A cartoon created for Zhang Jing by Lu Zhenqing, a native painter of Chongqing Qijiang. Interviewee Courtesy of Hualong Network - New Chongqing Client Sent
Zhang Jing, 52, is a philatelic enthusiast in Chongqing. In the winter of 2021, he spent more than a month walking through the nearly 2,000-mile postal route in Chongqing's Qijiang River, and "punched" 51 local post offices and theme post offices.
On January 13, Zhang Jing said in an interview with a hualong network-new Chongqing client reporter that he admired Wang Shunyou on the "Maban Post Road" and wanted to experience the hardships of a rural postman. From October 28 to December 26, 2021, he started the "Ring Qiyou Road" walk.
A backpack, a bag of dry food, a bottle of mineral water, he carried his bag on average twenty or thirty kilometers a day.
"Where it gets dark, rest." Zhang Jing said that there are few restaurants on the rural postal road, so he mainly eats military compressed biscuits, bread and other dry foods that he carries with him on the way, and when he finishes drinking a bottle of mineral water, he will receive mountain spring water along the way to quench his thirst. He didn't carry a tent and looked for hotels in different townships every day.
Map of the Walking Tour of Huanqi Postal Road. Interviewee Courtesy of Hualong Network - New Chongqing Client Sent
According to the mail truck route map of Chongqing Qijiang, the total distance of the hike is 949.74 kilometers, that is, nearly 2,000 miles, and the mountains and mountains are crossed along the way.
"The most memorable thing is to deliver mail with the postman." At the Bauhinia Post Office at the westernmost tip of Qijiang Post Road, he met Huang Kaiqiang, a rural postman who had worked for more than 30 years. When they went to the mountain village to deliver mail together, he learned that the village postman was hard - taking dry food on the road, going to the village to deliver mail, encountering a registered letter that no one received, and the postman had to go back and forth to the mountain road several times, repeatedly looking for a signatory.
On the rural postal road, most of the time there are only postmen who walk alone. Zhang Jing said: "Some postmen will sing and cheer themselves up when they are lonely. ”
Every time Zhang Jing went to a post office, he would stamp it with a postmark. Interviewee Courtesy of Hualong Network - New Chongqing Client Sent
When a person travels to a remote mountain road, Zhang Jing will also learn some postmen to hum a few words. But he was bitten by a dog in the countryside as a child, and many free-range dogs in the countryside frightened him- it was halfway to the Gaoqing Post Office, passing through a dense forest, the fog was thick, the visibility was very low, he took a picture with his mobile phone, and suddenly heard a low dog barking behind him, and when he turned back, three fierce dogs stood behind him. He raised his cross-country walking cane in his hand and pretended to be very fierce to scare off the fierce dogs. "After the three dogs left, I suddenly collapsed on the ground, in a cold sweat."
"Everyone has their own 'Maban Post Road', and it won't be smooth sailing."
Zhang Jing said that this time on the zip route, when he was tired and hungry, he would use Wang Shunyou's story to motivate himself. Along the way, he found that although the rural postal route crossed the mountains, many postmen walked in obscurity for decades, and every mail was not neglected, which was respectful.
Zhang Jing was also pleased to find that today, under the promotion of the construction of Chongqing's three-level logistics system, the time for rural mail to be collected is becoming shorter and shorter.
This trip lasted nearly 2,000 miles, making Zhang Jing the first person to walk on the Qijiang Ring Qiyou Road. In 2022, he plans to "punch in" the site of the Red Army's Long March on foot.
Hualong Network-New Chongqing client reporter Lian Xiao intern Yu Wenxin
(This article is from the new Chongqing client APP, please go to the major application markets to download)