Ancient information transmission

Information transmission in ancient my country

my country is one of the first countries in the world to establish an organized information transmission system. As early as the Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, information transmission has been recorded. Riding a horse to deliver a message was an early form of organized communication. The "Post Envoy" sculpture located in the square of Jiayuguan Railway Station is based on the mural tombs of the Wei and Jin Dynasties in Jiayuguan. The post envoy holds slips and documents in his hands, and the post horse is flying with all four legs in the air at a very fast speed. This brick mural was used as the theme pattern for small stamps by the First Congress of the All-China Philatelic Federation in 1982. This shows that Jiayuguan is one of the birthplaces of China's information culture.

The emergence of ancient information transmission is inseparable from the Great Wall, which is "five thousand years up and down and one hundred thousand miles across". The word "Great Wall" first appeared in the literature records of the Warring States Period. In ancient times, different dynasties had different construction forms, so the names of this kind of defense projects were also different, such as: Lecheng, Fangcheng, Sai, Jiuluo, boundary moat, side wall, etc., which actually all refer to the "Great Wall". In fact, the Great Wall in a broad sense refers to all the giant military engineering systems in ancient China.

The basic principle followed in the construction process of the Great Wall in the past dynasties is "adapting measures to local conditions and taking advantage of dangers to create blockages." One is to construct the project according to the terrain type. The second is to make full use of geographical natural dangers to defend against enemies. The Great Wall takes the wall as the main body, including city barriers, passes, barracks, guard posts, piers, beacons, and comprehensive functions such as observation and communication, forming the most rigorous military defense system in ancient times. Among them, the beacon tower located inside the Great Wall is an important component.

During the Western Zhou Dynasty, in order to prevent enemy invasion, "beacon tunnels" were used as emergency communication signals for border defense. There is a record in the ancient history book "Zhou Li": "On the passage from the frontier to the hinterland of each country, beacon towers were built at regular intervals, one after another, with oranges on the towers, and firewood on the heads of the oranges. When the enemy invades, the beacon towers will set off fireworks one after another to send warnings. At night, the watchmen will light the firewood in the cage and raise it high, and use the firelight to send messages to the podium, which is called a "beacon". During the daytime warning, the firewood accumulated on the platform was lit to indicate urgency, which was called "sui". In order to make the smoke straight and not bend, so that it could be seen from a distance, the ancients often used wolf dung instead of firewood, so it was also called "sui". Also known as Wolf Smoke. The Zhou Dynasty stipulated that the emperor must immediately lead troops to rescue and resist the enemy together. It can be seen that the implementation of the beacon system means that there was a large and complete system as early as the Zhou Dynasty. The military information contact network. From 1972 to 1976, Chinese archaeologists obtained more than 30,000 wooden slips from the Han Dynasty in Juyan and excavated the beacon sites, which provided us with a wealth of information about the beacons of the Han Dynasty. During the Han Dynasty, beacons were set up from the four counties in Hexi (today's Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan, and Dunhuang in Gansu Province) to Yanze. They were large-scale and strictly managed. It was said that "beacons faced each other for thousands of miles", and it was said that "five miles apart" One fire, one pier for ten miles, one fortress for thirty miles, and one fortress for one hundred miles." The beacon fires are set off day and night. Smoke is set off during the day and fire is set off at night. In addition, various codes are also used to indicate the number of invading enemies. One beacon fire was set off for those with less than 100 people, two beacon fires were set off for those with more than 500 miles, etc. The unearthed "Beacon Fire Products on the Fortress" records the regulations formulated by the imperial court at that time to call the police and set off beacon fire when approaching enemies, that is, "joint defense". "Convention". This article stipulates the types, quantities, delivery methods of beacon fires in each fort, and how to correct errors if they occur in different locations, numbers, time, intentions, changes, and weather abnormalities. When the chief of fire was sick, he had to seek approval from his superiors. This method of information transmission played a certain role in defending the border and resisting enemies.

Beacon fire was a very fast method of transmitting information. In 119 BC. Generals Wei Qing and Huo Qubing led hundreds of thousands of troops to attack in separate directions, setting off beacon fire as a signal to advance. In just one day, the signal was transmitted from Hexi to Liaodong, thousands of miles away. It was still used in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Yantai City in Shandong Province got its name because the Ming Dynasty set up beacon towers to prevent Japanese pirates from invading.

Although beacons convey military information quickly, they cannot be complete. With the development of society and political and military needs, the communication method that relied on animal power to transmit information gradually occupied a dominant position, forming a more rigorous post system for transmitting official documents and the coordination of beacons and alarms.

During the Western Zhou Dynasty, in order to meet the needs of communication between the king of Zhou and the princes, a post station was set up every 30 miles on the road, equipped with fine horses and carriages, and was specially responsible for delivering official documents and receiving officials and guests. Transporting goods, etc. Confucius once said: "The popularity of virtue is faster than posting orders. "This means that the moral doctrine he advocated spread faster than the orders transmitted by post. It can be seen that the post communication at that time was not only quite complete, but also very fast.

During the Qin and Han Dynasties, A complete system of postal transmission was formed, especially in the Han Dynasty, where the documents to be delivered were divided into different levels. Documents of different levels were sent and received by special persons and horses in a specified order and at a specified time, and the time was clearly marked. Responsibility.

During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the postal service industry developed unprecedentedly. In the Tang Dynasty, the official postal transportation line centered on the capital Chang'an and radiated to the border areas, with a post station approximately 30 miles away.

According to the "Six Codes of the Tang Dynasty", at its peak, there were 1,639 post stations across the country, with more than 20,000 people specializing in post services, including 17,000 post soldiers. There are three types of postal posts: land post, water post, and waterway combined post. Each post station has a post house, equipped with post horses, post donkeys, post boats and post fields.

The Tang Dynasty also had clear regulations on the itinerary of postal stations. A fast horse in Luyi could travel 6 stations a day, which is 180 miles, and it would be almost 300 miles a day, and the fastest required is 500 miles a day; people on foot could travel 50 miles a day. miles; when sailing against the current, the river is 40 miles, the river is 50 miles, and the other 60 miles; when sailing with the current, the limit is 100 to 150 miles. The poet Cen Shen wrote in the poem "On the way to Longshan for the first time, I submitted a letter to the judge": "One post passed by another, and the post riders were like stars; they left Xianyang at dawn, and the curtain reached the head of Longshan." Here he compares Yiqi to a shooting star. On November 9, the 14th year of Tianbao, An Lushan rebelled in Fan Yang. At that time, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was in the Huaqing Palace, and the two places were three thousand miles apart. Within 6 days, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty knew the news, and the transmission speed reached 500 miles per day. It can be seen that the organization and speed of postal communications in the Tang Dynasty have reached a very high level.

In the Song Dynasty, all official documents and correspondence organizations were collectively called "delivery", and "express delivery shops" appeared. The couriers who deliver expresses have copper bells tied to their collars. When they are running on the road, they ring the bells during the day and light the fire at night. They are not responsible for killing people. Horses were changed from bunk to bunk, people were changed from several bunks to each other, rain or shine, day and night. In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Yue Fei, the anti-golden general, was forced to recall Lin'an from the front line by Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty with twelve gold medals. These gold medals were the gold-lettered medals delivered by the express delivery shop, which contained the meaning of great urgency.

The post station is a government communications organization and is only allowed to deliver government documents. Except for the Song Dynasty, which allowed high-ranking officials to send family letters, no personal letters were allowed, and private letters could only be entrusted to others. In 1975, archaeologists unearthed two wooden family letters in a Qin Dynasty tomb in Hunan Province. The first letter was jointly written by "Heifu" and "Jing" to a person named "Zhong"; The letter was written by "Jing" to "Zhong". It is the earliest known family letter in my country. It is estimated that these two letters were sent home by fellow villagers who had returned home after serving in the army. This shows the difficulty of communication among ancient people.

It was not until the Ming Dynasty that the Civil Information Bureau, a communications agency specifically designed to deliver letters to the people, appeared. During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, the immigrants from Xiaogan Township, Macheng County, Hubei Province, who were moved to Sichuan for reclamation, missed their hometown. They agreed to elect representatives from their hometowns to return to their hometowns several times a year, bringing local products and letters back and forth. Over time, a fixed organization called "Ma Xiang Yue" was established. Later, a professional Civil Information Bureau was formed.

Postal communication played a certain progressive role in border defense and economic and cultural exchanges, and became the main form of information transmission in ancient my country. As time goes by, those ancient ways of transmitting information have been replaced by today's convenient and fast modern communication methods.