The meaning of the word "post" used in the postal service originated from the Qin Dynasty, and the countries in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period before the Qin Dynasty had different names for postal communications, and there were various titles called "遽", "驲", and "Placement". In the Qin Dynasty, different names were uniformly called postal, and since then "postal" has become a special term for communication systems. We know that the Qin Dynasty unified the writing, the currency, the weights and measures, the rails, etc., in fact, he also unified the postal term "post", which has been used to this day.
The respected postman, formerly called "postman", has been a very hard job since ancient times. In the history of our country, there have been two very good postmen and a very good "post office" cadre, one is Li Zicheng, the other is the founder of Northern Qi, Gao Huan, who initially engaged in postmen, and Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, served as the chief of the "post office" for eight years.
In the Qin Dynasty, the treatment of postmen was relatively good, postmen (that is, postmen) belonged to state servants, can enjoy the benefits of tax reduction, in 2002 in Hunan Liye excavated a large number of bamboo janes in one of the contents of the bamboo jane, is to say that a township mayor to the superiors, the appointment of a person named Cheng as a postman's request for instructions, but the leader did not agree, the request report was refuted, indicating that at that time to serve the postman's rice bowl is also a lot of twists and turns. When delivering mail, the Qin Dynasty postmen were passed along the fixed postal route one station at a time, and there were places for messengers to eat and stay at intervals along the postal route, and these rest places were called postal or pavilions. Postmen deliver letters and letters on horse, cart and foot, of which the postman is the most arduous, carrying a pouch rain or shine every day to walk forty or fifty miles a day. The Qin Dynasty's management system for postal personnel was also very strict, and its "Law of Writing Books" stipulated: "Those who are in a hurry to do the book and the book office, do it at the same time; those who are not in a hurry, after the end of the day, do not dare to stay." Those who remain are judged by the law. "It means that the edict and those marked as urgent documents shall be sent out immediately; and those documents that are not urgent shall also be completed on the same day, and shall not be delayed, and those who have delays shall be dealt with by law." Figure 1 shows the 2007-9 Postal Savings Bank of China special stamp, the pattern is the ancient postman Touma delivery.
In the Han Dynasty, in continuing the system of the Qin Dynasty, it further improved the postal station, and set up pavilions, postal stations, post stations, and transmission. The official mail system of the Han Dynasty was more stringent, with one stop in ten miles and one station in fifty miles, and the correspondence of postal kiosks or post stations should be registered and recorded, called "postal books". The messengers or postmen on the mail route wear uniform attire, wearing red turbans, red sleeves on their arms, carrying red and white sacs, or galloping on horseback, or striding meteors. Some historical records record that the speed of postal communication at that time was relatively fast, and the horse transmission could be three or four hundred miles a day, the car transmission could be about 70 miles, and the walking day was about fifty miles.
During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the status of postmen was relatively low, and those who served in various stations were generally called yiding, postmen or postmen or postmen. Their daily tasks are also very heavy, in addition to running and passing on documents on the way to the wind, rain and snow, they also have to manage things such as sweeping the stagecoach, and they also have to accept the most primitive and severe punishment system for mistakes in their work.
During the Prosperous Tang Dynasty, the society was more prosperous, its communication system was also more developed, and the Tang Dynasty's post stations spread throughout the country. According to the "Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty", its stations include three kinds of stations, including water stations, land stations and water and land operations, and there are more than 20,000 people specializing in post services nationwide, including 17,000 stagecoaches, which is a very large "postal" team. In the Tang Dynasty law, the penalties for various mistakes in the postal process were very detailed, and violators were severely punished. The Tang Law also stipulates that those who delay the dispatch of the journey on the way but do not dispatch the staff one hundred, the document is late to one day, the staff is eighty, two days doubled, and so on, the heaviest punishment is two years, the loss or mis-surrender of the document is also a very heavy punishment, if the delay is an emergency military document, the crime is increased by three, and the delay in the letter and the failure of the war is sentenced to hanging.
In the Song Dynasty, the central organ of postal affairs was managed by the Military Department, and the postal personnel were also changed from civilians to soldiers, called "paving soldiers", similar to the current signal soldiers.
The Yuan Dynasty was also called the paving army, and stipulated that all documents that were important state affairs should be transmitted by the special envoys and horses; while the documents for daily trifles were passed on by the paving troops. The soldiers were equipped with a pair of splints and bells, a gun, a brigade bag and a coat, and delivered mail rain or shine. The famous Italian traveler Marco Polo has a very vivid description of the laying work in China at that time: "Every five kilometers between the various post stations there are small villages, where walking messengers live, who are wrapped around their belts and tie several small bells so that when they are still far away, when they hear the bell ringing, they know that the pawns are coming." Because they had only traveled about five kilometres, from one walking messenger station to another the bell announced their arrival, so that the messenger of the other station was prepared to take his parcel and set off as soon as he arrived at the station. Such a station was passed down one after another, and the efficiency was extremely fast, and it only took two days and two nights for His Majesty the Emperor to receive it."
Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, on the 22nd day of his reign as emperor, he ordered the rectification and restoration of the country's post stations, he found that most of the names of the post stations left by the Yuan Dynasty were Mongolian, such as the postal station communication called "Station Chi", which is a transliteration of the Mongolian "Yi Chuan", he thought that this was a blasphemy against the Central Plains culture, so he ordered the rectification of the post station, and changed 230 "indecent post names" to Chinese names. The following year, he issued an edict changing the "stations" of the Yuan Dynasty to "yi". In the Ming Dynasty, there was generally a station in 60 or 80 miles, and a pavilion was set up in the middle between the station and the station, and it was stipulated that "the usual things are delivered, and the heavy things are given to the station", that is, the usual documents are handed over to the walking shop, and the important and urgent documents are handed over to the horse station to handle, so the step class postman is the most arduous. In order to make the walking transmission benefit faster, the Ming Dynasty generally placed "express delivery shops" throughout the country, each shop is more than 10 miles apart, taking the relay method, day and night non-stop transmission, therefore, although it is a walking delivery, but in terms of the whole process of transmission, the speed is no less than that of horse delivery.
Entering the Qing Dynasty, the Scale of the Qing Dynasty "Postal Service" was unprecedentedly large, with a postal army composed of more than 40,000 soldiers spread throughout the country, and according to records, the time limit for communication in the Qing Dynasty also reached the fastest speed in history. In the past, ma delivery ran up to four or five hundred miles a day and night, and during the Qing Dynasty, ma delivered official documents, and the fastest could reach about eight hundred miles a day and night. During the Kangxi Dynasty, the rebellion of Wu Sangui was quelled, and military intelligence was sent from the southwest to the Beijing Division, a distance of more than 5,000 miles, and it only took nine days for fast horse communications to arrive. At the same time, Shi Lang recovered Taiwan, and the journey from Fujian to Jingshi was more than 4,800 miles, and the news could be delivered within nine days. In the Qing Dynasty, a new "county delivery" was established, which corresponded to the modern regional mail route in inter-county communication.
The Qing Postal Service also has a very strict management system for postal staff and postmen, in which illegal acts such as unauthorized employment of substitutes, disobedience to orders, delay of mail, unauthorized disclosure of stamps, theft of pouches, mistaken delivery of parcels, theft of parcels, unauthorized demolition and theft of letter drafts will be severely punished.
During the Republic of China period, especially before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the China Postal Service was relatively stable and developed rapidly, so the income of the staff and workers of the postal system was relatively stable, and there are data showing that around 1920 in the early Republic of China, the average monthly wage of factory workers in a city was 9 yuan, equivalent to about 0.3 yuan per day, but the monthly wage of traffic and postal workers was more than 12 yuan, and the average daily wage reached more than 0.4 yuan. In the late Republic of China, it was not so lucky, because the factors of the war seriously affected the normal work and life of postal workers, and it is recorded in the post and telecommunications records of the city where the author is located, and several postmen with names and surnames died under the guns of the Japanese During the War of Resistance. During this period, prices in various parts of the country were also extremely unstable, and the phenomenon of arrears of wages to postmen occurred from time to time, so there were frequent strike petitions by postal workers and postmen.
Figure 2 shows the "Mountain Postal Transport" stamp "Mountain Postal Transport" issued by China Post on December 16, 1947, "50th Anniversary of the Establishment of the General Post Office", which shows a postman carrying a mail bag on his back and trekking through the mountains.
After the founding of New China, the living and working conditions of postal workers have been greatly improved as never before, and postmen have been respected by the state and the people, and there are historical records that in the early days of the liberation of Zhuzhou City, where the author is located, the state was the first to allocate bicycles to postal workers, which was better than the staff of government agencies. Although the post-liberation postal workers have stable incomes and stable jobs, after all, as postal work is still a relatively hard industry, they have to go in the wind and rain since ancient times, so the tired things have always been borne by male compatriots. In 1951, the Beijing Postal Administration passed two examinations and recruited 14 female postmen, ending the history of no female postmen since the establishment of modern China's postal service, and these 14 female postmen were revered as "the first generation of female postmen in New China".
Figure 3 shows the female postman in Special 75 "Women in the Service Industry". In Zhuzhou City, where the author is located, it was not until the 1970s that the emergence of a female postman filled the historical gap of no female postman since the city had a postal service, and also created a precedent for women to participate in postal delivery work in Zhuzhou City. Her name is You Shuya, a classmate of the author, recruited to work in the post and telecommunications system in 1971, and later took the initiative to apply to change her profession to become a postman, for which she was awarded the "Advanced Producer of the Provincial Post and Telecommunications Department" by the Provincial Post and Telecommunications Administration in 1977, setting an example for female employees in the postal system. Why should the government write a big deal about them? Just because postal work is a very hard profession. Nowadays, in many cities in China, it is very common for female postmen to walk through the streets and alleys, and they have become a beautiful scenery that embellishes the city.
With the continuous improvement and transformation of road facilities in various places by the state, attaching importance to the labor insurance benefits and treatment of postal workers, and the reasonable arrangement of postal leaders at all levels for the work and rest time of postal workers, the people's postmen in the new era will work harder to devote themselves to building the army of the country.