How fast was the delivery speed of ancient postal service?

The transmission of military information requires not only accuracy, but also speed. Regarding the speed of postal delivery, Confucius once had such a metaphor: "The popularity of virtue is faster than the delivery of mail." It can be seen that in people's minds at that time, the speed of postal communication was very fast. So how fast can postal service be? In addition to the efficiency of the organization system, the speed of postal delivery depends on three factors: the weight of the information carrier, the mode of delivery and the road conditions. Among them, the revolutionary change of any factor will greatly improve the speed of passing the ball.

Before paper appeared, bamboo slips were the main writing carrier. Generally speaking, bamboo slips are mostly used to copy scriptures, and letters are more than official documents, all of which are about one foot long, so they are called "letters" As a writing carrier, bamboo slips are imaginable in size.

There was a poem in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty: "Don't be homesick and don't be afraid of this simple book." During the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang read the memorial every day, with a total weight of 120 kg (about 60 kg today). During the Western Han Dynasty, there was an institution that specially accepted letters from officials and people, and the host called it the bus Sima Ling. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, a man named Dong Fangshuo wrote a letter composed of 3,000 bamboo slips to the emperor. It is said that when Emperor Wu watched it, it took him two bus orders to lift it reluctantly. The revolutionary change from bamboo slips to paper has caused a qualitative leap in the history of communication. Paper is not only light but also convenient to write, which greatly improves the speed of postal delivery.

There are three modes of postal delivery, namely, step delivery, car delivery and riding delivery, except the ship is the main mode of water delivery. Among them, car transmission is a post transmission method suitable for bamboo slips writing carrier. Step-by-step transmission is used under limited conditions. Riding passes appear late, and the speed is the fastest. After paper was widely used, it replaced car transmission as the most important way of post-transmission. Different transmission modes also directly affect the speed of later transmission.

In order to strengthen the speed of post transmission and ensure the smooth communication between the military and the government, rulers of past dynasties attached great importance to traffic construction, especially the construction of post roads. Among them, the most far-reaching one happened in the Qin Dynasty. After Qin unified the whole country, the law of "cars on the same track, books on the same text" was promulgated. It not only ensures the smoothness of military orders in words, but also ensures the smoothness of vehicles. Qin Shihuang sent Meng Tian to build the Great Wall in the north. At the same time, he worked hard to build "straight roads" and "flying roads" to communicate the border areas and their links with the mainland. Since then, until the Qing Dynasty, with the development of transportation, the speed of postal delivery has been continuously improved. Due to the lack of historical data, it is difficult for us to accurately count the postal delivery speed in different periods, but we can still find its general development vein from some records. About the pre-Qin period, there are many records about passing cars in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, inscriptions and ancient books. At the beginning of Zhou Jianguo, Shang Yue was sent to the Western Zhou Dynasty, and Duke Ji Dan sent someone to drive them home in a guide car. It took two years to go back and forth. In the Spring and Autumn Period, from Song State to Chen State, the speed of traffic reached about 260 Li per day, which was quite amazing. Of course, considering the different factors of car tracks in different countries at that time, it is difficult to achieve such a speed if information is transmitted over a long distance.

There is a very precious record about the speed of post-delivery in Han Dynasty in Zhao Han Guo Chongchuan. At that time, Zhao Chongguo led an army to the Western Regions to resist the invasion of Qiang people and was stationed in Jincheng, west of Lanzhou. In the first year of Shenjue (6 1 BC), Zhao Chongguo submitted to the imperial court the battle plan for attacking the 101st Qiang. "Wu Shen played in June and Jiayin reported in July, from country to country."

Now let's do a calculation. The summer calendar is applied in June, that is, June 28, and July Jiayin is the fifth day of July. There were only 29 days in June of that year, that is to say, it took 6 days from the last performance in Jincheng to Han's reply in Chang 'an. If it is assumed that there is no detention in Chang 'an, Xuan Di will examine and approve it immediately, and it will take * * * a day, then the actual time on the post road is about five days.

So how far is it from Jincheng to Chang 'an? According to Records of Counties and Counties in the Later Han Dynasty, Jincheng is "2,800 miles west of Luoyang" and Chang 'an is "950 miles west of Luoyang", so the actual distance between the two places should be 1,850 miles. In this way, you have to walk about 370 miles every day, much faster than in the pre-Qin period. Of course, this refers to urgent official documents, not the general postal delivery speed.

As for the post biography in the Tang Dynasty, Gu's Record of the Day (Volume 10) and Post Biography recorded: "Its trip or ten posts a day (according to the New Tang Book Guan Baizhi, the Tang Dynasty took thirty miles as a post). Cen Can's poem: "After an email, the email is like a string of stars. At dawn, the sun rises, and at dusk, we arrive at Longshantou. "Han Yushi:' It is too late to appoint Shandong as a chaotic fighter. Another example is Bing Yin in November of Tianbao 14th year. An Lushan rebelled against john young, and Ren Shen heard about it. I was in Huaqing Palace and arrived on the 6th. In September of the second year of Zhide, Guimao, Wang Guangping received Xijing, and Chen Jia Shu Jie arrived in Fengxiang House, which took only one day. However, The Book of Forgiveness written in the Tang Dynasty is worth 500 Ali a day, which is not limited to ten posts. "

Cen Can's "Han Yu" said that officials can take the post road and walk more than 300 miles every day. During the "An Shi Rebellion", according to the calculation contained in the report, the daily speed should be around 400 miles. Because of the frequent wars in Song Dynasty, not only the Privy Council of the military headquarters was responsible for the postal delivery system, but also all the postmen were filled by soldiers, making them fully integrated into military management. At that time, the requirements for military communications were quite strict. In the Northern Song Dynasty, it was stipulated that the fastest military mail must travel day and night, and the daily journey was initially set at 400 miles, and then increased to 500 miles.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, it was stipulated that from Lin 'an (the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, now Hangzhou) to Xiangyang 3 100 Li, it was necessary to arrive within six days and two hours (that is, two hours, equivalent to four hours); The 2,640-mile journey from Lin 'an to Jingnan (now Jiangling, Hubei) must arrive at three o'clock in five days, otherwise it will be punished as one day delay. From Lin 'an to Chengdu, the terrain is more complicated, but it also requires that it should not exceed 18 days, and the speed is more than 400 miles per day. At this time, the postal delivery speed was significantly higher than that of the Tang Dynasty.

During the reign of Kangxi in Qing Dynasty, in order to pacify the rebellion in San Francisco and stabilize the northwest region, the imperial court strengthened the management of postal delivery in various places. At that time, it was stipulated to start from Beijing. "Gansu is more than 5,000 miles west and can be reached on the 9 th; Jingzhou and Xi' an can be reached in five days; We can reach Zhejiang in four days. "Later, after the reunification of Taiwan Province Province," Lang (Shi Lang, commander-in-chief of the Qing army's reunification of Taiwan Province Province) received good news by sea and arrived in Beijing on the 7 th; And Yao Qisheng came from the mainland and arrived two days later. " This was the speed in the early Qing dynasty, and later it reached a high speed of 800 miles a day. According to He Gangde's Interview with Couples, during the reign of Xianfeng and Tongzhi, the military affairs were urgent, and the court looked forward to the military newspaper every day. In case of victory, the red flag will be used to declare victory and fly to fold eight hundred Yili for transportation. The so-called eight hundred Li is actually eight hundred Li. When a post station encounters military affairs, every post station has to wait for a horse. When it smells the bell, it will put on a saddle and ride a horse to send it. Too busy. "

At this point, the speed of postal transmission has reached the peak that manpower and electricity can reach.