In various costume TV series, we can often see the saying "eight hundred miles plus urgent". A shipment or document that was rushed by eight hundred miles was transported from the border to the interior, which was very inconceivable in ancient times.
You must know that in ancient times, robbers were very rampant, even in the prosperous world, it was not enough to ensure that there were robbers in the deep mountains and old forests. But in the costume drama, the eight hundred mile plus urgent seems to be able to deliver all of them. So how fast was the ancient eight-hundred-mile rush? Why don't even robbers dare to grab it?
Eight hundred miles plus fast
In fact, the eight-hundred-mile express is a description, which mainly refers to the highest level of ancient post transportation is very fast, reaching a speed of eight hundred miles per day. Under normal circumstances, eight hundred miles of urgency can not run so fast. After all, the Maxima only appears in the legend, and hundreds of stations in the country, large and small, cannot all use Maxima.
The so-called eight-hundred-mile expedited is a way in which ancient dynasties used the post station system to quickly transport goods or documents. The things transported are basically official documents, or various reports of the frontier. However, there were also cases of transporting goods, such as Tang Xuanzong Li Longji, who let the Tang Dynasty's station system transport lychees. As Du Mu wrote in the poem: A red dust concubine laughs, and no one knows that it is a lychee.
As the highest level of post transport, the eight-hundred-mile express has strict speed regulations, and the slowest is to run three hundred miles a day. Under normal circumstances, the speed of "eight hundred miles plus urgent" is between four hundred and six hundred miles per day, and the fastest can reach eight hundred miles per day. Like the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang army wanted to transport the news of An Lushan's rebellion from Fanyang to Xi'an, and the distance between the two places was about 2,000 miles in a straight line and 3,000 miles in a straight line. The Tang Dynasty's caravanserai only ran for 6 days, with an average of 500 miles per day.
How the station system works
In order to reach such a fast speed, the horses transporting the "eight hundred mile rush" must be kept in top condition. But horses, as flesh and blood, are tired, so the ancient caravanserai system had a caravanserai every twenty miles. The "Eight Hundred Mile Express" must change horses every time they reach a station, so that the horses have been running at full speed throughout the transportation.
Why don't thieves dare to grab the "eight hundred miles plus rush"
Eight hundred miles of expedited transportation as the highest level of ancient post transportation, the transport of things is generally very important, even related to the safety of the entire dynasty. Therefore, the ancient dynasty attached great importance to the eight hundred miles of urgency and would send a large army to protect it.
The way of protection is naturally not to send troops to follow the transport of the horses of the "Eight Hundred Mile Rush", but to protect along the official road. The ancient post system was built on official roads, which stationed troops at intervals to ensure that there were no bandits in the surrounding mountains and forests. Therefore, for the robbers, the robbery of "eight hundred miles plus urgent" is simply looking for death.
Of course, the ancient station system was not completely reliable. A system of this size is extremely expensive to maintain. Therefore, any dynasty in the last stage of ancient China, the station system must be in a semi-paralyzed state, and even the station system will extend the "butcher knife" to this ancient dynasty. Like Li Zicheng, who overthrew the Ming Dynasty, he was a pawn of a post station.