Chapter 42 Section 8 Post Posts in Liao, Xia and Jin Dynasties

At the same time as the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, there were still several regimes established by minority rulers in the northern land of my country. These were the Liao established by the Khitan in the north, the Jin established by the Jurchen, and the Xixia established by the Dangxiang tribe in the northwest. At that time, wars in the north were frequent, ethnic oppression was severe, the economy was greatly damaged, and the post office was once in a state of chaos. But soon, the rulers of Liao, Xixia and Jin quickly cleaned up the mess, restored the economy, and returned to normal life. Post post communication, and has significant national characteristics.

Generally speaking, the post offices in the Liao Dynasty were relatively backward, and the transportation was not as developed as that in the Central Plains.Mainly land transportation, the main means of transportation are cattle, carts, camels and horses.Some of the Liao tomb paintings discovered in some areas in the north in recent years reflect the content of the carriages and horses at that time, and the general traffic conditions at that time can be seen.In the Liao Dynasty, the major achievement of the post post was to open up the post road from the northeast to the Central Plains.At that time, there were post roads communicating with each other between Shangjing (now Bahrain Zuoqi, Inner Mongolia), Zhongjing (now Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia), Tokyo (now Liaoyang, Liaoning) and Nanjing (now Beijing) in Liao Dynasty. The post house where officials rest.The facilities of these posthouses are generally simpler than those in the mainland, but the food supply and carriage and horse facilities are also similar to those in the Central Plains.

Liaoyang Mansion in Tokyo was the center of the Liao Dynasty in the Northeast.The post roads from Tokyo to various places extend in all directions.According to the records of "Wu Jing Zongyao" written by Zeng Gongliang of the Song Dynasty, there are 14 post houses along the way from Tokyo to Zhongjing Dadingfu (now Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia). Museum, Sanhe Station, etc., the distance between the stations ranges from 50 to 100 miles.With Tokyo as the center, there are also post roads leading directly to the Heilongjiang River Basin and the Korean Peninsula.The Liao Dynasty opened up a post road from Linhuangfu in Shangjing to Nurgan City in the lower reaches of Heilongjiang, with a total length of more than 5,000 miles.Because this is a passage called Haidong Qingying that the rulers of Liao extorted from the local Jurchens, it is also called "Eagle Road".

Chiyi in the Liao Dynasty is generally evidenced by a silver medal, about one foot long, engraved in Khitan characters, meaning "suitable speed".There are also the words "Order to walk the horse card", which is believed to be trustworthy.The distance limit of Yi Chi is required to be 700 miles at the fastest per day, followed by 500 miles. In the late Liao Dynasty, due to the doubling of extortion by the ruling class, and because the center of the Liao Dynasty was in the northeast, the post roads to and from the Central Plains had to go through many winding mountain trails.By the time of the last emperor, Emperor Tianzuo, the people had reached the level of "bankrupt and unable to give".Therefore, the northern people often raised troops to rebel.The envoy sent to the Liao Dynasty in the Northern Song Dynasty saw poems and paintings on the wall expressing the people's rebellious thoughts in a post house in Yanjing. He drew a crow with two lines of poems attached to it: "The stars are thin and the moon is bright. I want to fly south", reflecting the sentiment of the people at that time.

Xixia was an ethnic regime that was separatist in the area of ​​Ningxia during the Southern Song Dynasty.During Li Yuanhao's reign, he also imitated the Central Plains system to repair post roads.The inscriptions left so far record that in order to compete with the Song Dynasty for northern Shaanxi, Xixia built Shaqiao on the Yellow River in Jingyuan, Gansu today, connecting the post roads in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia.Shaqiao is the transliteration of the cable bridge, which may be an iron cable bridge covered with slabs.This bridge still stood on the river until the Yuan Dynasty ("Longyou Jinshilu").

According to the "Longping Collection" by Zeng Gong of the Song Dynasty, there were 25 stations in the east and west, 10 stations in the north and south, and 12 stations from the Yellow River to the Liao border in Xixia at that time.Xiayi mainly used horses, cattle, and camels as means of communication, and also had post cards following the Central Plains system.The remains of the Xixia Imperial Tablet are engraved with the Xixia characters "Chi Ranma Fen", which means "I ordered the posthorse to gallop day and night".According to textual research, it was the talisman used by the Xixia post station to deliver documents at that time.

Jin is a regime established by the Jurchens. From the founding of Wanyan Aguda in 1115 to 1234 when it was wiped out by Mongolia, a powerful regime was established to rule the northern part of our country.At the beginning, the Jurchens were far behind the Liao, Xia, and Song Dynasties, and they didn't understand the importance of post offices. "History of Jin" records that when Jin Taizu Wanyan Agu attacked the Liao Dynasty, there was no written text, and the military secrets were all dictated by the generals face to face. There are no mistakes in words.Later, the rulers of the Jin Dynasty "got the Liao people to use it", learned to use characters, and the post system gradually began.Since then, the traffic and post stations in the Northeast have developed rapidly. From Jin Taizong, from the capital Huining Mansion (now Acheng, Heilongjiang) to Kaifeng, Henan, a post was installed every 50 miles, forming a long post route.One year, the envoys of the Northern Song Dynasty congratulated the Lord Jin on his ascension to the throne. They set off from Bianliang, from Xiongzhou on the border of the Song and Jin Dynasties to Huining, and passed 39 post stations along the way, covering a total distance of more than 2,500 miles.

During the reign of King Sejong, an express delivery shop was set up.Here is another story: One day, Jin Shizong said to his ministers: "I often want to get new lychees", so he followed the example of Tang Minghuang and Yang Guifei to strengthen the post system and set up an express delivery shop.It is stipulated that there is one shop every 10 miles, one person at the head of each shop, and three soldiers at the shop.The shop soldiers sent documents on horseback, and they could travel 300 miles a day.Fees for raising horses in the express shop are all collected from the people, which is called "horse shop money".

The posthouses in Jinzhongdu are also quite elegant.Fan Chengda, a famous poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, once lived in Zhongdu Guanyi. He described that Zhongdu Yi served dry and fresh fruits such as pears and chestnuts, as well as wine. The Jin Dynasty implemented the post card system long ago. There are three types of gold medals, silver medals, and wooden plaques, and later they were made into green-painted red-letter plaques.Every time he goes on an envoy, the envoys wear these post cards, commonly known as gold medals and silver medals.People in the Southern Song Dynasty believed that this system was passed down from the Song Dynasty.Hong Hao's "Songmo Jiwen" and Zhao Yanwei's "Yuzhai Journey" in the Southern Song Dynasty once recorded the situation of postal stations in Jin territory in the Heilongjiang area of ​​Northeast China at that time, saying that Jin's posthouses were called "zhai", "pu" and "guan". "Songmo Jiwen" has records of "Yinzhou Nanpu", "Suzhou Beipu", "Anzhou Nanpu" and so on.The post stations of Jin recorded in their books are not in good shape, with barren roads, dilapidated buildings, and no one to repair them.It shows that the post roads in the frontier areas were not as exquisite as those in the Central Plains at that time.