As the supreme instruction of the ancient emperors, the meaning of the Holy Will is self-evident. The transmission of the holy will is naturally a very important thing, generally if the distance of the transmission of the holy will is far, it will be used to six hundred miles of urgency, eight hundred miles of urgency and so on. So how long would it take to transmit the Holy Will from The Capital to Guangzhou at such a speed?
There have been many dynasties in the history of our country, and the location of the capitals of successive dynasties has been different, such as Chang'an City (present-day Xi'an) in the Tang Dynasty, Yingtian City (present-day Nanjing) in the Ming Dynasty, and Beijing City in the Qing Dynasty are all more famous capitals in history. Therefore, the difference in the location of the capital city also determines the distance of the transmission of the Holy Will.
Today we will take the farthest and most famous capital city, Beijing City. The first time Beijing City was used as a capital city was during the Yuan Dynasty, and later in the Qing Dynasty, the capital city was also set here, and finally after the founding of New China, after many considerations, we finally chose Beijing City as the capital. Therefore, the history of Beijing as a capital city is very long. However, the distance between Beijing and Guangzhou, one north and one south, was very far away, which made it very difficult to convey the holy will at that time.
According to relevant data, the straight-line distance from Beijing to Guangzhou is about 1874 kilometers. Of course, this is a theoretical straight-line distance, and the real road distance is about 2100 kilometers. Although this distance is also quite far for the current means of transportation, it can also be reached in a short period of time. Like the car can arrive in 1 day, the high-speed rail takes less than 10 hours, and the plane can arrive in 3 hours.
However, in ancient times, there were no such fast means of transportation, and the fastest means of transportation they could use was only horses. And because the roads at that time were relatively rough and not so easy to walk, there were also great doubts about whether the ancients could really achieve eight hundred mile expedited transmission.
In ancient times, the transmission of holy wills was basically a day and night run, so it was impossible to run on only one person and one horse. At that time, the task of transmitting official documents and letters had to rely on the station, which was equipped with horses and personnel, and changed what was tired to ensure the continuous delivery of documents. The level of development of each dynasty station is also different, take the Qing Dynasty, which at that time set up nearly 2,000 stations and more than 14,000 shops, which were managed and operated by more than 70,000 stagecoaches and more than 40,000 soldiers. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty's postal network surpassed any previous dynasty in both breadth and depth.
But even so, it would take a long time for the Qing Dynasty's holy will to be transmitted from Beijing to Guangzhou, because the horses at the station at that time were basically focused on endurance, and the speed was too fast to run for a long time. And even if the eight-hundred-mile emergency can be achieved through continuous substitutions, then according to the distance of more than 2100 kilometers from Beijing to Guangzhou, it will take at least 5.25 days. This is still a more idealized calculation, to know that the handover of personnel and horses also takes time, if there are some mudslides, landslides or bandits on the road, it is estimated that it will take longer. Therefore, it is conservatively estimated that it would take six or seven days for the Holy Will to be transmitted from Beijing to Guangzhou in ancient times!
This transmission efficiency is really not high in the eyes of the present, but there is no way, after all, the conditions at that time were like this. However, although the efficiency of the caravanserai is not impressive, their existence is of great significance, because information is the premise of ensuring the status of the emperor. I remember that during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, the Chongzhen Emperor cut off many stations because of excessive expenditure on the station, which caused major losses in logistics and information transmission at that time. This was not the most serious, but the most serious thing was that the move led to the loss of a large number of stagecoaches, most of whom later embarked on the road of rebellion, including the famous king Li Zicheng.
In summary, it is very important to ensure the circulation of information throughout the ages, and although the ancient holy will has not been transmitted quickly, after all, it can be transmitted enough to reassure the emperor Lao Er a lot. Nowadays, we have a variety of ways to convey information, and we can do real-time transmission, so modern people are very happy!