With the beginning of the modern industrial revolution, the level of human science and technology has reached the peak period since evolution, and the rapid progress of science and technology in just one hundred years has raised people's living standards to another level and improved people's lifestyles.
From the perspective of development, people have been in a relatively rudimentary agricultural civilization in the past, until the outbreak of the modern industrial revolution, only entered the industrial age, the rapid development of productive forces, to provide people with many conveniences in life, the most significant aspect is transportation.
Now, if people want to travel from Beijing to Shenzhen, the fastest option is to take a plane, which can be reached in a few hours.
People can even eat roast duck in the morning and snack in Shenzhen in the afternoon, a distance of more than 2,000 kilometers, which can be reached in a blink of an eye.
If we don't choose airplanes, then high-speed rail, ships and cars can all be chosen, each way has advantages and disadvantages, but it is a mode of transportation that is conducive to our travel, shortening our time on the road.
It also takes months with the help of horses
In ancient times, people did not have modern sophisticated machinery to help, so domesticated livestock were used by people to assist.
In agriculture, cattle are an important property of a family, and those who cannot do it can use cattle to borrow power, otherwise they can only spend more time in the field.
In terms of travel, people rely on horses to travel farther away, and under normal circumstances, horses can travel eighty kilometers a day so that they will not hurt horses.
But when there is an emergency, people will adopt the "eight hundred mile plus" approach, usually to convey an urgent message to a certain place or to a higher level of government.
This method is to let the horse run at full speed, and when it reaches a station, it will use a new horse to pass on the information, which can greatly shorten the time to rush.
Under such a full-speed run, people can catch hundreds of miles a day at the fastest, and with this speed, it will take about six or seven days to get from Shenzhen to Beijing.
But this is only an assumption that such a way will bring harm to the horse, whereas in ancient times, the horse was an important strategic resource, and people would not sacrifice the horse in this way.
In addition, the ancient roads were not as flat and wide as the current roads, the infrastructure was not perfect, people had to travel long distances to constantly climb mountains and mountains, and there were various wild animals on the road, which took more time to rush.
So in this case, it will take a month or two to get from Beijing to Shenzhen, which is still an emergency, if it is just ordinary official business, it will even take two or three months.
As we know, Humen sold cigarettes, and Lin Zexu traveled from Beijing to Guangdong, which took more than two months.
Extremely risky maritime transport
In addition to land, there is another way, that is, water.
In ancient times, people mastered the waterway transportation, from the north to the south, and many people chose to take the waterway.
Entering the high seas from the inland waterway and then going south to Guangdong, such a trip often takes about three months, and it is still a smooth situation.
Waterways have more uncontrollable factors than land traffic, and in addition to the weather, there may be pirates along the way.
Ancient ships were not as elaborate as modern ones, and in the event of bad weather, ships could sink to the bottom of the sea, and the wind and waves at sea were much more dangerous than those in the river.
Another influencing factor is seasickness. Not everyone is suitable for boats, modern people can solve it through seasickness medicine, but ancient people can only overcome it with willpower.
It took tens of thousands of years for human beings to travel from the ocean to the land, and they have long adapted to life on land, and the vertigo of the ocean wind and waves makes most people feel dizzy, which is difficult for most people to bear, not to mention the students who have been studying hard in the cold window and not weathering the wind and frost, and small seasickness may affect their exams.
All in all, a north-south round-trip rush, boat ride and horseback ride do not seem to be the best way, and the time and money and restrictions are similar, so what is the most common way to rush in ancient times?
Not as easy as walking
In ancient times, rushing, riding horses was the right of the government, and there were many unknown risks to take a boat, so for ordinary people at that time, if you want to trek long distances and walk on two feet, it is actually the most convenient choice.
Although the speed is much slower, it also has its own merits.
First of all, the use of manpower means that it will save a lot of costs, at that time, xiucai just read, it needs a lot of money, high transportation costs, for them is a burden, if you rely on walking, as long as you bring enough food.
In addition, on the way to the road, students can also increase their own knowledge, compared to the knowledge of the plane, really use the eyes to explore the world, can let people have a deeper experience, experience the customs and customs of different regions.
If you can meet like-minded friends on the road, it is even luckier, and walking together in pairs will not only increase safety, but also alleviate the loneliness of the road.
In fact, the most important point is that manpower is not limited by roads, and the terrain in the Central Plains at that time was complex, and if you were riding a horse, you could only walk a flat road, and if you encountered a country road, you would be greatly restricted.
There are no such restrictions on walking, and you can also cross rough roads, which is somewhat more convenient than riding a horse.
The biggest inconvenience of walking is that it takes too long, it takes four or five months, students often start to leave a year in advance, if they encounter physical problems on the way, then they need to delay for a longer time, and it is difficult to estimate the arrival time, which may also affect the exam.
Therefore, in film and television works, we can often see the image of students who rush to the exam, most of them are not in good condition, they look like they are all dusty, and they do not even dare to get sick in the process of hurrying, because a little carelessness may delay the time, if they can't catch up with the exam, then this year's time can be wasted.
epilogue
From the above situation, we can see that in ancient times, crossing the north and south was a very time-consuming and labor-intensive thing, and it also took at least one or two months to rush the road.
And this is still in the case of horseback riding, relying on two legs to walk takes more time.
In the increasingly developed science and technology now, thousands of kilometers of road is no longer far away, in a day can cross the entire country, can even go to other continents, information can be transmitted to farther places, which can not help but make people sigh, sure enough, the power of science and technology is powerful.