A few days later, next to Jinyang Taxation Customs, in front of a row of bungalows, as crowded as before.

This is the letter sending and receiving office, also known as the "post residence", which can help people deliver letters to other places (charges). At the same time, the letters sent from other places are distributed to the corresponding recipients.

The person who wants to send the letter will be "transferred" to their respective destinations by the postage team of the Transportation Department as long as he completes a few procedures and pays the postage and payments.

Therefore, two people, two families, or even two families, separated by hundreds of miles and thousands of miles apart, were able to communicate with each other.

To do this, it is not difficult to say, it is easy to say, and it is not easy to say.

Chen Xu, who came to inspect, looked at the people who were waiting in front of the "postal residence" to send or receive letters, and remembered the scene of his previous correspondence with his relatives.

He has been an official abroad for many years and if he wants to contact his relatives, he must write a letter, but if the letter is written, how to ensure that the letter can be delivered to his relatives is a problem.

The imperial court had post newspapers, but it only passed on official documents on the surface. If you want to bring private letters, it would not be impossible.

But for many small officials and minor officials, such things must be carried out in secret, otherwise it is easy to lose the handle and cause trouble in the official career.

If you find someone to take it, you owe someone a favor.

The favors owed in the officialdom are worth a thousand gold.

Not to mention that for many people who need to send and receive letters, what should I do if I cannot use the official post to send letters?

I can only entrust relatives and friends to go to my destination to bring my letter and help me along the way.

However, if you encounter a "straight road", there are few opportunities after all, and people may not be willing to help.

Therefore, when Chen Xu was in a local office, it was not difficult to send letters and receive letters, but it was difficult for those small officials and relatives to communicate letters with relatives and friends who were in other places.

Now, after the emergence of the "postal residence" that carries out "postal communication business" for the people, people's needs for letters have been greatly met.

Therefore, the Transportation Department has another responsibility: responsible for postal and transmission affairs.

Why does an official office responsible for transferring grain financial resources and checking local government warehouse books have to look at the weather and hydrology, be responsible for checking grain storage in various places, and now be responsible for postal transmission?

Chen Xu glanced at the tax customs and trading market not far away, turned around and left, instead of getting on the carriage, but walked forward along the street, with several followers following behind.

Expansion, this is expansion, like blowing a fish bladder.

When the General Taxation Department was initially established, it was responsible for collecting commercial taxes from various Jiankang customs and Tianjin. That was Liang Shi's business.

As a result, the scale of the General Taxation Department quickly expanded and the responsibilities it shouldered became more and more. It was obviously just an official office that collected commercial taxes, but it even opened a trading market to manage the trading market.

The scale and power of the General Taxation Department have expanded rapidly, and the matter of conducting postal and communication business among the people was also created by the General Taxation Department.

As more and more areas under the rule of Chu State, the "staff" in the "postal" area became larger and larger, so the General Taxation Department threw this stall to the Transportation Department.

It is called "letter transfer" and also "transfer of luck".

Now, the "post residences" and postal matters in various places are under the management of the Transport Department, causing officials from all over the world to complain.

The reason is of course that the "operating income" of Posts and Communication is not high, but there are many things, troublesome and trivial things.

It has always been inconvenient for private communications, and most people cannot read, so even if there is a demand for sending letters, it is not much higher.

But now the communications are convenient (relatively speaking), so many people had the idea and began to ask someone to write a letter, and then they took it to the "mail residence" to send it.

However, the address of the recipient is basically vague. It takes a lot of energy and time for the postal staff to hand over the letter to the recipient.

Post residences in various places have opened "letter writing" and "letter reading" services (all charge appropriate fees), which have made people who are illiterate and unable to ask someone to write letters and read letters to come to post residences to "do business".

As a result, the workload of staff in the post office increased sharply.

People who are illiterate have many problems with their expression skills. They want to ask the writers to write something in their letters, but they can't explain it clearly for a long time.

The writers want to communicate and communicate with these people, and condense a bunch of nonsense into a few simple passages. It takes a long time, but the income is only a few cents.

Moreover, because of their illiteracy and strong accent, many people even have their names that are wrong, cannot be clearly stated, and cannot describe:

Is Huang Hewang, is he the "Three Horizontal King" or "Big Belly Yellow"?

Is Chen Hecheng a "ear-to-ear-to-Chen" or a "inadequate success"?

With such a difference, many illiterate people cannot describe it at all.

This leads to incomplete information about the address and recipient.

This has caused great trouble to the delivery of letters, and ordinary people may never leave their hometowns for the rest of their lives. How can they have so many communication needs?

Therefore, the postal and communication system that Chu State is now improving is actually impossible to make a profit, and instead requires a large amount of money to maintain operation every year.

Even if the imperial court has a "guaranteed" for large copper mines, there are still many places to use money. Is it worth investing so much money in "postal communication" which is bound to be owed?

Chen Xu walked by the street and approached the door of a Minfang. At the door, there were children playing and talking accents made Chen Xu feel very friendly.

This is the Wuxing accent, so many residents in this shop are considered his fellow villagers.

After the Chu army captured Jinyang, it moved a large number of Jinyang soldiers and civilians. At the same time, many people moved from the south and settled in Jinyang, among which there were many Wuxing people.

Most of these people are military families, who settled with the army and took root and sprouted.

There were also merchants and their servants and family members who lived here temporarily, so Chen Xu would come here to take a walk when he was free, dressed in casual clothes, chat with his fellow villagers, and talk about the "old".

Listening to the local accent, it seemed as if I was in my hometown of Wuxing.

The children looked at Chen Xu, recognized the "acquaintance", and ran over cheerfully, with excitement on their faces.

But he shouted: "The mail messenger is here! The mail messenger is here!!"

Chen Xu was stunned at first, then turned around and saw someone riding a horse on the street.

The man was wearing a soap coat and had a white crotch outside. There was a huge "彩" character in front and behind the crotch, which was very eye-catching.

This is the email messenger who specializes in sending letters. He is carrying two bulging cloth bags under his crotch. It seems that there are quite a few letters sent today.

The mail messenger dismounted and walked towards the gate with his horse. The children kept asking around him, "Is there any letter from my family?", chattering, like a bird.

When the emailed man faced the inquiry, he smiled without saying a word and led his horse into the yard.

The people who rushed over after hearing the news quickly surrounded the mail envoy and kept asking, "Is there any letter from my family?"

The officials rushed over and finally squeezed into the crowd. They opened the way for the mailman and transferred to the office. They had to wait for sorting out and register the letters and then distributed them one by one.

The atmosphere in the yard became very lively with the arrival of the mail envoy. People who were looking forward to letters from their hometown refused to leave. They surrounded the door of the yard and waited for the mail envoy to call their names.

The person who was called the name happily went in, while the others became more and more nervous, but there were expectations in the nervousness.

Chen Xu looked at the lively scene in front of him silently and thought of a sentence the emperor had said to him:

"The war is going on for three months, and the letter from home is worth ten thousand gold."

"A thin piece of paper is enough to comfort many people. This effect can be bought by spending money alone?"

Do soldiers who are far away from their hometown and fighting on the front line miss home? Do they miss their family?

I think, of course.

And military families, do you miss their relatives on the front line?

Of course I want to.

This is the case between soldiers and their families, isn’t it the case for ordinary people?

Who doesn’t want home? Who doesn’t miss their relatives? Students who study abroad, businessmen who go out, officials who work outside, and people who go out for various reasons and separate from their relatives and friends all have communication needs.

This demand may, in general, be insufficient to make the huge amount of money-established postal and communication system profitable, but a complete postal and communication system is of great significance.

When people from all over the world can communicate with relatives and friends in other places with relatively convenient communication, what does it mean to the court to achieve such an effective postal system?

It means that one day, the center will be able to achieve "governmental orders and go straight to the countryside."

Cheers kept ringing in his ears, and Chen Xu looked at the men and women who were full of excitement and walked out with letters, feeling the joy of each other.

He was exhausted, as if he had disappeared without a trace, and became energetic again.

The world is going to be unified, and a new era needs a new atmosphere, right?
Chapter completed!