards for the time limit of mailing and the mistakes of various delivery methods. For example, in the sentencing of punishing email errors, step delivery is the lightest, horse delivery is the second, and urgent delivery is the heaviest. When calculating the punishment for parking, traveling and delay on the road, it is calculated in days, and different days have different punishments.
It can be seen from today's comfort that in the feudal society of China, at least in the Song Dynasty, the government attached great importance to postal services and the regulations were very strict. The practice of "delivering according to law" ensures the normal operation of postal services.
7. Notarization of "Private Attached Book"
Before the Song Dynasty, especially in the Tang Dynasty, although it was feasible for officials to mail private books through the national post office, it became more and more common, but it was not allowed by law after all. In the Song Dynasty, things were different. The official "private book attachment" became an explicit provision in the imperial edict, and the scope of communication was greatly expanded. This is a major change in the history of China postal system.
This system began in the second year of Emperor Taizong of the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 985). This year, in order to win over the scholar-officials, Song Taizong obtained special permission: among close relatives, officials can send home letters with official documents. Later, due to too many disadvantages, it was once abolished. However, during the reign of Song Renzong, it was relaxed, and an imperial edict was issued in 1036, saying, "Chinese and foreign courtiers are allowed to attach letters to their families. Make it clear about China and foreign countries, and the next performance should be implemented "("Yi Yan Ji Mou Lu "). At the beginning, official private messages were only allowed to be transmitted gradually, and should not affect or interfere with the urgent transmission of documents by the state. However, the system is gradually relaxed, and a large number of private letters are attached through express delivery shops. Ouyang Xiu, a great writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, said in his article: At that time, the letters between himself and his friends were all delivered with urgent feet. In his letters, there are often words such as "hurry back to the government, serve the table", "hurry back to the promise, insult the book" and "hurry back and taste it", which is proof.
With many private books attached, the correspondence between scholars suddenly increased. The number of "letters" in celebrity collections after the Song Dynasty suddenly increased, and some people even became famous in the name of celebrity letters. There are many calligraphy articles in Su Dongpo's library, which are meaningful and amiable. Among them, there are often the postscript that "at the beginning, you get a book in the near future" and "when you don't give it later, you get two books, but you can't answer them". This "delivery" refers to the letter delivered by the courier. Some letters from home, sent from afar, make people cry with joy. The poet Lu You wrote a poem expressing his feelings when he received the letter: "It's really troublesome to sit in Chai Men at dusk and hug you [yū]. The bell came from the west and suddenly got the book of Haozhou. I was so happy that I didn't read half of it. "This means that Lu You was dismissed by the court in his later years and lived at home for many years. Just when he was so depressed that he had nothing to say, he suddenly heard the ringing of the mailbox in the distance and got a private book from a distance. He was so moved that he couldn't help crying after reading it. There are many private books with you, and some people take advantage of this convenience to satirize someone. In the note novels of the Song Dynasty, there was a story that there was a man named Cao Yong, who was a pawn of the traitor Qin Gui. His official got bigger and bigger, and many neighbors buttered him up, but his wife and brother Liedes didn't buy his account and didn't want to cater to him, which made the boss in Cao Yong very unhappy. Qin Gui died in 1 155. Liedes immediately wrote a letter and sent it to Cao Yong. When Cao received the book, he found that it was an article called "The Tree Fell Away", denouncing the treacherous court official and his gang. This story shows that people spurned traitors at that time, but it also reflects that private letters had been transmitted through various legal means in the Southern Song Dynasty. Li Deshi was only a small local official at that time, and he was able to deliver private books, which was enough to show that private letters were more common at that time.
Post Offices in Liao, Xia and Jin Dynasties
At the same time as the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, several regimes were established by the rulers of ethnic minorities in northern China, namely Liao in northern China, Jin established by Jurchen nationality and Xixia established by Tangut in northwest China.
At that time, there were frequent wars in the north, ethnic oppression was serious, the economy was greatly damaged, and the post office was once in chaos. But soon, the rulers of Liao, Xixia and Jin quickly cleaned up the mess, restored the economy and resumed normal post office communication, which had obvious national characteristics.
Generally speaking, the post office in Liao Dynasty was relatively backward, and the traffic was not as developed as that in Central Plains. Land transportation is the main means of transportation, including cattle, cars, camels and horses. In recent years, some murals of Liao tombs found in some northern areas reflect the contents of chariots and horses at that time, and we can see the general traffic situation at that time. During the Liao Dynasty, the great achievement of postal service was to open up a postal route from the northeast to the Central Plains. At that time, there were post roads connecting Shangjing (now Baling Zuo Qi, Inner Mongolia), Zhongjing (now Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia), Tokyo (now Liaoyang, Liaoning) and Nanjing (now Beijing) in Liaoning, and there were also post stations along the way for officials to stay. Generally, the facilities of these stations are simpler than those in the mainland, but the food supply and the equipment of horses and chariots are similar to those in the Central Plains.
Liaoyang Prefecture in Tokyo is the center of Liao Dynasty in northeast China. Postal routes from Tokyo to various places extend in all directions. According to Ceng Gongliang's "Wu Jing Zong Yao", there are four post stations 14 along the way from Tokyo to Zhongjing Dadingfu (now Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia), among which the famous post stations are Liaoshuige, Tangyege, Jian 'an Pavilion and Sanhe Post Station. The distance between post offices ranges from 50 to 65,438+000 Li. With Tokyo as the center, there are also postal routes leading directly to the Heilongjiang River Basin and the Korean Peninsula. The Liao Dynasty opened a post road from the Imperial Palace in Shangjing to Nurgan in the lower reaches of Heilongjiang, with a total length of more than 5,000 miles. It is also called "Eagle Road" because it is a passage named Haidong Qingying that Liao rulers extorted from local jurchen.
Generally speaking, Chiyi in Liao Dynasty is based on silver medals, about one foot long, engraved in Qidan, meaning "appropriate speed". There is also the word "hurry", which I believe is trustworthy. The limit after running a horse requires that the horse be delivered at the fastest speed of 700 miles per day, and then 500 miles.
In the late Liao Dynasty, due to the double blackmail of the ruling class, and because the center of the Liao Dynasty was in the northeast, the post road with the Central Plains had to pass through many winding paths, so the post transportation was very difficult, which brought a heavy burden to the slave workers of the post transportation. By the time of the last emperor, Emperor Tianzuo, the people had reached the point of "bankruptcy can't be given". So the people in the north often rise up and resist. In a hostel in Yanjing, an emissary sent by the Northern Song Dynasty to Liao country once saw a poem and a painting on the wall that showed people's rebellious thoughts, and drew a crow with two poems attached to it: "The stars are sparse, the moon is bright and the night is bright, and all will fly south", which reflected people's feelings towards the south at that time.
Xixia was a national regime separated from Ningxia in the Southern Song Dynasty. During Li Yuanhao's reign, he also imitated the system of the Central Plains to build post roads. The inscription left so far records that in order to compete with the Song Dynasty for northern Shaanxi, Xixia built a sand bridge on the Yellow River in Jingyuan, Gansu, and communicated the post roads in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia. Shaqiao is a transliteration of cable bridge, which may be an iron cable bridge with a deck. The bridge stood on the river until the Yuan Dynasty (Longyou Jinshi Lu).
According to Ceng Gong's Longping Collection, there were 25 stations in Xixia at that time, with 10 stations in the north and south, and 12 stations from the Yellow River to Liao. Xiayi mainly uses horses, cows and camels as communication tools, and also has postal cards modeled after the Central Plains system. Xixia imperial edict is engraved with Xixia characters "burning horses", which means "making post horses gallop day and night". According to textual research, it was the symbol card used when Xixia Station delivered documents at that time.
Jin was a regime established by the Jurchen nationality. From115, which was founded by Akuta, to 1234, which was wiped out by Mongols, a powerful regime was established to rule northern China. At the beginning, the Jurchen nationality lagged behind the Liao, Xia and Song Dynasties and did not understand the importance of postal services. According to "Jinshi", when Agu fought Liao, there were no words, and all military secrets were dictated by the generals face to face. There is an emissary named Zhong [nü u] Bowl of Wendeng Siwei Zhong, who never misses a word. Later, the rulers of the Jin dynasty "used by Liao people" learned to use words, and the post-delivery system gradually began. Since then, the post office in Northeast China has developed rapidly. From Emperor Taizong of Jin Dynasty, from Huining Prefecture (now Acheng, Heilongjiang Province) to Kaifeng, Henan Province, a post office was set up every 50 miles, forming a long postal route. One year, the envoys of the Northern Song Dynasty congratulated the king on his accession to the throne, starting from the Capital of Song Dynasty, from Xiongzhou on the Song-Jin border to Huining, and passing through 39 post stations along the way, the whole journey reached more than 2,500 miles.
Jin Shizong, and set up an emergency delivery shop. Here is another story: one day, he said to his courtiers, "I always want a new litchi", so he followed the example of Tang and Yang Guifei, strengthened the post delivery system and set up a courier shop. It is stipulated that there should be one shop every 10, and each shop should have three soldiers. Pavers and horseback riders can walk 300 miles a day to deliver documents. The fee for raising horses by express delivery is collected from the people, which is called "laying down the nux vomica".
The posthouse in Jinzhongdu is also quite elegant. Fan Chengda, a famous poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, once lived in Zhongdu Inn. He described that Zhongdu Inn supplied pears, chestnuts and other dried and fresh fruits, and also drank wine.
The Jin Dynasty implemented the postal currency card system a long time ago, including gold medals, silver medals and "wooden cards", and then made them into green painted scarlet letters. Every time he goes out, the emissary wears these postcards, commonly known as gold medal and silver medal Lang Jun. People in the Southern Song Dynasty believed that this system was handed down from the Song Dynasty. Biographies at the end of the Song Dynasty and a trip to Huangcun in the Southern Song Dynasty recorded the postal services of the Jin Dynasty in northeast Heilongjiang at that time, calling them "houses", "shops" and "pavilions". In the stories at the end of the Song Dynasty, there are records such as "Nanpu in Yinzhou", "Beipu in Suzhou" and "Nanpu in Anzhou". The golden post stations recorded in their books are all depressed, with barren roads and dilapidated walls, and no one has repaired them. It shows that the post roads in the border areas at that time were not as exquisite as those in the Central Plains.
"Li Chi" System in Yuan Dynasty
During the Yuan Dynasty in China, the postal service developed greatly. The Yuan Dynasty established the largest empire in history. In order to adapt to the rule of vast fields, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty carried out positive reforms on postal services, greatly expanding the scope of postal services. As early as Genghis Khan's time, many post stations were built in the western regions. Qiu Chuji, a famous Changchun real person, visited these stations when he met Genghis Khan in Kush Mountain, the Indian capital.
After Genghis Khan's army occupied western Liaoning, it immediately established effective postal facilities in the local area. The History of the Yuan Dynasty records that in 12 15, the Yuan army occupied western Liaoning, and someone reported to the court that Yizhou (now located in Yixian County, Liaoning Province) was going to rebel, and the town would be prepared to suppress it by killing the city. After observation, Wang Rongzu reported to Genghis Khan and the bloodbath stopped. It can be seen that the post horse was flying very fast at that time. After Genghis Khan's son Wokuotai ascended the throne, he ordered to rectify the local postal shop. The order said: "Every hundred households in Zhuniuma Station have Han carts, and each station has rice warehouses, and each station has nano-stones every year." It can be seen that there was a complete post office system at that time.
Wokuotai and Genghis Khan's grandson Badou have even crossed the Mongolian postal route to Europe, forming a long postal route connecting Eurasia.
After Yuan Shizu unified the Central Plains, Kublai Khan established a strict "Li Chi" system in a vast territory, which made postal communication play a very effective role. The so-called "station red" is a transliteration of Mongolian "post-biography". According to expert research, this "station red" originally refers to the person and official in charge of post-biography, and later it is also commonly known as post station and post-biography. Strictly speaking, the word "post station" began in the Yuan Dynasty. According to Raster, a Persian historian, there were three kinds of post roads in the Yuan Dynasty: one was called Tieli Trunk Road, which means driveway in Mongolian; The second is called Mulian Road, which means "horse road" in Mongolian; The third is to accept pity, which means the path in Mongolian. From a regional perspective, Tieligan and Liu Mu Road are mainly used for postal services from Shanbei to the capital and between the capitals. Nalian Road is only used for the northwest military, and most of the post stations are in Gansu Province today, so it is also called "Nalian Post in Gansu Province".
The system standing in red is a systematic and strict post-system Broadly speaking, it should include the management regulations of stations, the duties of station officials, the tax collection system of station equipment and station residents, and so on. When Kublai Khan was in Yuan Shizu, he formulated the "legislation on the establishment of the red", which was the basic management principle of the later generations at that time. There are many basic contents of 10, such as organization and leadership of the post, horse management, grain supply of the post, horse acceptance and restraint of post officials, inspection of post signs, pasture management, supervision and timely dispatch of envoys, etc. In the Yuan Dynasty, there were post orders and post officers in each post station. Their duties are: to supply enough good horses, check the certificate of the post station and check the equipment of the post station. These specific regulations on the management of post stations and the assessment of post officials ensured the development of post stations in the Yuan Dynasty.
The post roads in the Yuan Dynasty extended in all directions. Historians believe that the prosperity of the post station system in Yuan Dynasty is rare in Chinese history. It is "the nerve and blood network of Yuan government" and plays an important role in maintaining the government's rule over vast areas of the country. In particular, it has played an important role in promoting the development of transportation in China's border areas. Today, the three northeastern provinces belong to Liaoyang Zhongshuhang Province in the Yuan Dynasty, and there are two trunk lines in the north and south, which extend to Nuer Gancheng, where Heilongjiang enters the sea, and Wang Du, North Korea, in the south.