Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 32: What I Saw at the Post Station
The weather suddenly changed when we were back on the road.

The outline of the mountains in northern Luzhou was dyed blue-gray by rain and fog, but the farmers in the paddy fields beside the road were still bending over to plant rice.

The brown straw raincoats on their backs were tangled together in the rain. An old man wearing a conical hat stood on the edge of the field, pouring fish fry from a bamboo cage into the pond next to the paddy field. The silver fish tails flashed in the muddy rice field.

The sudden rain stopped for a while, and as dusk fell, the carriage was climbing a mountain pass, and the setting sun dyed the entire hill orange.

The layers of rapeseed fields on the slopes have already set seeds, and several village women are harvesting the last tender rapeseed shoots with bamboo baskets.

In the valley farther away, smoke from evening cooking curled up from the roof of the thatched cottage, entwined with the mountain mist and drifted towards Jinguan City.

After a night's rest, we left Luzhou and headed north, and we completely entered the Sichuan Basin. The mountains completely disappeared.

On the endless plain, the number of farmlands on both sides of the official road began to decrease sharply, and instead large areas of mulberry forests appeared. Now it was almost early summer, and the mulberry leaves were extremely thick and shiny, with an oily luster in the sun.

Lu Beigu noticed that there was a stone well almost every hundred steps, with a windlass on the well platform. Women would often hang silkworm trays on bamboo poles and wash them at the well.

"never seen it?"

"I haven't seen it." Lu Beigu was also quite curious. "Most people in Anlexi make a living by growing sorghum, brewing wine, and picking mountain products. I've never seen anyone raising silkworms."

"This is 'Bath Silkworm'."

Li Pan explained: "Silkworm farmers in Shu believe in 'three baths and three sleeps'. The cool well water can cure silkworm diseases, or in other words, silkworms that can't withstand such cold water will die."

"Natural selection, survival of the fittest."

Li Pan was slightly startled when he heard this, then he savored it and said with a smile, "This is an interesting and insightful statement."

After walking for another long while, Lu Beigu finally finished reading more than half of the reference book "Liji Juyu" and arrived at an inn where he could rest.

On the official roads of the Song Dynasty, there were post stations every 20 miles and post stations every 40 miles.

But the delivery shop was not for their use, it was for military use and was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War.

The Song Dynasty had a very famous fast military mail system called "Jijiaodi", which could travel as fast as 400 miles a day and was specially established for urgent military information.

Dai Zong, the Speed ​​Star in "Water Margin", is nicknamed the Speedy Guardian. The book describes him as possessing the Taoist magic of speed. He tied a speedy horse to his legs and could travel up to 800 miles a day. This skill was probably derived from the prototype of "Ji Jiao Di".

But what they really used was the post station.

The main function of the post stations in the Song Dynasty was to provide food, lodging, and horse-changing services to passing officials and servants, similar to modern guesthouses.

When their carriage drove into the gate of the post station, Lu Beigu also got off the carriage with Li Pan.

After stretching his back which was a little sore from sitting, he looked around.

Inside the blue brick wall, two ancient locust trees cast swaying shadows, and the sound of snorting came from the stable one after another.

The postmaster, who was wearing a round-collared robe, was directing the servants to carry fodder. When he saw a carriage approaching, he hurriedly brushed his sleeves and stepped forward to greet it.

After verifying Li Pan's identity, the postmaster immediately became respectful: "There are several upper rooms in the backyard. Please come in!"

As he spoke, he led everyone through the front hall, where they saw wooden signs nailed to the pillars, densely packed with records of the officials who had passed through that month.

"On the sixth day, Wang, an official from the Zizhou Road Transportation Office, arrived with three followers and two horses."

"On the eighth day of the first lunar month, Zheng, the inspector of the Yizhou Road Criminal Court, handed over a sealed envelope."

Lu Beigu glanced at the rows of vermilion lacquered delivery boxes under the corridor. Each compartment had a label indicating a different route. The compartments for those destined for Lizhou Road and Kuizhou Road were already full. It was obvious that the distance was too far and the delivery was too much trouble, so the boxes had to be filled up before they could be delivered. However, the compartments for places like Yizhou Road and Zizhou Road, which were closer to the post station, seemed a little empty.

They had just put down their luggage and turned around to eat when they heard the sound of imperial bells coming from the official road in the distance.

This time, a group of guards came to escort prisoners. The leader was drunk. While handing out the post ticket, he shouted that he wanted to eat quickly.

The postmaster took the post ticket with a bitter face and took out the account book to record it.

Lu Beigu had good eyesight and clearly saw that the postmaster first wrote "拾" after "耗用草料", hesitated for a moment and then wrote "五", making it "拾五" bundles.

"Taking advantage of the public, it's been the same since ancient times," he muttered to himself. Soon the dishes were served: three dishes and a soup, with pickles, vegetables, and meat.

The pickle is a plate of pickled cucumber strips, which are made by shredding pickled cucumber strips, mixing with mashed garlic, vinegar and a little sesame oil. It is salty, fresh and crispy and goes well with rice.

The vegetarian dish is boiled cabbage, which is cooked directly with water, sprinkled with a little salt, and served in a ceramic bowl. It looks like it has no taste.

However, the meat dish looked more appetizing. It was fried pickled fish. The method was to cut the carp into pieces, marinate it with salt and wine lees, and then fry it until golden brown. The fish skin was crispy and the fish meat was salty, fragrant and chewy, a bit like the fried hairtail that Lu Beigu had eaten before.

As for the soup, it was a bowl of scallion soup, slightly spicy, just enough to warm the stomach and drive away the cold, but it was not delicious at all.

The postmaster said with an apologetic smile, "Official road post stations are not like restaurants in the provincial capital. The food is simple, so please forgive me."

Li Pan waved his hand and said, "It's better than the other post stations along the way."

After saying that, he broke off a piece of steamed bun and started eating it with the oil from the pickled fish.

Lu Beigu scooped a spoonful of soup and ate it with corn rice and some pickled cucumber shreds, feeling quite happy.

The guards who were escorting the prisoners at the table next to them were also eating. Their food was even worse than theirs, with not even a hint of meat. The post station also served different dishes to different people. Li Pan was the magistrate, while the other team leader was just a captain.

The guard who was accompanying them just glanced at the prisoner at the opposite table and couldn't help asking.

"Wow, a square-headed cangue and five-jin shackles, what kind of heavenly law is this?"

After hearing this, Lu Beigu also turned his head away.

The prisoner was an honest middle-aged man, tall and strong, with a yellow face and a drooping head.

He was wearing a square-headed shackle that locked his neck and hands. The shackle was made of paulownia wood, and the edges were wrapped with tattered cotton cloth to prevent the skin and flesh from being rubbed. It looked to be at least twenty pounds. That was not all. The shackles on his feet had a ball weighing about five pounds on the chain. If it was moved slightly, the copper bell inside would ring.

To be honest, Wu Song in "Water Margin" didn't even receive this treatment.

Both parties were messengers, so naturally they could strike up a conversation. The drunken captain on the other side simply said, "Kill the whole family who paid for the seedlings."

This is a serious crime. According to the famous laws in "Song Dynasty Criminal Code", it should be classified as one of the "Ten Unforgivable Crimes". Even if there is an amnesty, it will not be pardoned. The result is most likely to be execution by heavy beating, and a small probability is lingchi. The latter probability is very small. It only happened once during the Tiansheng period in recent years.

In short, in the eyes of the police on both sides, this man was no different from a dead person.

"Why?" Lu Beigu asked.

The escort officer simply said, "Maybe he can't pay it back."

The yellow-faced man ate the rice ball that was specially kneaded for him on the spot in silence, without even raising his eyes. Lu Beigu didn't dare to ask any more questions, so he had to concentrate on eating.

After dinner, Li Pan, probably because he had stayed in the carriage for too long, suggested that everyone go out for a walk.

Although Lu Beigu didn't want to admit that his body as a young man was not as strong as Li Pan, a 40-year-old man, but to be honest, he actually wanted to lie down. But the magistrate wanted to take a walk, he couldn't just say "I'll go back and lie down for a while", right?

So, I had no choice but to follow him out.

Because this post station is located on the official road that leads directly to Chengdu Prefecture, it has convenient transportation, so the surrounding area has gradually become a settlement.

The group wandered around aimlessly, and when they turned a low wall covered with kudzu vines behind the post station, they suddenly saw dozens of neatly arranged looms in the flower building.

This is a Shu brocade weaving workshop that produces Shu brocade.

------

①Silkworm plaque is a common silkworm breeding tool in Shu. It is made of bamboo strips or reeds and used to hold mulberry leaves and silkworms.

② "Jiao" is a common term in the postal system of the Song Dynasty, meaning a package. Delivering a corner means mailing a package, and "fengpi" is because the delivery of official documents is divided into "tongfeng" and "shifeng", that is, non-confidential mail and confidential mail. Tongfeng has a summary of the contents on the cover, while Shifeng is sealed in the usual way and must be re-sealed with a folded corner of paper, and then the number of the contents inside must be written on the cover without revealing the content.

③ A kind of paper ticket that can be used to ride carriages and employ servants at the post station. Wu Chuhou, an official of the Renzong Dynasty, recorded the origin of the post ticket in "Qingxiang Miscellaneous Notes·Post Ticket", "Before the Tang Dynasty, both the post station and the inn were given paper tickets for communication. During the Kaiyuan period, in order to keep things simple, paper tickets were issued. This is the beginning of the issuance of post station tickets." The Song Dynasty followed the Tang system, and this system was also inherited. It is also recorded in "History of the Song Dynasty·Official Records 12".

(End of this chapter)