There are several ancient capitals in Chinese history that can be called "capital city", from beijing to Guangzhou is also different due to the different distances from the capital of each dynasty to Guangzhou, today we will take Beijing, which is the farthest from Guangzhou, as an example to tell you how many days it takes for the holy will of the emperor in ancient times to spread to Guangzhou?
The shortest distance from Beijing to Guangzhou is more than 2,100 kilometers, how long does it take to use today's transportation?
After the reform and opening up, China's infrastructure construction can be described as changing with each passing day, the state has invested a lot of money in the construction of infrastructure including transportation, and now it has basically achieved the goal of city-to-city highways and county-level highways.
Not only has the road mileage increased significantly, but China has also made great progress in railways and aviation. China's high-speed rail mileage will reach 39,000 kilometers by the end of 2020, which will bring greater convenience to Chinese people.
If you take the highway from Beijing to Guangzhou, the distance is about 2200 kilometers, and it takes about 25 hours to travel by car. If you choose high-speed rail travel, the fastest time only takes more than 8 hours. If you choose to take the plane, then from Beijing Capital International Airport to Guangzhou Baiyun Airport is 3 hours, in addition to the time to go to the airport and the waiting time, from Beijing to Guangzhou can still achieve late departure and return.
Of course, the above is only the time required for passenger transport, and the time of freight is certainly slightly slower than that of passenger transport, but some more efficient freight companies still have the ability to make the goods from Beijing to Guangzhou arrive in two to three days.
In ancient times, how many days did it take for the emperor's holy will to be transmitted from the capital to Guangzhou?
In ancient times, because there was no network, let alone mail and WeChat and other channels for disseminating information, it was impossible to make the emperor's holy will be delivered immediately. At that time, the transmission of information was mainly done by human beings, which was not only tiring but also inefficient.
As we all know, the traffic in ancient times was very backward, and there were no smooth highways today, and there were no high-end railways with a speed of 350 kilometers per hour. At that time, the best roads were slightly more spacious, and these roads were still bumpy.
So thousands of kilometers of mountain roads rely on people walking to convey information, so it takes the "Year of the Monkey and the Month of Horses" to be delivered? In order to solve this problem, the ancients invented the "postal system" specifically responsible for transmitting information.
Take the Tang Dynasty as an example, when the Tang Dynasty post station was set up throughout the country, divided into three kinds of land stations, water stations and water and land, there were 1639 stations in the country, and the staff of the post stations was as high as 20,000 people.
At that time, the Tang Dynasty centered on the capital Chang'an, radiating in all directions, and there was a post station every 30 miles or so. At the same time, the Tang Dynasty also had clear regulations on the itinerary of the postal station, the land station fast horse walked 6 stations a day, that is, 180 miles, and then quickly walked 10 stations to travel 300 miles a day, and the fastest was required to reach 500 miles a day. Of course, if you encounter an emergency, you have to travel 800 miles a day, which is what we often call "eight hundred miles of urgency".
In the poem "Judge of the First Journey through Longshan", it is written: "One stagecoach passes through one station, and the stagecoach rides like a star stream; Pingming Fa Xianyang, the curtain and the head of Longshan Mountain".
As written in this poem, at that time, if there were special circumstances, it was relatively fast to pass on information. When An Lushan rebelled in Fanyang, Tang Xuanzong was enjoying himself at huaqing palace, and the distance between the two places was three thousand miles. The incident of An Lushan's rebellion was transmitted to Tang Xuanzong within 6 days, which shows that the transmission speed at that time reached 500 miles per day.
If the Holy Will is transmitted from the capital to Guangzhou at this speed, then at a distance of more than 2,100 kilometers, it will take more than 8 days to reach Guangzhou.
Some people will also say that if it is to use the "eight hundred mile plus urgent"? Of course, if there is some very serious incident, the emperor will definitely use this highest level of transmission in order to buy time.
Eight hundred li cane to use the best horse in the caravanserai, and on the way it is a fast horse and whip, there is no need to stop, and every time you arrive at a caravanserai, you need to change a horse, and the people's food and drink must be completed on the horse. If the Holy Will is transmitted at the speed of "eight hundred miles plus express", then it will take about 6 days to go from Beijing to Guangzhou at the earliest.
Of course, in ancient times, if it was not an emergency, if the general holy will wanted to be transmitted from the capital to Guangzhou, it would take a lot of time. If we take the daily travel of 180 miles to calculate, regardless of any factors, it will take about 24 days, if you add the rough road or some unexpected situations, it is good to reach the destination in 1 month.
Conclusion:
Now that the Internet is becoming more and more developed, the transmission of information does not need to use the tired and slow human transmission in the past, and the dissemination of information can be known in real time. In terms of speed, efficiency, and role, it has increased by tens of thousands of times compared with ancient times.