Chapter 9 Section 1 The Unified Post Office of the Qin Dynasty

The Qin Dynasty was the beginning of my country's unified feudal centralization era.The unified writing, weights and measures, vehicle tracks, roads and other systems formulated by Qin Shihuang had a profound impact on future generations of our country. In creating a unified post office system, the Qin Dynasty also made great achievements. Although the Qin Dynasty only existed for 15 years, it completed a nationwide transportation and communication network with amazing efforts.Chidao was the backbone of the road network in the Qin Dynasty.It is centered on the capital Xianyang, "Yanqi is poor in the east, Wuchu is in the south pole, above the rivers and lakes, and the view of the coast is complete" ("Hanshu·Jiashan Biography").The Chi Road in the Qin Dynasty is very spectacular: "The road is fifty steps wide, and the tree is three feet long. The outside is thickly built, hidden by golden cones, and the tree is green pine."One step is 5 feet, 50 steps is 25 feet (about 80 meters), and a green pine is planted at about 10 meters.Green shadows whirling all the way, very beautiful.There are roads like this all over the country.There is also a "straight road" designed to resist the Huns in the north, starting from Yunyang in the north of Xianyang, passing through the Yellow River, and reaching Qinjiuyuan County in today's Baotou City.It was built under the command of the famous general Meng Tian, ​​with a total length of more than 1,800 miles.In addition, "new roads" to Guangdong, Guangxi and the southwest were built in the south.In this way, a criss-cross traffic network is formed across the country.

These avenues are flat and wide, and there are post stations, palaces, buildings and military facilities along the roads.In recent years, archaeologists have discovered a Qin Dynasty Zhidao building site in Ziwuling, Xunyi County, Shaanxi Province, which is a large platform of about 40 mu.Experts believe that this may have been a post station that was used as both a defense and an information transmission station at that time.Some experts jokingly called it "No. 1 Military Station". There are still traces of the avenues built in the Qin Dynasty.Archaeologists surveyed the straight road site and found that the widest part of the straight road was 50 meters, and the width at the turn was 60 meters.The subgrade is all rammed and hard layers.According to historical records, Qin Shihuang dispatched more than 80 large and small luxury vehicles and more than 1,000 officials and soldiers to march forward on this road, which shows that the road is wide and flat.

The postal stations in the Qin Dynasty unified their names.During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, countries used different names for post and post communications. The Qin Dynasty collectively referred to different names such as "Ju", "Ri", and "Zhi" as "Post".Since then, "post" has become a proper term for communication systems.In the Qin Dynasty, "post" was responsible for the delivery of long-distance official documents and letters, and "step delivery" was used for short-distance delivery, that is, sending people to deliver on foot.In terms of postal transmission, Qin Shi mostly adopted the method of relay transmission of documents, along the fixed route stipulated by the government, and the personnel in charge of postal delivery relayed them from station to station.

Along the postal route, there are fixed places for couriers to eat and stay.These resting places are called "posts" or "kiosk".Some researchers believe that these names are determined according to different postal methods. For example, the place where the step delivery stops is called "ting", and the horse delivery station is called "post".In fact, in the Qin Dynasty, it was not as strict as it was later.For example, the place where Bai Qi, the famous general who made great contributions to Qin unification, was finally forced to commit suicide is called "Du You" in some books, but it is also called "Du You Pavilion" in some books.This shows that the post and kiosk can actually be used together.On the west side of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor, archaeologists also found a piece of tile with the inscription "Pingyang Post" on it, which shows that "post" was also the customary usage of the postal road in Qin Dynasty.The Qin Dynasty also had the title of "Chuanshe".For example, at the end of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang and the lobbyist Li Shiqi met in a place called "Gaoyang Chuanshe" ("Historical Records Biography of Li Sheng").During the Chu-Han War, the great ancestor Liu Bang went to seize the power of the separatist forces Zhang Er and Han Xin, and also lived in a "biography" in Xiuwu ("Historical Records Biography of Huaiyin Hou").There are different opinions about "Ting".Some scholars believe that the pavilion in the Qin Dynasty was an organization responsible for local security.Some scholars believe that more tasks undertaken by kiosks are to deliver official documents and mails in sequence.In the Qin Dynasty, there is a biography for 30 miles, and a pavilion for 10 miles. The pavilion is equipped with accommodation buildings.According to the Qin law, Ting should be responsible for the messenger's horse supplies, pedestrian rations, sauces, leeks, onions, etc., and even the quantity of liters, sauces and vegetables for food supply.This is clearly recorded in the Bamboo Slips of the Qin Tomb in Sleeping Tiger Land unearthed in recent years.These records have left a vivid picture of the situation of post offices in my country more than 2,000 years ago.

In order to ensure the timely, rapid and accurate arrival of official documents and letters, the Qin Dynasty stipulated a series of strict laws.The "Running Script Law" of the Qin Dynasty stipulated that documents can be divided into two categories, one is urgent documents, and the other is ordinary documents.Urgent documents, including imperial edicts, must be communicated immediately without delay.Ordinary documents are also stipulated to be sent out on the same day, and no backlog is allowed.It is said in the legal text: "If you are in a hurry to execute the order and the book office, you will do it; if you are not in a hurry, you will not dare to stay after the end of the day. If you stay, you will discuss it according to the law." It means: edicts and those marked as urgent documents must be Send out immediately; documents that are not in a hurry should be completed on the same day, without delay.Any delays will be dealt with legally.

The Qin Dynasty continued to use the talisman festival system of the previous dynasty. In 1973, a copper "Du Hu Talisman" from the Qin Dynasty was discovered in the suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi. If a soldier is armored and employs more than 50 soldiers, he will definitely know the emperor's talisman, so he dares to do it."It means that the king of this talisman and the general of Dudi each hold half of it. If there are more than 50 soldiers, they must match each other before they can act.This shows that the centralization of power in the Qin Dynasty had absolute authority.There are also 10 other words engraved on this talisman: "Although there is no command talisman for the burnt flint, it can be done." This means that the beacon fire intelligence system was still used at that time, and it could be lit without talismans.During the Qin Dynasty, beacon communication was used on the Great Wall. Beacon towers were set up inside and outside the Great Wall. Along the direction of the beacon towers, the pre-agreed information could be quickly transmitted, and the frontier defense information could be transmitted to the capital city of Xianyang in time.

In the Qin Dynasty, the status of the messengers of postal affairs was even lower, and they were no longer held by officials above the scholar level, but turned to civilian servants. In the Qin Dynasty, the particularly important documents were stipulated to be transmitted by special personnel, and no one should stop them wherever they passed.Naturally, these special personnel must be very reliable, but also need to be physically strong and swift in action. This can be seen from their names, each of which is: Qingche, 赾 [jinjing] Zhang, Yinqiang, and Zhongzhong.These people have special training on weekdays ("Yunmeng Qin Bamboo Qin Law Miscellaneous Copy").

In order to ensure that secrets were not leaked on the way, the Qin Dynasty made several legal regulations.For example: different documents are written in different scripts, bamboo seals and small seals are used for bamboo slips, engraved symbols are used for amulets, Miao seals are used for seals, bird scripts are used for banner scripts, official scripts are used for government documents, and so on.These regulations effectively prevent the forgery of documents.In addition, it is also stipulated that the bamboo slips are generally sealed with mud at the knots and stamped with a seal to prevent unauthorized dismantling on the way.In addition, the "Law of Running Script" of the Qin Dynasty also stipulated the sending and receiving system of documents: "When sending and receiving documents, they must be written from the beginning to the day and night."The above-mentioned regulations all show that the postal communication system has been standardized.

The main line of communication in the Qin Dynasty ran through the east, west, north and south.North side: From Guanzhong to Jiuyuan Great Wall, and now near Hetao, Inner Mongolia; East side: From Hangu Pass to the east, through Henan to Linzi in Shandong today; South side: From Wuguan via Nanyang to Jiangling. The effective communication system of the Qin Dynasty played a role in consolidating the centralization system.The central government can continuously receive reports from various localities.Since the government stipulated that local reports and requests for instructions must be in written form, the memorials that Qin Shihuang had to read and approve every day weighed 120 catties (bamboo and wood slips).The Qin government also used these communication systems to keep abreast of the dynamics of the frontier defense and the people, and took decisive military measures.