The development of the logistics industry to this day can be said to be a miracle in human history. Nowadays, we only need to tap a few times on our mobile phones, wait for two or three days, and the goods from all over the country will be in front of us immediately. All kinds of express delivery and logistics companies are racing against the clock, eager to use rockets to deliver items to customers.
Just a decade ago, the logistics industry was far less developed than it is now, not to mention earlier in ancient times. Logistics is the kind of dart team in the TV series, so slow that modern people certainly can't stand it.
Nowadays, we want to send urgent items, which can be sent by air, which can be shortened on the basis of two or three days, or even less than a day, which is also the miracle of modern logistics. In ancient times, in fact, there was also such a thing as express acceleration, but ordinary people were not qualified to use it, and only the emperor or wartime generals were eligible for express urgent.
The ancient express was called "Eight Hundred Mile Express", and Yang Guifei once had an allusion to "a red dust concubine laughing, no one knows that it is a lychee coming". Speaking of this "eight hundred miles plus urgent", Tang Xuanzong deliberately used this privilege in order to let Yang Guifei eat fresh lychees.
The ancients' eight hundred miles of urgency are actually much slower than modern times. In ancient times, there were post stations on the edge of the official road, one station for twenty miles, specially prepared for personnel who delivered information or materials. Every twenty miles to run a new batch of good horses, which is also the secret of the ancients to improve the speed of logistics.
The so-called eight-hundred-mile rush is that the passers-by do not stop day and night, change horses at each station, and use the best material resources and long-term uninterrupted rushes to the road in exchange for the shortening of time. However, there is such a question, are passers-by not afraid of being robbed by bandits on the road? Moreover, bandits around the official road are generally gathered, and it is the idea of the delivery man. Isn't it a great risk of being robbed if the dedication is so great, and it is still day and night, and there is no rest for a moment?
In fact, we think too much. Although the bandits robbed, they basically did not have any ideas about this kind of eight-hundred-mile express delivery. Why? First of all, eight hundred miles of urgency is a privilege only possessed by the elite, and hitting their ideas is tantamount to begging for food. Second, the eight-hundred-mile rush generally carried letters such as intelligence, which were of no value to the bandits. Moreover, although the bandits have a bad deed, they also know the role of intelligence in wartime, and out of the sense of home and country, they can still distinguish the stakes.
After all, most of the bandits in ancient times were righteous bandits, and the real fierce and vicious ones were still a few, in addition to not robbing eight hundred miles to hurry, they did not rob the students who rushed into Beijing to take the exam.
However, there is a question, how can the bandits tell whether the courier is eight hundred miles urgent? Quite simply, in ancient times, these eight-hundred-mile rushers would generally tie a yellow flag around their waists, in order to facilitate the people of the caravanserai to see in advance, prepare horses for him, and thus save time. And this yellow flag also became a sign for the bandits to distinguish between eight hundred miles and urgent.
In addition, the laws of successive dynasties also stipulate that "800 miles are urgent, the royal gold medal is given, and those who obstruct it will die, and those who oppose it will die." It can be seen that if there are really bandits who have crooked hearts and want to get involved in the eight-hundred-mile express delivery, the imperial court will fight them to the end.