Chapter 10 Section 2 The earliest extant two family letters

Here we will talk about two rare ancient communication artifacts interspersed.These are the two wooden slip family letters left by the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty more than 2,200 years ago discovered in Yunmengsuihudi, Hubei. These two family letters are part of a large number of Qin bamboo slips discovered by Chinese archaeologists in Yunmeng in the winter of 1975.The content of the family letter is two letters home written by two soldiers of the Qin State, Hei Fu and Jing, to their brothers and sisters during the unification war of Qin Shihuang.At the beginning of the two letters from home, I greeted my brother, asked him to greet my mother, and then talked about their situation on the front line.The central content of the letter is to ask the family for money and clothes.The letter mentioned the battle situation at that time, and mentioned that Heifu was about to participate in the offensive in Huaiyang, "the injury is unknown."On the reverse side of the letter, there are a few postscripts, all of which are greetings to relatives and friends at home.

The two family letters on wooden slips were found in Qin Tomb No. 4 in Yunmengsuihudi.So far, it has been well preserved, and the characters written in ink on the front and back are still clearly legible.From these two family letters, we can learn a lot about the social and economic situation at that time: First, I learned that the soldiers conscripted by the Qin Dynasty had all their clothes at home and had a certain period of service.Their life in the army is very difficult, so Hei Fu and Jing are very homesick. Second, there were frequent wars in Qin State at that time, which affected the normal production.The three brothers of Heifu's family actually enlisted two to go to the battlefield, which will inevitably make the family's labor shortage.However, it can be seen from the narration of family letters that at that time, the family finances of ordinary soldiers in the Qin army were not bad, so it was possible for Heifu to ask for five or six hundred yuan from the family and "(糹咅) [fufu] cloth" and "Zen (dan) Tan〕 skirt jacket".

Third, we can infer some information about the communication system at that time from these two family letters.The family letter was sent from Huaiyang, Henan, and now it has been unearthed in Yunmeng, Hubei, which shows that the letter has arrived at home.Experts verified that it was impossible for Heifu and Jingjue to deliver the letter by official mail.Because at the end of the Warring States period and the Qin Dynasty, the official mail only delivered government documents, and private letters were not allowed.At that time, except for the great nobles such as the Four Princes of the Warring States Period, no one could have their own private mail.It is impossible for these two ordinary soldiers with low status to use private mail.Experts believe that these two family letters were probably brought home by fellow villagers who had completed their service in the army.This kind of informal private letter piggybacking communication method continued in our country for several years after the Qin Dynasty. It was not until the Song Dynasty more than 1,000 years later that the government had the regulation of "private letter delivery". organize.It can be seen how difficult it was for folk communication in ancient times!

In addition, from these two family letters, we can also see that the writing style and format of letters in the Qin and Han Dynasties are quite different from those commonly used in our country today.First of all, the time of writing the letter is not written at the end of the letter but at the beginning of the letter.For example, in the first letter on wooden slips written by Heifu and Jinghe, the opening text on the front reads: "February Xinsi", which is a date, and now the date is written at the end of the letter.Secondly, what followed immediately after the writing time was not the address of the recipient, but the letter writer's greeting to the recipient: "Hei Fu, Jing dare to ask (Hei Fu, Jing's brother), mother is fine!" Unlike the letter format we are used to today, the greetings are placed at the end of the letter.In addition, through this letter, we can also understand the common vocabulary in letters at that time, such as "Wu Yang Ye", "Dare to ask", "Dare to ask", etc. Some words are still commonly used in Chinese letters today.This is a precious material for the study of the epistle style of the ancients today.