How long will it take for the ancient emperor to issue an imperial edict to spread throughout the country?

How long will it take for the ancient emperor to issue an imperial edict to spread throughout the country?

In film and television dramas, we often see imperial edicts issued by ancient emperors, and imperial edicts to Beijing officials must be quick. Then, if it reaches local officials or people, how long will it take for the imperial edict to reach the whole country?

First of all, we should make it clear that the imperial edict is not meant to tell the people of the whole country, because the imperial edict of most emperors has little influence on ordinary people, who not only don't know, but also don't care what the emperor said.

For example, special matters such as conferring titles, conferring titles, and appointing people can be given to the parties, unless there are major public events, such as immigration, political reform, amnesty, or other matters closely related to the broad masses of the people, such as changing the yuan and enacting new legislation, which need to be notified to the whole country.

Secondly, official documents such as imperial edicts are also related to the size of each dynasty and the limitations of productivity at that time. For example, in the Han Dynasty, Lv Hou issued an imperial edict to Nanyue in present-day Guangdong Province. In the Han Dynasty, there was only one way to get here in the Central Plains. Even at the fastest speed at that time, this imperial edict would take a month to arrive.

In the Qing dynasty, the timeliness was improved. For example, in the Qing Dynasty, from the thirteenth year of Shunzhi, that is, in June of A.D. 1656, the maritime ban was promulgated, and then all the southeast coasts began to move inward. In the first year of Kangxi, that is, A.D. 1662, Ao Bai, then Minister of Fuzheng, further ordered that people in all provinces and coastal areas from Shandong to Guangdong should move within 50 miles.

They not only demanded relocation, but also ordered local officials to destroy all the houses in the coastal areas and create a large number of no-man's land in the coastal areas. Not only does he not let the residents go to the sea, but he can't live. In February of the first year of Kangxi, the court sent two ministers, Ke Kun and Jia Shan, to inspect the coastal areas of Guangdong. It can be seen from this that in the early Qing Dynasty, a large-scale civil mobilization of the imperial court could be basically completed in just a few months. Of course, this process may be cruel.

In the Ming dynasty before the Qing dynasty, there were relevant regulations on the time limit for the issuance of imperial edicts in various places. The Ming Dynasty unified the yamen system of the Ministry of Civil and Military Affairs, which explained the minimum time limit of the yamen of the Chief Secretary of the two Beijing and thirteen provinces. Among them, the nearest Jinan takes 20 days, and the farthest is the Xuanwei Department of Longchuan, Yunnan, which takes at least 189 days to arrive.

Of course, this does not mean that the imperial edict must arrive directly, but that after the imperial edict reaches the provincial level, it must be issued at the provincial level, and there will be no jump in the middle, resulting in a place as close as Liaodong, which takes more than 60 days. Because Liaodong in the Ming Dynasty was under the control of Shandong, it was ordered to arrive in Jinan from Beijing first, and then arrived in Shanhaiguan Pass bit by bit.

It can be seen that in the era when there is no news broadcast, many times, ordinary people rarely know directly what to do above. This explains why only the landlord class in China was able to mobilize the local people before the emergence of grass-roots organizations. After all, they are places where feudal imperial power can be directly extended.