What changes have taken place in the way people communicate in China since ancient times?

Human beings have had communication since they had language and writing, and the history of communication is as long as human beings.

It can be roughly divided into two periods-ancient and modern, marked by the appearance of electricity respectively.

Ancient communication was relatively simple. Due to the long history, it is difficult to verify the exact year, and only a general development process can be given.

1. Through language, A must meet B to express his purpose.

2. The appearance of characters has brought a by-product-letters.

The king of Babylon carved words with clay and clay balls, wrapped them in wet soil and dried them (the earliest envelopes), which were given to local governors by special envoys.

Qin Shihuang of China also read hundreds of kilograms of bamboo slips every day.

3. With the advent of the metal age, frequent military activities have brought about the emergence of encryption technology.

Persians used tapes to write military ciphertext on wooden sticks, and readers found wooden sticks with the same thickness to wrap around the tapes to read.

Caesar cipher has become a classic of cryptography.

The communication industry is becoming more and more specialized, and there are special people to send messages.

There were more than 700 full-time messenger slaves in ancient Rome, and a clever slave was often responsible for delivering more than 100 messages.

5. The use of signals greatly improves the communication speed.

Both China and India use wolf smoke as a warning.

6. With the expansion of national scale and the gradual refinement of national functions, communication has gradually become an important national cause.

China, Persia and Rome have all built large-scale post roads, and there are post stations at regular intervals.

It promotes business development.

7. In the process of understanding nature, human beings gradually accumulated more knowledge and began to use various types of carriers-until today, Normans in France are still using the tide to send letters to Britain.

Carrier pigeon technology is also booming.

8. The appearance of the fleet and the frequent appearance of semaphores.

In China's ancient poems, fish was regarded as the messenger of words, and the words were represented by "fish essence", "fish book", "carp" and "double carp".

In the Tang Dynasty, Li Shangyin wrote in the poem "A Letter to Secretary Hu Ling": "Song and Shu are separated from each other for a long time, and the two carp are far apart." In ancient times, people often wrote letters with silk, but in the Tang Dynasty, writing letters in the world woven with silk became more popular. Because people in the Tang Dynasty often used a foot-long silk to write letters, letters were also called "rulers" ("plain" means white raw silk).

Because people often combine large and small elements into the shape of a pair of carp when carrying letters, there is what Li Shangyin said: "Two carp are far from a piece of paper".

Obviously, the "double carp" here is not really two carp, but just a size element that constitutes the shape of the double carp.

The relationship between letters and "fish" actually existed long before the Tang Dynasty.

During the Qin and Han Dynasties, there was a collection of Yuefu poems called Drinking Horses in the Great Wall Cave, which mainly recorded that Qin Shihuang built the Great Wall and forced a large number of men to serve, which led to the separation of his wife and most of them missed their husbands. One of them wrote in five words: "The guests from afar left me a pair of carp; Tell the boy to open the wooden box and write a letter with a ruler.

Kneeling for a long time to read a plain book, what is it like in the book? Say Sauvignon Blanc, and then add rice. "The" double carp "in this poem is actually not two carp, but a woodcut carp made of two boards.

Before Cai Lun invented papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was no present envelope. Bamboo slips, wooden slips or large and small elements with letters are sandwiched between two boards, and these two boards are carved into the shape of carp, which becomes the "double carp" in the poem.

Put two carp-shaped wooden boards together, tie them with ropes in three wire grooves on the wooden boards for three times, pass through a square hole, seal the knotted place with extremely fine clay, and then seal the clay, which can prevent the letter from being opened privately in the delivery process.

As for the word "cooking" used in poetry, it is not really "cooking", but a humorous word.

posthouse

In ancient China, in order to effectively rule the vast territory under its rule, the feudal dynasty strengthened its ties with various places, making documents, decrees, official letters, military news and other documents quickly transmitted. On the road of construction, a post station will be set up every other road, and special personnel will be assigned to take charge of raising horses and delivering documents.

On the way to deliver the documents, the courier changed horses at each post station, which greatly accelerated the delivery speed.

For urgent documents, they are delivered at a speed of hundreds of kilometers every day, which is called "expedited".

There is a saying that "500 Li is urgent" and "800 Li is urgent".

Therefore, in ancient times, the post station was a place where people who sent * * * documents changed horses or rested and stayed.

Now we can still find traces of post stations from place names, such as "Longquanyi" in Sichuan and "Zheng Jiayi" in Hunan.

The photo in the textbook is Mengcheng Post Station, an ancient post station in Gaoyou City, Jiangsu Province.

cry out

The most primitive way of human communication.

When hunting, Australopithecus chased away its prey by shouting and told its companions the direction in which the prey fled.

In case of danger, call the police to other partners by shouting.

Drum command

As early as 3000 years ago, human ancestors used drums to transmit information.

The ancestors of the Chinese nation made gold drums with a diameter of 2-8 meters from copper and put them on a special drum stand with a certain height. Once the enemy invades them, drummers beat different drums for communication and defense.

Carrier pigeon delivers letters

Carrier pigeons, known as "angels in the air", have extraordinary homing ability, so people often use them to convey news and intelligence.

For example, in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 ~ 187 1, Paris was besieged by Prussian troops, and it was homing pigeons who sent news to the reinforcements, which relieved the danger of Paris.

Up to now, the French still have a soft spot for pigeons, so France is called "the kingdom of pigeons".

The story of marathon

Marathon originated from the most primitive form of military communication-running.

In 490 BC, the Persian Empire invaded Greece. In Marathon Town, the front line of the capital Athens, the Greek soldiers and civilians fought the invaders to the death and saved Athens.

In order to send the news of victory back to China quickly, the messenger Ferdinand Bodes ran from marathon to Athens with an injured body.

When he ran 42 kilometers at a time, he shouted, "We won!" " Then, he collapsed in Athens Square.

To commemorate this event, people set up a marathon at the Olympic Games.

In ancient China, people used communication to communicate with each other very early.

According to the ancient cultural relics recorded and excavated in ancient books, our ancestors were able to communicate with each other before they invented writing and used transportation.

At that time, people probably communicated with things.

In Yunnan Province, China, some ethnic tribes were still in the primitive commune stage before liberation.

They have no words and no means of transportation, but they have primitive ways of communication: for example, in some tribes of Jingpo nationality, people send peppers to their friends to show that they have encountered great difficulties; The young Zawa people gave their girlfriend a leaf named "Delong" and invited her to date. Among the Wa people, sending gunpowder or lead bullets means going to war. If you send a piece of crystallized square salt and drill a small hole in the middle, it means that the problem is solved.

From these examples, we can easily imagine how ancient people communicated through body language.

The communication method marked by objects is a very primitive method.

Later, people's contacts became more and more extensive, and organized communication methods began to appear.

According to ancient records, in the Wang You period of Zhou Dynasty more than 2,700 years ago, there was a method of transmitting information by bonfire.

It is said that in the frontier and on the way to the frontier, a beacon tower is built at intervals, one after another.

The beacon tower is full of firewood, and when the enemy invades, it will sound the alarm one by one.

When all the princes saw the bonfire, they would send troops to help and fight the enemy.

According to legend, there is a story.

Zhou Youwang has a favorite concubine. She praises her beauty, but she never likes to laugh.

One day, in order to make her laugh, Zhou Youwang lit a bonfire for no reason.

When the governors from all walks of life saw the alarm, they all led the troops to arrive.

The result is naturally a trip in vain. I was cheated and nothing happened.

In this way, it really made the compliment laugh.

But later, when enemy soldiers invaded, all the princes saw the bonfire and didn't believe it, so no one sent troops to save it.

Zhou Youwang couldn't resist the enemy's attack because he couldn't get help from various governors. Not only was he killed, but the Western Zhou Dynasty also perished.

This story shows that organized communication has appeared in China for a long time.

China has used this bonfire alarm to transmit military information for a long time.

From the later unearthed Bamboo Slips of Han Dynasty, it can be known that in the Han Dynasty, beacon towers were set up on a large scale from four counties in Hexi (now Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan and Dunhuang in Gansu) to Yanze (now Lop Nur in eastern Xinjiang), and they were called "five miles and one whistle, ten miles and one pier, three miles and one castle, and one hundred miles and one city village".

These beacon towers are under the jurisdiction of local officials.

Under the local chief, there are also officials in charge of beacon towers at all levels, such as Dewey, Ghost Guard, Hou Guan, Hou Chang and Xiang Chang. Each station is also equipped with several grades according to the distance.

There are different ways to raise and release bonfires day and night. Smoke rises during the day and fires at night.

In addition, various secret codes are used to indicate the number of attacks on the enemy, such as setting off two bonfires when the enemy is less than 500, and so on.

This kind of organized communication has played a certain role in defending the frontier and resisting the enemy.

This way of communication was still used in many places until the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

For example, Yantai City, Shandong Province was named after the establishment of Wolf Yantai there to prevent the invasion of Japanese pirates in the Ming Dynasty.

The speed of transmitting military information through beacons is very fast, but it is impossible to convey detailed enemy information from the border, let alone the above orders.

Therefore, with the development of society and the needs of politics and military affairs, a relatively strict postal post system has been formed to deliver government documents and cooperate with the bonfire.

During the Zhou Dynasty, the vassal states became their own countries.

Due to political and military needs, they often set up post horses and mail cars on the avenue to deliver government documents back and forth.

Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Period once said: "The popularity of virtue is faster than the delivery of mail."

In other words, the moral theory he advocated will spread faster than mailing orders.

It can be seen that the postal communication at that time was not only quite complete, but also quite fast.

There is a story in the ancient book Zuo Zhuan: Qin (now Shaanxi) and Jin (now south Shanxi) conspired to attack Zheng (now Zhengzhou, Henan).

Zheng is a small country, threatened by two big countries and in a critical situation. In order to repel the enemy's invasion, Zheng sent messengers to the Qin military camp to suggest: "There is a state between Qin and Zheng, and destroying Zheng is only beneficial to gold, not to Qin.

It is better to form an alliance with Qin. In the future, the emissary of Qin will come from the east, and Zheng can also be the master of Qin. Hearing this, Qin thought it was reasonable, so he called a truce and made peace, and sent Qi, Qi and Qi to Zheng.

In order to show reconciliation, Zheng gave the key to the north gate of Zheng Capital to three messengers for management.

But people who knew Qi Zi told Qin Mibao that they had mastered the north gate of Zheng State, so please send troops to attack Zheng State.

However, when the State of Qin sent troops to Slipzhou (east of Luoyang, Henan Province), they were discovered by Gao Xian, a businessman of the State of Zheng.

Feeling that the motherland was in danger, he pretended to be Zheng's special envoy and rewarded Chi with twelve cows sold, suggesting that Zheng had already got the news and was ready. At the same time, he quickly informed the whole country at night with the post office leading to Zheng.

When Zheng got the news, he immediately raised his vigilance.

Later, I found that Zheng was ready to fight, so I had to stop moving forward and destroy the slippery country by the way.

It can be seen that the postal system at that time was of great significance.

With the development of politics, economy and culture, postal communication is becoming more and more complete.

After Qin Shihuang unified China, Chidao was built all over the country, which promoted the development of postal communication.

In the Tang Dynasty, this system became more prosperous.

In the Tang Dynasty, there were three types of postal services: land postal service, waterway postal service and land postal service. There are more than 1600 posts, including more than 260 water posts and more than 80 land posts.

The itinerary of the post office is also clearly defined. For example, the post office stipulates that horses walk 70 miles, donkeys walk 50 miles and cars walk 30 miles every day.

There are also certain restrictions on the number of horses and chariots used by officials at all levels.

Those who don't follow the rules will be punished.

In an emergency, the post horse can run more than 300 miles a day.

In the poem "Judge Yuwen on the First Way to Longshan", the poet Cen Can described the speed of the post station in this way: "As soon as a post passes, the post station rides like a star stream; Pingming sent Xianyang and Lushan. " In 755 AD (Tianbao 14th year of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty), An Lushan fought against the Tang Dynasty in Fanyang (now Beijing). At that time, Tang Xuanzong was in Huaqing Palace (now Lintong County, Shaanxi Province), thousands of miles away from Fanyang, but he got the news soon.

It can be seen that the organization and speed of postal communication in Tang Dynasty reached a high level.

During the Yuan Dynasty, due to the expansion of military activities, the communication industry further developed.

At that time, there were 1496 post stations in China alone.

The Yuan Dynasty transliterated the post office as "Station Red", so it was later called the post office.

Kyle Polo, an Italian who was an official in the Yuan Dynasty, mentioned in Travel Notes of Marco Polo that there was a post station every twenty-five miles in the Yuan Dynasty.

Each post station has a magnificent house, beds and bedding are made of satin, and all the accommodation needs are available for imperial ministers to rest.

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He said that even if the king came to live, he must feel very comfortable.

He also said that there are more than 10,000 stations of this size and 300,000 post horses.

Kyle Poirot's description may be exaggerated, but the scale of the post station in Yuan Dynasty can be imagined.

In addition, the Yuan Dynasty also followed the method of the Song Dynasty and set up "express shops" in various counties.

This kind of courier shop specializes in delivering urgent government documents, which is a bit like the current military mail. It is estimated that there are about 20,000 places in the country.

Each store has several stores that deliver documents day and night.

These shops have bells hanging from their waists, guns in their hands and torches at night.

When they reached the narrow road, they rang the bell hard to tell pedestrians and horses to make way.

At the end of the next express shop, it also rings far away. When the lower berth smells * * *, it is ready to collect the documents and move on.

In this way, one shop after another kept passing by, and it was stipulated to walk 400 miles day and night.

The post offices in Ming Dynasty basically followed the old system.

After the mid-Qing Dynasty, modern postal service gradually developed, replacing the ancient postal system.

Postal communication for more than two thousand years has played a certain role in border defense and economic and cultural exchanges, but it is a heavy burden for the broad masses of the people.

For example, in order to let his favorite concubine, Yang Guifei, eat fresh litchi, Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty set up a post office for her from Chang 'an (now Xi 'an) to Fuling, Sichuan, flying around the clock to deliver fresh litchi.

Du Mu, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote: "When the world of mortals rode the princess, no one knew it was litchi." These two famous poems are a satire on this matter.

Another example is that during the reign of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, the governor of Guizhou wrote to the emperor to tell about the sufferings of Guizhou Post Station.

He said that the most bitter and tiring thing in the world is the post station, and the most dangerous and farthest thing is Guizhou.

If a husband lifts a station, his shoulders will be broken; if a horse walks a station, his feet will be lame and his spine will rot.

Even the Miao people are forced to be unable to farm or weave, and they are dying day by day, fleeing and being displaced.

In fact, this phenomenon is common in postal communication of various dynasties in history. These are just two typical examples.

The post station is the communication agency of the government and can only deliver official documents. In addition to the Song Dynasty, high-ranking officials were allowed to attach letters to their families, and private letters were generally not allowed.

In this case, in case of emergency, private individuals need to communicate, and landlords and wealthy businessmen can also send servants or hire porters to deliver books from a distance; Ordinary people only have to entrust someone to convey it, which is not only slow but also urgent, and it is often delayed or lost.

There are many stories about "the legend of flying geese" in China ancient books. It is conceivable how difficult it was for ancient people to communicate.

Later, due to the development of production and the needs of life, people communicated frequently. People who go out to work in business, soldiers who were forced to fight in wartime, and people who fled their hometown all need to communicate with relatives and friends in their hometown.

In particular, businessmen from all over the world need to communicate more urgently in order to exchange business information, negotiate trade and send bills.

Therefore, the business of non-governmental mail delivery should rise at the right time.

Around the Tang Dynasty, between Chang 'an and Luoyang, there were "post donkeys" mainly serving private businessmen.

At that time, there was another method called "flying money", that is, businessmen from all over the world deposited the money from selling goods in Chang 'an in the institutions of Chang 'an local government, and then took all the money from the local government with receipts.

This is actually the bud of exchange business.

At that time, a hand-written or woodcut newspaper called "Dibao" was published, which spread to all places through the post, just like the newspapers published now.

In the Ming dynasty, there was a people's information bureau that delivered letters for the people.

Some people's information bureaus in southwest provinces are called "Ma Xiangyue". According to legend, the origin is this: the farmers who moved to Xiaogan Township, Macheng County, Hubei Province, because they missed their hometown, made an appointment to push their fellow villagers back to their hometown several times a year, bringing native products and letters back and forth, and later formed a professional people's information bureau.

The People's Information Bureau began to appear in coastal cities with convenient trade along the Yangtze River, and then gradually developed to the mainland until the northeast and northwest provinces.

The period of Daoguang, Xianfeng and Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty (A.D. 182 1 to 1874) was the most prosperous period for the development of the People's Information Bureau. At that time, there were thousands of large and small news bureaus in China.

Since the Qing Dynasty signed a five-port trade treaty with Britain, Shanghai's commerce and traffic have developed abnormally, and various public affairs bureaus have expanded their organizations one after another, setting up a general number in Shanghai and setting up semicolons, joint numbers or agency shops in various commercial ports.

Small-scale people's information bureaus will operate together.

In this way, China's commercial ports and Dashi with convenient transportation have become sparse non-governmental communication networks.

People's Information Bureau is a commercial organization, funded by the owners (commonly known as bosses) and operated by employees.

Because its main purpose is to make profits, all human affairs bureaus are competing to set up institutions and build roads in profitable places, and no one pays attention to unprofitable remote areas.

The customers of the People's Information Bureau are mainly businessmen.

In order to attract business, people's credit bureaus also give their customers various conveniences.

For example, at night, after the shops are closed, people are sent to various shops to receive mail and remit money.

Long-term customers can also pay the total amount of credit and even get discounts.

Many poor people in coastal areas of Guangdong, Fujian and other provinces have gone abroad to make a living since they were very young.

Others were tricked into working hard in foreign countries by imperialist robbers.

At first, these overseas Chinese living abroad were not convenient to communicate with their families or send back some sporadic money they earned through hard work.

Later, some people's news bureaus in Guangdong and Fujian developed their business overseas and organized the Overseas Chinese Approval Bureau to handle the communication and exchange business of overseas Chinese.

Because Fujian dialect calls "letter" as "batch" and the letter attached to overseas Chinese remittance as "overseas Chinese batch", the agency that delivers overseas Chinese letters and remittances is called "overseas Chinese batch bureau".

In addition to opening in towns with many overseas Chinese in China, the Overseas Chinese Approval Bureau also set up semicolons abroad.

According to the statistics of 1930, there are 180 overseas Chinese examination and approval bureaus registered nationwide, belonging to more than 700 semicolons at home and abroad.

By 1948, on the eve of national liberation, the number of overseas Chinese approval bureaus at home and abroad had reached more than 100 and semicolon 1000.

They have played an active role in facilitating overseas Chinese to send letters and remittances and contact with the motherland, and have been welcomed by overseas Chinese; It also made huge profits.

Since the invasion of China by foreign capitalism, the feudal ruling class has not tried to reform China's official post office, private public affairs bureau and overseas Chinese examination and approval bureau, but one after another invaders have occupied China's postal rights.

Although the People's Information Bureau and the Overseas Chinese Approval Bureau were attacked and destroyed by the invading army, they have won the trust of the people for a long time and have not been stifled.

Later, the customs post was founded by an Englishman, Hurd, who came from the General Administration of Customs and Taxation of the Qing Dynasty. Taking advantage of his special rights as an official and a foreigner, he registered the People's Information Bureau, forced the People's Information Bureau to accept the leadership of the customs post, restricted the delivery of mail by ships, and raised the general contract fee for mail delivery of the People's Information Bureau, which was boycotted by a joint strike.

Hurd used another method to reduce the domestic surface mail tariff of customs post from four points to one point, and the local surface mail tariff from four points to half a point.

Through capitalist competition, the People's Information Bureau was completely defeated.

Even after the Revolution of 1911, the official postal service imitated the advantages of the People's Information Bureau and forced the official postal courier to implement the delivery system four to eight times, ten times and twelve times a day, even if it caused a big messenger.

It was not until 1935 that the People's Information Bureau was forced to close down under the high-pressure policy of * * * reactionary * * ordering the deadline to end.

Before papermaking was invented, the ancients used bamboo or sawdust as writing materials.

This kind of bamboo chip is called Jane, and the wood chip is called tying or beating, which is generally called Jane.

The ancient book "The Book of Songs" is called "Simplified Book" in the poems written by Wang in the late Yin Dynasty and early Zhou Dynasty.

Bamboo tubes in the Han Dynasty are called Han bamboo slips.

In the four counties of Hexi in Han Dynasty, the military commander guarding the important border was called Dewey; The military attache guarding the town is called the captain; The military attache in charge of enemy border reconnaissance is called the waiting officer; Managing a beacon pier, that is, a reconnaissance center, is called waiting; The reconnaissance whistle at the grass-roots level is called the captain.

A captain usually has three to thirty guards.

Since Franklin verified the essence of electricity, after the expansion of Faraday and others, the intervention of electricity has made a revolutionary breakthrough in communication.

1. 1792 French shep brothers invented the optical signal transmitter;

2. 1837 American Morse successfully filmed telegrams in Washington and Baltimore;

3. 1876 American Bell invented the telephone;

4. 1877 American Edison invented the phonograph;

5. 1887 Verification of electromagnetic waves by experiments at German Hertz;

6. 1889 Italian Marconi successfully filmed the broadcast between Britain and France;

7. 190 1 year successfully laid transatlantic cables;

8. 19 15 Long-distance radio communication between Paris and Washington was successful;

9. 1926 Beat, England completed the development of TV images at the Royal College;

10. 1946 The first electronic computer "ENIAC" came out of Moore School of Electronic Engineering, University of Pennsylvania.

1 1. 1947 Americans invented the transistor;

12. 1953 IBM develops "IBM 650" series computers;

13. 1956 American Ampex company invented the video recorder;

14. 1957 IBM developed the first generation of high-level language "fortran";

15. 1958 was an exciting year.

This year, Davos discovered the principle of laser.

In the same year, Bell Company successfully developed a computer communication device.

At the end of this year, researchers in Texas developed an integrated circuit (IC);

16. 1960 first generation minicomputer pdpi; Made in America;

17. 1962 American communication satellite successfully communicated with Europe;

18. 1969 the United States puts forward the blueprint of global communication network;

19. 1970 subminiature integrated chip produced by Intel;

20. 1975 American bill gates developed the "Basic" language;

2 1. 1977 PC "Apple II" made by Apple;

22. 1978 The United States proposed a plan to build a high-speed communication network;

23. 1979 The research team of the legendary American Xero Company, led by bob taylor, developed ——Arpa；; , the predecessor of Inter Milan;

24. 198 1 year, Microsoft Corporation of the United States developed "MS-DOS".

In the same year, IBM released IBM-PC；; ;

25. 1984 CD-ROM appeared, and its spread entered a mass era.

Apple launched a shopping computer;

26. 1988 with the development of communication, virtus has increased dramatically;

27. 199 1 year, Motorola of the United States cooperated with IBM and Apple to launch the Power-PC chip, which is the absolute monopoly chip in snjoK communication industry.

28. 1993 Intel corporation of the United States developed a non-Risc high-performance CPU；;

29. 1994 information superhighway was built in Florida, USA;

30. 1995 Microsoft developed "Windows95" to integrate network functions on PC;

There are many others that are very important or even critical, such as Netware introduced by Novel, TCP/IP protocol promoted by Cisco, and the emergence of communication protocols such as ATM, Gigabit, xDSL, X.25 and Framerelay.

The previous communication method was slow, the content was not comprehensive, easy to lose and uncertain! Modern communication means are fast, informative, timely and accurate, and can transmit sounds, images and words! In ancient times, horses were used to deliver letters, including post stations and homing pigeons, which were generally used in short distances. During the war, wolf dung was burned on the beacon tower in the city, and after the invention of gunpowder, signal flares common in TV dramas appeared.

Modern: texting, MMS, SMS, phone call, video chat, some things that are difficult to say in person, you can send messages on the phone anytime and anywhere, and some things that you can't say. Modern times are much faster than ancient times, which not only saves time, but also allows people to see the news immediately. There is a big difference. It used to take ten days to send it to a place, but now it takes no more than ten days at most.