Chapter 4 Reform and Development of Post in the Song and Yuan

Post system in the Song Dynasty (960~1277 A.D) carried on that of the Tang, and made some major reform on that basis, which were: replacing civilians with soldiers and constructing urgent delivery. The territory was wide and broad in the Yuan Dynasty (1271~1368 A.D). To meet the requirements of politics, military activities and exchange with foreign countries, it attached importance to post construction. Post system was large in scale, and scattered all over the country. It could extend in all directions and connected to many countries with frequent exchange with foreign countries.

Section 1 Organization and Management of Post in the Song Dynasty

To prevent the occurrence of separatist regimes, Song Dynasty enforced the centralized domination. The ruler took back all rights on administration, military and finance from local officials to be wielded by the Emperor. In local areas, appointing civil servants as administrative officials, decreasing the power of local rulers. In one way, the Song confronted with Liao, Jin and Xi Xia regime for long time. In the other way, there were frequent peasant uprisings inside its regime. Therefore, military communication became most important. Great reform was made toward post system, with strong military style.

In the Song Dynasty, post was managed by Military Department, which supervised the administration of post. All expenses were drawn from military expenditure with soldiers as couriers. It managed the provision of horses, issue of tallys, drawing-up of regulations and supervision of document delivery. Post in the Song Dynasty was greatly reformed to meet the requirements of military communication.

Firstly, urgent delivery system was established, which was quite different from post system. The original post undertook the duties of communication as well as transportation and reception, while urgent delivery was pure communication organization. It was also called "urgent walking delivery" which d4veloped on the basis of walking delivery and horse delivery, but was independent of them. The setup of urgent delivery was one post for per skin, with one post-officer for each post. Above the officer was higher rank official, one was set up for each 20 persons. Furthermore, there were pavilions for horse-resting per 10 km. There were about 6,000 posts all over the country in the Northern Song Period, 3,500 post in the Southern Song Period. Thus the scale of deliver post was enormous. The urgent delivery could deliver document by 200 km per day on foot or 250 km per day by riding. Post soldiers were changed post by post, running rapidly, with bell hanging around waist. On healing the bell, pedestrians would keep away from the road, the next postman would wait for taking over. Oil arriving, urgent document would be sent directly to the Military Department According to the urgent level of delivered document, post soldiers would take tallys of different colors' red for walking, cyan for riding, gold for the most urgent. Urgent delivery with gold tally was developed from the basis of urgent delivery' Golden tally was a kind of wooden tally, about one Chi long, with gold characters on red paint. The delivered document was sent directly from the Emperor, without going through the Military Department. It was delivered by relay. No handing over Procedure was needed on order to decrease the time spent.

Secondly, the Song Dynasty established the system replacing civilians with soldiers as couriers, who were selected from local militaries and were called post soldiers. Before the Song, post was undertaken by civilians.

Thirdly, before the Song Dynasty, only documents could be delivered through post, no private letters were delivered, even private letters of officials. In the Wei-Jin period, it was regulated that private letters of condolence and greeting could be delivered. In the year of 618 A.D, Emperor Gaozu the Tang issued a special edict to abolish the instruction of prohibition of private letter delivery between officials. There were regulations about the delivery of private letters of officials. Letters to family members after sealed could be delivered along with documents while letters to common relatives can be attached to the home letters. Private letters could only be delivered by walking, they were prohibited to be sent by urgent delivery. All these were only for the officials, civilian couldn't use the post.

Post system in the Song Dynasty was perfect, even more perfect than that of the Tang Dynasty. It was recorded in "Jiayou Post Laws" that document .to be delivered by urgent delivery should be sealed with only number and delivery time but no name on it, sealed with wax after stamped. Then it would be delivered by relay, with seal checked in delivery. Time would be noted on the document and be checked when it arrived. If delayed, there would be punishment. There were special regulations if urgent delivery was hindered by vicious weather. For example, if waterways were blocked, the situation and leaving time should be noted, and signed by supervisory officials and be checked after arriving. All these measures ensured the time and safety of delivery.

The method "administrating post by laws" adopted to manage post system in the Song Dynasty, ensured official and military communication to some extent. However, due to the frequent war in the Southern Song Period, the management of post was thrown into confusion, urgent document accumulated enormously. Meanwhile, urgent delivery was not fast, post was blocked. The urgent document sent from capital to Sichuan, Guangdong and Guangxi even arrived several months later. The decrees of post couldn't be carried out.