Chapter 29 Section 6 "Water Telegram" and Air Communication in the Sui and Tang Dynasties

During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the term "mail box" appeared.This is not the kind of post box in front of the street or post office that we are familiar with today, but actually a kind of water mail transportation tool at that time. The records of "post box" in the Sui and Tang Dynasties were first seen in "Sui Shu".The book talks about when the Sui army was in Pingchen, due to "the land and water blockage, the messengers were blocked", the general Shi Wansui came up with a clever idea, put the emergency letter in a bamboo tube, floated down the river, and floated to the coach Yang Su. The battle was very fast. It's clear ("Sui Shu Biography of Shi Wansui").This method was used again and again in the Tang Dynasty.The poet Li Bai and the writer Yuan Zhen used this method of posting letters several times in their correspondence with friends.In Li Taibai's poems, there is a reference to "picking bamboo book tubes". Yuan Zhen once used bamboo tubes to hold letters and sent them to Bai Juyi.Yuan Zhen had close contacts with four poets, Bai Juyi, Qian Hui, and Li Rang (rang 红).They served as officials in Hangzhou, Wuxing, Wujun (now Suzhou), and Kuaiji (now Shaoxing), and they often exchanged poems and books with each other, using the above-mentioned water mailbox.This fact is hailed as an elegant event by the literary world.Guan Xiu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, also praised this kind of mailbox in his poems for the convenience and elegance of sending letters.

At the end of the Sui Dynasty, there was another communication similar to the "bottle mail" in European history.In the eleventh year of Emperor Sui Yang's great cause (615 A.D.), Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty went hunting in the north, but was besieged by Turks in Yanmen.There was also a lack of information at the time.Emperor Yangdi was very anxious, so he thought of a way, and ordered people to tie the edict with wood, put it into the water, and let it go down the Fen River.The edict was received by the reinforcements, and the reinforcements arrived a month later, and the Turks had to escape from the siege.This is a special method of reporting military conditions in unavoidable situations.Later, the Sichuan Revolutionary Party in the late Qing Dynasty also used this method to spread the news of the massacre of the people by the Qing government, which was called "Water Telegraph" at the time.

"Aerial communication" in the Sui and Tang Dynasties refers to the communication methods using kites, carrier pigeons, etc., and of course it is not the current aircraft aviation.The kite communication in the Tang Dynasty, the most famous one recorded in the history books is the kite alarm sent by Zhang Ni [pi Phi] in 781 AD.In this year, Tian Yue, the Jiedu envoy of Hebei, rebelled against the imperial court and sent troops to besiege Linming (now Yongnian, Hebei).In order to ask for help from the surrounding friendly forces, he attached the emergency letter to the kite, which flew more than a hundred feet high.The rebels shot arrows at the kite one after another, but they missed.Finally, the emergency letter finally arrived at the reinforcements, and the government army won the victory.In addition, the "air communication" method is most famous for several nine-year-old pigeons sending books.Zhang Jiuling was the famous prime minister of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty when he was in Kaiyuan. According to historical records, he kept a large group of pigeons at home when he was a boy. Whenever he communicated with relatives and friends, he would tie the letter to the pigeon's leg and order it to fly to a fixed place to communicate with relatives and friends. Exchange information.Zhang Jiuling called these pigeons "flying slaves".In addition, in the unofficial history and legends of the Tang Dynasty, there are records of Yanzi and Haidongqing sending books.These should all be counted as the form of "air communication" in the Tang Dynasty.

The emergence of the above-mentioned communication methods shows that communication has become a daily need for people in the Sui and Tang Dynasties.There are many contacts between people, which naturally require various communication methods.General communication tools are insufficient, so some special communication methods have been devised. There is also a story about the "envoy in green clothes" in the Tang Dynasty.This name later fell on the postal workers and became an alias for the postman.Since the 1930s, my country has stipulated that the clothes of postal personnel should all be green.In fact, the story of the "envoy in green clothes" in the Tang Dynasty has nothing to do with the post post.This story happened during the time of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty. There lived a rich man in Chang'an City. His wife, Mrs. Liu, had an affair with her neighbor Li Yan (yanyan), conspired to kill the rich man and threw him in a well in the backyard.Liu falsely reported the case to the government, saying that her husband was missing.The county magistrate sent people to investigate and visit day and night, and many suspects were arrested, but the real murderer was never found.One day, suddenly a parrot raised in the Fuhutang opened its mouth and said: Liu Shi and Li Yan also killed the head of the house.In this way, the government solved the case and brought the murderer to justice.The incident was reported to Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty by the government. Xuanzong sighed greatly and named the parrot "the envoy in green clothes".Since then, the name has been passed down.