In the Qing Palace drama, you can often see such a scene, a pawn riding a fast horse, shouting all the way "600 li urgent" galloping past. In fact, this is the government emergency document transmitted in ancient China, relying on the national post system. According to the priority of the content of the document, the speed of transmission is also divided into different levels, the so-called 600 mile urgent, that is, the document must be delivered 600 miles in a day and night, in ancient times with horses as a fast means of transportation, this is a very high transmission speed. Because horses can not continue to run at high speed for a long time, so in order to complete such a task, it is necessary to rely on relay transmission, so along the stagecoach road, every certain distance must be set up at a station, equipped with a certain number of horses and pawns, when the stagecoach of the previous station gallops to the next station, the pawn who is on standby at any time will immediately take over the official document and plan the horse to gallop to the next stop.
The ancient Chinese post road system has a long history, in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the construction of post stations and post roads began, and by the time of the Qing Dynasty, it had existed and developed for more than 3,000 years. The Zhou Li records: "Where the way of the country and the wilderness, there are lu in the ten miles, there is food and drink in the lu, there are lodgings in the thirty miles, there are road rooms in the dormitories, and there are committees in the road rooms." Moreover, at that time, the road was also built smoothly and straight, which was conducive to the galloping of cars and horses, and there was a sentence in the Book of Poetry that "the Zhou Dao was like a stone, and its straightness was like a arrow", which described the good road conditions at that time.
Ancient China has always been a vast territory, a large population of world-class empires, the distance between the Beijing division and the frontier is often tens of thousands of miles away, and the terrain along the way is complex, the climate is changeable, in ancient times without telecommunications, such a large empire in order to maintain the smooth flow of government decrees, must rely on a reliable and efficient information transmission system, so the construction of ancient Chinese post roads has been highly valued, until the Qing Dynasty, China's postal system is still the world's largest and most reliable.
At the end of the 18th century, the British Magalney Mission came to China, and as an important official of the most powerful country in the world at that time, Magalni served as a governor and other important positions around the world. When he came to China, he despised the backwardness of the Qing Dynasty in all aspects, but only praised the huge scale and fast and reliable efficiency of the Qing Dynasty's post road system. He said: "In the same era, the most brilliant achievements of the British Post are far inferior to that of China Post. He added: "When it comes to stagecoach mail delivery, Europe will never catch up with China's big lead." ”
The construction of the ancient Chinese post road system can be so perfect, which is the result of three thousand years of operation and accumulation, and the emphasis on the construction of the post road in successive dynasties has been consistent, even in the war and chaos period of the Spring and Autumn Warring States. The degree of completeness of the post road system also reflects the level of governance and construction of a country, and one of the five hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period, the Jin Wen Gongxiong, was a great talent, under his rule, the Jin state "both repaired the treasury and smoothed the road", and the later Zheng Guoming Xiangzi industry praised this.
In the Warring States period, the scale of the war became larger and larger, the demand for the post road system was more vigorous, and the corresponding facilities were more complete, and the Han Feizi recorded that at that time: "Good horses and fixed cars, fifty miles and one place".
After Qin Shi Huang unified the world, the territory was unprecedentedly vast, the Qin Dynasty also implemented the county system, the imperial court directly ruled the localities, in order to smooth the government decrees and consolidate the rule, promulgated the postal decree "Xingshu Law", the state also put forward higher requirements for the construction of the post road system, so the implementation of large-scale post and post road construction projects, the formation of Xianyang as the center, radiation throughout the country Chi Dao. According to the Book of Han, Qin's Chi Dao: "Fifty steps of Daoguang, three zhangs and trees, thickly built outside, hidden with golden vertebrae, and trees with green pines." This road is not only wide and flat, but also planted with sidewalk trees on both sides of the road to block the wind and sand and shelter pedestrians from the rain.
In order to consolidate the frontier, the Qin Dynasty also built a high-grade highway of more than 700 kilometers, called the Straight Road, which could drive thirteen horse-drawn carriages side by side from Xianyang to Jiuyuan County on the border. Relying on these road networks, stagecoaches could gallop quickly, so that the speed of ancient Chinese official documents reached a very high level under the technical conditions of the time.
During the Tang Dynasty, the imperial court stipulated that the stagecoach that delivered official documents should complete a journey of 180 miles a day, and if the official documents were urgent, it was required to travel 300 miles a day. In the most urgent case, 500 miles a day is required. On November 9, 2014, An Lushan rebelled in Fanyang, and Tang Xuanzong, who was 3,000 miles away, received the news on the 15th of that month, and this transmission speed reached the highest level of 500 miles per day. At that time, however, this speed could only be achieved in the case of desperate running, and for this reason it would cost the tired soldiers and the horses to die, unless there was a hundred thousand urgent warnings, and this specification of urgent transmission would not be used in normal times. In order to send Yang Guifei Lingnan lychees and run the legend of running a dead horse is purely exaggerated, Lingnan is thousands of kilometers away from Chang'an, the post road at that time can not be supported at all, in fact, Yang Guifei's lychees are from Fuling, Sichuan, not very far from Chang'an, and the Tang Dynasty is very complete in the construction of the meridian road into Sichuan, and there is not much pressure to send lychees.
The Tang Dynasty poet Cen Shan once described the scene of the high-speed transmission of the postal relay at that time in "The First Journey through Longshan": "One stagecoach passes through one station, and the stagecoach rides like a star stream." Pingmingfa Xianyang, Twilight and Longshantou. ”
Liu Zongyuan also described the efficient operation of the station in the "Records of the Pavilion Station Envoys": "The messenger reads the number of the symbols, and the county officials hold the waist and write their things." The battle of the farewell is endless, and the gift of welcoming labor is not delayed. ”
It can be seen that in the Tang Dynasty more than a thousand years ago, China's postal system was already very developed.
During the Song Dynasty, although the territory was far less extensive than that of the Tang Dynasty, and the country was not as powerful as the Tang Dynasty, but the efficiency of the post station was not reduced in the slightest, according to the "History of the Song", when passing the official documents issued by the emperor himself, the pawns held gold signs to gallop on the horse, and they were not allowed to enter the station during the handover, and could only be completed on horseback. The twelve gold medals that recalled Yue Fei were passed with this "500-mile expedited".
The reliable operation of a vast postal system is a severe test of the country's financial, organizational, and scientific and technological strength, without the support of these capabilities, it is impossible to build and maintain a complex road network, nor can it mobilize thousands of people and horses to perform their duties. If the country has abundant financial resources and abundant resources, it can set up more caravanserais, so that the interval between the stations is shorter, the postal transmission can be more guaranteed, and the horses can gallop at a faster speed.
In the Warring States Period, there was one station in fifty miles, and in the Tang Dynasty, due to the strong national strength, it was shortened to thirty miles and one station, and the number of stations reached 1639, and the Tang Six Classics stipulated: "Where there is one station in thirty miles, there are nine stations in the world of one thousand six hundred and thirty." "If the road is steep and difficult, the interval between the stations can be shortened."
The territory of the Yuan Dynasty was unprecedentedly vast, and under the material conditions of the time, it was impossible to maintain such a short interval on the post road as that of the Tang Dynasty, according to Marco Polo's "March of Marco Polo": "Every twenty-five miles, or thirty miles, there must be one station on all the main roads leading to the provinces." Such a distance between the stations reached almost 100 miles, and the speed of horses would never be as fast as that of the Tang Dynasty.
The number of ming dynasty stations also reached 1500 at its peak, but the distance between the stations was still far inferior to that of the Tang Dynasty, generally setting up a post for 60 miles. Moreover, in the late Ming Dynasty, the territory shrank, and the number of post stations also decreased, only 1036 in the Wanli years, and at the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to poor financial resources and poor management, and the large-scale abolition of postal offices, resulting in a large number of post offices unemployed, Li Zicheng rebellion is not unrelated to this.
During the Qing Dynasty, the postal station reached a peak, the road network construction was more perfect, the remote and remote places were also connected to the station, 1785 post stations were set up in the country, and due to the control of Mongolia, Xinjiang and other horse-producing areas, the number of horses used for postal transmission was far more than that of the previous generation, making the speed and efficiency of the Qing Dynasty post station higher than before. The Speed of the Qing Dynasty on postal transmission was divided into 300 miles, 400 miles, 500 miles, 600 miles a day, and in the case of special emergency, there would be 800 miles of urgency, which was the limit speed that could be achieved at that time. The extremely fast transmission of 500 miles a day in the Tang Dynasty was already a normal state in the Qing Dynasty, and in terms of measurement units, 1 mile in the Qing Dynasty was longer than 1 mile in the Tang Dynasty. The qing dynasty was the most efficient in the world, and later French scholars believed that the transmission speed of french postal services in the same era was only one-third of that of the Qing Dynasty. When Magalni went to the Qing Dynasty, he really felt this speed and was amazed by it, calling it "unparalleled postal service".
According to Magalni, the 2,780-kilometer distance from Guangzhou to Beijing was only 10 days away from the Qing Dynasty Post. On the way north to Tianjin, the speed of the British mission was 400 miles per day, and when they went south, the speed of the mail reached 600 miles per day, and the arrogant British admired this.
However, not long after the departure of the Magalni mission, the light of the Qing Dynasty post office became dim, and in the following decades, not only the technology brought about by the invention of railways and telegraphs was crushed, but even by relying on the speed of horses, the Qing Dynasty gradually lagged behind.
Since 1860, the United States has opened stagecoach express deliveries between the east and west coasts, starting from St. Joseph, Missouri in the east and Sacramento, California in the west, with a distance of nearly 3,000 kilometers, crossing snow-capped mountains and crossing the desert. At that time, the American postman could run this distance in 10 days, almost 300 kilometers a day, this speed has caught up with the 600-mile emergency of the Qing Dynasty, the difference is that this speed is urgent in the Qing Dynasty, usually not commonly used, and the American postman as long as the weather is good, every day at this speed.
On this postal route in the United States, the interval between changing horses is 15 miles, which is slightly shorter than the interval between changing horses in the Qing Dynasty's 50-60 years, however, unlike the Qing Dynasty pawns who changed horses at the same time during relay transmission, American postmen did not change people every time they changed horses, and a postman usually had to run at high speed for 120 kilometers to 160 kilometers to take a break. Legendary postman Bob Haslam was attacked by Indians on the way, and he was wounded more than 100 kilometers after his face was shot through by an arrow. It can be seen that at this time, the U.S. Postal Service has caught up with and surpassed the Qing Dynasty.
On the European continent, where the road system was good, postal efficiency had surpassed that of the Qing Dynasty as early as the end of the Napoleonic Wars. In Dumas's famous book "The Count of Monte Cristo", there is such a plot: the Count of Monte Cristo traveled 144 miles in eight hours in a carriage, that is, more than 560 miles, changing horses 8 times in the middle, almost 70 miles. This speed far exceeded the Qing Dynasty's 800-mile expedited, and the interval between changing horses was longer than that of the Qing Dynasty, and the drivers never changed. Generally speaking, the speed of horses dragging vehicles is not as fast as the speed of horsemen galloping, but the speed of the Count of Monte Cristo's carriage is still much higher than the speed of Qing Dynasty horsemen, which shows that the quality and road conditions of European horses at that time were better than those of the Qing Dynasty.
The development of any undertaking is inseparable from the progress of science and technology, after entering the 19th century, the West under the blessing of the industrial revolution, science and technology by leaps and bounds, in all fields are far ahead of the East. As far as the postal service is concerned, although the telegraph and railway have not long appeared, the information transmission based on these technologies cannot fully replace the stagecoach transmission, but relying on the new achievements of science and technology, the West has thrown away the Qing Dynasty in road construction, horse breeding, personnel training, etc., while the Qing Dynasty has stuck in its own way and stagnated, and the unparalleled postal system in Magalni's eyes has lost its former glory in just a few decades.