At the end of the sixth year of Wanli, the first "Light News" spread from Nanjing to Nanjing. It was the message from the Jinyiwei Jiangnan Bureau that "my emperor is wise and mighty, and has a long life without borders." Zhu Yijun laughed loudly at the memorial and recorded merits and rewards for those involved in the "Guangbao" route planning and construction management.
The connection of the optical newspaper route has compressed the speed of information transmission between the two capitals from the fastest five days and nights required by "urgent delivery" to six hours.
As a modern person with certain historical knowledge and political literacy, Zhu Yijun knew that the stability of imperial rule directly depended on the speed and density of information transmission.
As the saying goes, "post roads are the thread of a country and cannot be blocked." After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, emperors of all dynasties attached great importance to the construction and information transmission of post roads. By the middle of the Jiajing period, there were a total of 1,259 water stations and horse stations in the country; by the fifth year of Wanli, the number had increased to 1,762.
These stations are managed at three levels. The largest one is the hub station, also known as the "key point", which is equipped with 80 horses or 20 fast boats; the second is the main station, also known as the "main road", which is equipped with 60 or 40 horses or 15 or 10 fast boats. boats; the last one is the off-road station, with about five speed boats and three to ten horses depending on the degree of remoteness.
These more than 1,700 post stations formed the branches of the empire's information transmission, the nerves that conveyed the emperor's will, and the blood vessels of the court's policies; they also shouldered the important function of connecting trade routes.
For Zhu Yijun, the efficiency of these nerves and blood vessels is still too low: for example, the imperial newspaper was sent to the Sichuan Dusi. The whole journey was 5185 miles and 86 stations. According to the provisions of the "Ming Huidian", it took 172 days, a difference of ten days and half a year. .
Secondly, this post road can reach at most thoroughfares or military fortresses. For places outside the county town, the blood vessels of the empire have not yet grown there. In Zhu Yijun's view, this is precisely the fundamental reason for the low mobilization ability of the feudal country - "imperial power does not go to the countryside", which will of course lead to the inability of the people's hearts and people's power to be concentrated under the will of the central government.
Therefore, starting from the seventh year of Wanli, with the gradual deepening of the compilation of yellow books and household allowances, the reform of post office administration was also put on the agenda. The "Post Office Department", which had been established for a year and a half, finally received its first allocation of 500,000 taels of silver and spread its network across the country.
If we want to turn the reform of Yi Zheng into sustainable good governance, we must first solve the funding sources that support the network. Just like before, relying on local financial subsidies and central allocations is completely insufficient to support it. Therefore, the reform of the Post Office Department is divided into three steps:
The first step is to bring the national post stations under the unified management of the Central Post Office Administration Department; establish the Daming Post Trading Company - 100% controlled by the Post Office Administration Department.
In the second step, the soldiers who were reformed and abolished from the garrison were uniformly issued with green "Da Ming Post Office" uniforms and turned into local post postmen. There are two types: part-time and full-time, part-time if you have land, and full-time if you don’t have land.
The third step is to print stamps, promulgate the "Measures for the Administration of Post Offices", and carry out communication, consignment, remittance and other services across the country.
At this time, in the rural areas of Ming Dynasty, the above-mentioned needs are very small, but it does not mean that there is none. Between towns, the demand is staggering.
Compared with competitors such as private escort agencies and entrusted merchants to deliver goods on their behalf, the biggest advantage of Daming Yizheng is that it is "quick, stable and guaranteed".
The power of large state-owned enterprises has finally emerged in this time and space. First of all, the speed is fast, and at the slowest, it is the same speed as the imperial court. If the parties are in a hurry, they can also add money, and Yizheng Trading Co., Ltd. provides expedited services.
The second is stability. According to the slowest one-stop speed of two days, the sender can judge the approximate time when his letter or goods will reach the recipient. In this way, many things can be handled through letters without having to travel thousands of miles. Meet;
Finally, there is the guarantee. As the first prominent state-owned enterprise in this time and space, Yizheng Trading Co., Ltd. guarantees the price of the items sent - if the letter is lost, the postage will be refunded twice as much; if the item is lost, the price will be compensated.
Finally, the backbone network of Guangbao, which was built before the end of the sixth year of Wanli, is also open to the public. If the person involved is in an emergency, such as informing a court official that his old father is critically ill, he can ask the Guangbao Bureau affiliated to Yizheng Trading Company to send you a Guangbao for the price of ten taels of silver per word - this thing is based on the time and space of the Ming Dynasty. People's evaluation is: "as fast as lightning".
For the big merchants on both sides of the canal, the service of Guangbao was irresistible. Even though ten taels of silver are worth a word, there is often a queue at the entrance of the Guangbo Bureau after dark. At the beginning, these guys had no experience, and the most they could simplify was this: "Sold out of ginseng, 500 kilograms will be shipped quickly." Later, after gaining experience, it became "500 when the ginseng is exhausted", and I was able to save fifty taels in one fell swoop.
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Lu Guofengyicheng served as the top political leader of Pengchengyi during the seven-year restructuring process of Wanli. His identity is dual-he belongs to the Post Office Department and is the general manager of the Pengcheng branch.
The officials and people of Pengcheng Mansion finally looked at Sir Hulu with admiration. Although he had a knighthood before, as the head of the inn where people were sent off, his political status was still very low, and he was often criticized. For example, if an official with a post ticket came to pick and choose, it would be enough for him to drink a pot.
However, there is no such thing as a post ticket nowadays. The imperial court stipulates that when officials travel, they will be directly subsidized according to the distance traveled and the ten days spent. After Tianxia Station was taken over by the trading company, all the original reception work was chargeable.
In other words, any official staying in a post hotel - now renamed as a post hotel - will be treated the same as a traveler. You are lucky if you can get a luxury package. If you can't get a luxury package and are still unwilling to live in a standard room, please stay elsewhere. go. Of course, if you want to save the subsidy, you can go to a large car shop outside to squeeze in the Datong store regardless of your dignity. If you are injured by a thief, it will not be considered a work-related injury.
There are exceptions, that is, the benefits of retired Jingguan Chiyi have not been cancelled. According to the arrangement of the Post Office Department, the General Manager of the Post Office will live in a courtyard at the post station - if he encounters Chi Yi, the general manager will dump out the house and give it to Chi Yi's retired cadres. The rest of the time, you can use this house to make extra money as you wish. This is a benefit for the general manager.
For Sir Lu, his thousand acres of land is nothing, Pengcheng has much more land than him; his position is also nothing, he only looks after his own postmen and waiters; but the luxury set in his hand is amazing—— From the magistrate to the arrester, who doesn't have a few good friends?
Someone else's friend came and stayed at the Yi Zheng Hotel. My friend is here and staying at Tongfu Inn - this is obviously not clear. Sir Lu relied on this luxury package to make countless friends in Pengcheng, and everyone in the mountains and mountains wanted to give him some face. And what made him feel most comfortable was that his appointment and dismissal were under the control of the post administration department. Even if the prefect himself came, and he was determined not to give him face, the prefect still couldn't do anything to him.
In this way, in the spring of the seventh year of Wanli, Sir Lu Guofeng, who had taken root in Pengcheng and became the number one figure, finally got his wish - he married the little widow.
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