Chapter 30 Section 7 Poetry Talk of Guanyi in Tang Dynasty

As mentioned earlier, during the Tang Dynasty, the post and the pass were merged into one, and the post had the dual functions of a communication agency and an official guest house.As guest houses, most of the post houses in the Tang Dynasty were originally located in prefectures and counties to facilitate the rest of officials and the business of postmen passing letters and documents.The famous literati Han Yu's "Records of Xuancheng Post" said: "This post was placed in the ancient Xuancheng." Liu Yuxi, a poet at the same time as him, mentioned in the article that Guancheng Post was originally built in the city.Later, due to the fixed-time confinement system at the city gates, some urgent official documents could not reach the state and county governments on time.In order not to hinder the timely operation of post delivery, some post houses are located near the outside of the state and county.Some of them have become high-end hotels, very luxurious and spectacular in form.Some high-end hotels are contiguous, and even have several halls, such as "upper hall", "lower hall", "main hall", "other hall", "east hall", "west hall" and so on ("Yu Shi" Book Envoy").Therefore, Gao Shi, a famous poet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, used "Fengwu Food" to describe the Chenliu Shangyuan Inn where he once lived.Literati and poets in the Tang Dynasty often lived in the post, so many poems about the post appeared at this time, vividly describing the life in the post.

Regarding the luxury and magnificence of Tang Dynasty posthouses, there is a vivid description in a poem titled "Guancheng New Posthouse" by Liu Mengde, a poet in the middle Tang Dynasty: "The gates and streets are well-roaded, the walls are shaded by bamboos and mulberry, and the environment is better than outside. Also. Purchasing famous materials from afar, and prolonging the work of the world. It is not only painted with Xuan Xi, but also smooth with pi secluded, and refined on the inside." It means that there is a spacious and tidy road outside the door, surrounded by mulberry and bamboo, like a small garden.Inside the door is a building made of precious wood, the walls are all high-grade bricks and tiles, and the decoration is exquisite and gorgeous.In addition, there are special kitchens, stables with livestock, large warehouses for stacking goods, villa-style high-end rooms, high steps and courtyard walls, and a large and magnificent gatehouse in the post house.

At that time, Baocheng Post was the most famous post house in the world.This is a post house in today's Shaanxi.Sun Qiao, a literati in the Tang Dynasty, described: "Baocheng's station is number one in the world" and "extravagant to its station to show its majesty". Book Baocheng Post Wall ").In this post, the halls and corridors are extremely magnificent, and there is a pond outside the hall, where you can go boating, fishing, or lean on the railing to enjoy the moon in your spare time. The scenery is charming.Baocheng Station is like this, and other stations are not inferior.Almost all of them have become a garden with gorgeous architecture and beautiful scenery.Du Fu, a poet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, once praised a post in Tongquan County, Zizhou, Sichuan: "The post building is on the side of the decaying willow, and the county is surrounded by light smoke. A poem about the beautiful scenery of the post house in Qin'an, Gansu Province: "Lin Chi is a good post house, Cong Huang [Huang Huang] is low in bamboo and green, and tall willows are half the sky." This post house faces a clear pond, a low green bamboo forest, and the pond. Tall willow trees cover half of the sky.Other poets in the Tang Dynasty also wrote many poems about posthouses and posthouses, such as Yuan Zhen's poem: "In the posthouse on the bank of the Jialing River, the river is in front of the building and the moon is in the sky", and Zhang Ji's poem "Caiyufeng is connected to the Buddhist temple is secluded, high and tall. Diagonally facing the post gate tower, riding official horses back and forth for no reason, teaching one's body not to swim."It shows that post houses after the mid-Tang Dynasty included buildings and tall gate buildings.The poet Li Yuan also wrote a poem describing a post in a certain place in Sichuan, saying: "Trees outside the blue clouds, red dew on the side of the post." These poems all illustrate the magnificence of the post in Tang Dynasty.

In the unofficial history "Tang Guoshi Supplement" written by Li Zhao of the Tang Dynasty, there is such a story: There is a post official in the south of the Yangtze River who took the initiative to invite the newly arrived governor to visit a post house.He first took the governor to visit the wine storehouse, where he saw that there were all kinds of fine wines, and then took the governor to the tea storehouse, where there were all kinds of famous tea from all over the country, and finally went to the pickle storehouse, where all kinds of pickled vegetables were fragrant.After reading it, the governor was full of praise and was very satisfied.

Yi is an official guest house under the direct jurisdiction of the central government.In addition, in the Tang Dynasty, there was also a facility called "guan", which was a hotel set up by the local government.The scale of the pavilions is not small, and some of them are as luxurious as posthouses.At that time, someone wrote an article describing the guest house in Tangxing County, saying: "It is lofty and vast, surpassing the Chuanshe,...the southern note of the corridor is also the complex corridor" ("Tangxing County Guest House"). From the posthouse system in the Tang Dynasty, we can reflect the social and economic prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, and at the same time we can see the luxury of the feudal ruling class.With the decline of the Tang Dynasty, the post houses of the Tang Dynasty gradually became dilapidated.Sun Zhui described the dilapidated state of Baocheng Station in the late Tang Dynasty: "If you look at the marsh, it will be muddy and polluted; if you look at the boat, it will be broken and glued. The pond in the garden is dirty, the light boats in the pond are broken, the courtyard is full of weeds, and the hall is dilapidated.Sun Qiao pointed out that this is the result of "corruption" by officials of all sizes.