Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

From ancient times to the present, communication has been an important means of social communication. With the development of science and communication technology, various instant communication channels such as mobile phone, SMS, Wechat, QQ and so on make our communication no longer limited by distance. However, in the ancient times when there were no mobile phones and the transportation was inconvenient, what if the ancients wanted to communicate with people thousands of miles away?

The editor has collected several ancient ways of communication. let's take a look at how fast people can transmit messages in ancient times when communication technology was underdeveloped.

Beacon fire "beacon fire" is an important means of military communication in China's ancient border defense, and the lighting of beacon fire indicates the emergence of national war. The reason why it is called "wolf smoke" is that in ancient times, the Central Plains had many rumors of border nomads related to wolves, in order to tell the rear army that "wolves are coming". During the Spring and Autumn and warring States period, vassal states built beacon towers in the border areas one after another to convey military information. After Qin unified the Central Plains, the Great Wall was covered with beacon towers until the Han Dynasty.

When there is an enemy situation, there are special personnel responsible for burning the fire to warn the police, quickly convey messages through the beacon flames between the peaks, and reflect the enemy's scale, whether it is infantry or cavalry, and other specific enemy situations through different warning signals. or tell the neighboring walled cities (sergeants) what kind of joint defense measures to take to form a mature enemy situation transmission system.

Beacon fire alarm, make sure to be quick! If there is an enemy in the frontier, how long will it take for the news to reach the capital?

After studying Han Jian, experts learned that the beacon fire information was about 99 miles at 1. The Han Dynasty implemented an one-day (one day and night) 18-hour system, that is, 1782 li a day. Since 1 Rio in the Han Dynasty was equivalent to 325 meters today, this speed is equivalent to 1158 miles in one day and one night today. Dunhuang is about 1725 kilometers or 3450 miles from Chang'an, so according to this calculation, it will only take three days and nights to release the beacon fire immediately from the discovery of the enemy to the capital Chang'an.

Flying pigeon biography, also known as "Hong Yan Chuanshu", refers to the letter tied to the feet of carrier pigeons and then passed to the person to be delivered. The ancient Egyptians began to use homing pigeons to deliver letters around 3000 BC. China is also an ancient country of raising pigeons, which has a long history. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, in Guangzhou and other places in the south of China, homing pigeons began to deliver letters.

The biography of flying pigeons makes use of homing pigeons' induction of the earth's magnetic field and "homing". Homing pigeons are sensitive to the earth's magnetic field, so they don't get lost. "tired birds homing" refers to homing pigeons' physiological habits, homing pigeons are particularly homesick, which is their inherent advantage. However, because homing pigeons often have only one home and can only be transmitted in fixed personnel and fixed locations, messengers need to bring homing pigeons before departure, and the place to send messages can only be where the starting point is. Therefore, homing pigeons can only deliver letters unilaterally, and after homing pigeons deliver letters, there is no way to fly back to the delivery office.

After training, the average speed of carrier pigeons can reach 48 kilometers per hour. But animals need food and rest, carrier pigeons can not relay during flight, a top pigeon can only fly at most eight hours a day, that is, more than 300 kilometers.

The post station is a place in ancient times for officials to transmit military information to eat, lodge and change horses. The "post pass" system was established in the Han Dynasty and became popular in the Yuan Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the general word "station" to "Yi" in the first year of Hongwu. The post station undertakes a variety of political, economic, cultural, military and other information transmission tasks, to a certain extent, is also a part of logistics information. The post stations are divided into land stations, water stations and the annexation of land and water. Each post station has post houses, post men, post horses, post donkeys, post ships and post fields.

In the Tang Dynasty, there were also explicit regulations on the itinerary of post stations: Lu Yi fast horses walked six times a day, that is, 180 miles a day, another 300 miles a day, and the fastest 500 miles a day; pedestrians traveled 50 miles a day; when sailing against the current, the river traveled 40 li, the river 50 li, and the other 60 li; 100 to 150 li was stipulated when the river was downstream.

"six hundred miles urgent" and "eight hundred miles urgent" during the Qing Dynasty:

"six hundred miles" is not the transmission distance, but the required transmission speed. Letters are delivered through post stations, every 20 miles, requiring messengers to travel six hundred miles a day to transmit emergency documents. On the way through the post station to change horses without changing people for 24 hours of uninterrupted transmission. However, considering the problem of transportation in ancient times, it is still a question whether the daily journey can reach 600 miles.

02, 800 miles urgent 800 miles urgent, usually when there is a major military situation to report, it will only be activated. Once the official document that needs to be delivered is marked with the word "immediate delivery", it must be delivered at a speed of 300 miles per day. In case of emergency, the transmission speed can reach 400 miles per day, 600 miles, and as fast as 800 miles. When delivering emergency documents, each post station uses fast horses, so that although it is not a Chollima, each horse can run as fast as possible, and the "eight hundred miles urgent" can be used to express the transmission of information in case of emergency. During the Qing Dynasty, one mile is 576 meters, that is to say, eight hundred miles is about 460 kilometers.

Summing up the above, we can find that whether it is beacon smoke, flying pigeons passing books, or 800 miles of urgent, each has its own "use of force."

In addition to beacon towers, flying pigeons and post stations, ancient means of communication include fish, kites, bamboo tubes, and so on. Ancient Chinese people constantly try to perfectly combine natural forces with natural media, all of which reflect their extraordinary wisdom.

Nowadays, with the development of science and technology, communication methods such as telephone, fax and Internet not only transmit fast, rich and diversified information, but also transmit a large amount of information. We no longer have to be hindered by space and geography. An Internet software can immediately contact our relatives and friends, and a new era of communication is coming.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ZTE documents (ID:ztedoc)

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