Chapter 23 Section 7 "Huang Er Chuan Shu" and Kite Communication

"Huang Er Biography" and kite communication are two anecdotes of folk communication during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.From these two stories, it can be seen that communication was still very difficult for ordinary people at that time. "Huang Er Communication" tells the story of Lu Ji, a great poet in the early Jin Dynasty.Lu Ji has a handsome dog named Huang Er, who is very popular with his master.Lu Ji lived in Luoyang, the capital for a long time, and missed his hometown in the south of the Yangtze River very much, so he said to Huang Er as a joke: My family has not communicated for a long time, can you pass on news for it?Unexpectedly, the dog wagged its tail, as if to express its agreement.Lu Ji was astonished, and immediately wrote a letter, put it in a bamboo tube, tied it around Huang Er's neck, and let him go out.Huang Er found his own way to go south.I found my hometown.It also forwarded the reply from his hometown to Lu Ji in Luoyang.After that, Huang Er often sent letters between the two places as usual, and became a dog messenger.

Kites were used for communication in the Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties.At the end of the Liang Dynasty, Hou Jing rebelled and besieged the capital, cutting off news from inside and outside.At this time, a child in the capital suggested to the court to use a kite to report to the outside.Prince Xiao Gang listened to this opinion, tied a big paper kite [yuanyuan] kite, tied an emergency letter on the back of the kite, and released it with a rope thousands of feet long, stating that whoever gets this book will ask for a reward for reinforcements. 100 taels.Xiao Gang released the kites several times, but Hou Jing sent men to shoot them down, and Liang Chao was not saved in the end.

During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, there was another sympathetic story: during the reign of the Southern Song Dynasty, there was a Jiankang man named Chen Rao, who was recruited by Sikong Liu Dan as a government official, and was often sent to deep mountains and old forests to draw maps. .Because of being repatriated all the year round, he cut off communication with his family.Chen Rao's sister and two daughters risked their lives to write a letter to the court, reporting the situation.The imperial court exempted Chen Rao from hard labor, but his superior, Sikong Liu Dan, was very angry when he saw the order from above, and flew into a rage.He found Chen Rao and reprimanded him face to face: Do you want to die?How dare to leapfrog the appeal?Chen Rao immediately argued that: the government did not allow ordinary people to exchange family letters, so the news was cut off.Maybe this is my sister's idea alone, I really don't know it.This averted a catastrophe.It can be seen that at that time, ordinary people and lower-level officials were still not allowed to communicate.This is not only caused by the backward economic and transportation conditions and imperfect institutions, but more importantly, the feudal government itself imposed various restrictions on folk communications.This is an unreasonable phenomenon of the feudal system itself.