Yucheng Post Station - a living fossil of China's postal history, is a must visit destination when visiting Gaoyou. On May 5th, the weather was gloomy with occasional drizzle. In the afternoon, Guoxiang led a group of us and drove two cars, taking a big turn along the canal and Gaoyou Old Town. Yucheng Post is the key point, passing through other sites of the Grand Canal, Gaoyou Lake, Zhenguo Temple, Imperial Wharf, Nanmen Street, Beimen Wengcheng Site, Wenyoutai, and Hesheng Pawnshop one by one. Although the weather is not beautiful and the scenery cannot be seen, the rich canal culture atmosphere of Gaoyou and the early postal station have left us with a profound impression and wonderful imagination.
The Gaoyou Canal is a small section of the Beijing Hangzhou Grand Canal and an important component of the ancient Hangou and Li Canal. It starts from Ziyingzha at the border of Gaoyou and Baoying in the north, and ends at Shilipu at the border of Jiangdu and Gaoyou in the south, with a total length of 43.43 kilometers. Before the Ming Dynasty, the Gaoyou section of the Grand Canal was basically connected by rivers and lakes. Since the excavation of the Kangji River, the Grand Canal and Gaoyou Lake have been separated. In 1956, when the Grand Canal was widened, the bend was straightened and a new river was opened outside the east embankment of Liyun River, resulting in the abandonment of the original river channel.
In the 1980s, in order to ensure the safety of the transportation embankment, the old channel of the Li Canal was basically filled in. However, the shape, direction, and stone slope protection of the river are still clearly visible today, forming a unique landscape of "two rivers and three embankments" and parallel ancient and modern canals in use. The ancient canal route of Gaoyou during the Ming and Qing dynasties is the Gaoyou section of the ancient Hangou in history, which is the predecessor of the Gaoyouli Canal. It is located on the west side of the current canal, between Shijiangmen and Jieshou Silipu in Gaoyou Town, with a total length of 26.5 kilometers. Cold comes and summer goes, in spring, in summer, in autumn, in winter, the Gaoyou Canal, each leading the way
The Yucheng Post Station in the Huaiyang section of the Grand Canal is located in the historical and cultural district south of Gaoyou City. Walking into the old street, old objects such as the stamp of the post station, the willow shade Zen forest, the grain transport dock, and the Qin Post Pavilion occasionally pass by. In fact, they are just decorations and backgrounds of the Yucheng Post Station. Since the establishment of a sound postal system in the Qin and Han dynasties, a relatively complete postal network has been formed throughout the country, creating conditions for the construction of "high postal pavilions". With the change of dynasties, this place was successively renamed as Yinghua Post, Gaoyou Post, and Qin Post. During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Yucheng Post here, which has been in existence for over 650 years.
Yucheng Post Station is located in the Pipa Community on the east bank of the Grand Canal, with a building of over 3000 square meters. It is one of the 46 well preserved post stations between the northern and southern capitals of the Ming Dynasty. As the pioneer of postal services today, the museum displays a large number of cultural relics and historical materials related to postal culture since the Yin and Shang dynasties, providing important physical evidence for studying the development of ancient postal services. It can be regarded as a living fossil of Chinese postal history.
At first, I thought the post office was just a place for transmitting official documents, but I didn't expect that it could also be used for conveying military information, receiving guests, welcoming officials, presenting tribute, escorting prisoners, and accommodating business travelers. This place integrates office and living, similar to the current government guesthouse. Walking into the "Ancient Yucheng Post Station" inscribed by Zhu Xuefan, the first Minister of Posts and Telecommunications of New China, I found that there were many buildings inside the post station, connected to each other. In addition to the Protocol Pavilion and Gantang Pavilion, there were also gift rooms, warehouses, stables, archways, and Qin Post Mansion. The manager of the post office is the post office official, and the corresponding residence is called the post office official's residence. The post office was in charge of 18 ships, 130 horses, and over 200 horsemen, boatmen, porters, porters, and sedan chair bearers; Responsible for the guard of honor, carriage and horses, and welcoming and delivering guests to the post station. The postal envoys enjoy the treatment of civil servants, but they are engaged in tasks such as transporting salt, grain, communication, delivering official documents, and delivering secret edicts. They travel day and night, with wind and rain, covering hundreds of kilometers. Their work is hard, needless to say, and their accommodation is extremely convenient. The residence of the post envoy is called the Post Office, which is a side room behind the Imperial Hall and the Garrison Hall. The room is small, with extremely compact items such as bed curtains, desks, chairs, wardrobes, candle holders, etc. The wooden exterior paint has already peeled off, which inevitably makes people feel shabby. The canteen of the courier is located in the same large space as the dining room, with rice mills, cooking stoves, cabinet style kitchen utensils, and dining tables and stools. Imagine the bustling Nanmen Street of the past, where there were many restaurants and bars gathering, and eating was not a problem. However, the postal workers personally ground soy milk, made rice cakes, and steamed rice cakes, demonstrating their simple style.
The Drum Tower is one of the tallest buildings in the post station, and it is the iconic building of Yucheng Post Station. My legs and feet are not good, so I happily climbed up the drum tower to see the whole picture of the post station. Standing upstairs and looking up, one can enjoy a panoramic view of the postal station and all the buildings in the southern district of the city. The function is to sound the drum alarm and remind people to prevent fire and theft. The plaque above is inscribed with the words' Qin Tingming Post Station ', summarizing the vicissitudes of the Qin Dynasty's Gao Post Station to the Ming Dynasty's Yucheng Post Station. In addition, there is a painted brick of an ancient courier in the post office, as well as a copper carriage passed on by the Western Han postal service and a kettle of a Song dynasty courier, all of which are extremely rare treasures. There is also a sundial in the yard that keeps time, which broadens my horizons.
The cultural atmosphere of Yucheng Post is strong, and many celebrities have left their ink treasures here. For example, Wen Tianxiang escaped from Yuanying and passed through Gao You's "Gao You Nostalgia"; The Qin Post Station, written by Sadura of the Yuan Dynasty during his journey from the capital to Minnan for his post, was briefly stayed here; Pu Songling created 'Gaoyou Post Station' while working here. Marco Polo wrote in his diary, "The city of Gaoyou is very large and prosperous, and the people make a living through commerce and handicrafts, with a particularly high production of fish." There are more than one hundred poems praising Yucheng Post and Gaoyou, adding a lot of value to the "Water Horse Post Station" on the banks of the canal. Looking back at the busyness and liveliness of this place back then, the postal workers did not expect that many years later, this place would appear in the form of an exhibition hall in front of tourists. How respectable those hardworking postal workers are, their profession reminds me of the "or" characters embroidered on the purple satin cover floating in the wind under the eaves of the gray houses in Guanyi Lane. I think Gaoyou is truly a postal hub and the capital of the East. It promotes this city with its traditional style and inherits China's postal culture.