In ancient times there is spring transportation? What was the Spring Festival transportation like in ancient times? Next I explain for you.
Spring transportation in ancient times was far less busy than in modern times
The history of spring transportation in China can be traced back as far as the Zhou Dynasty, which is more than three thousand years old. Why is this so? Because since the Zhou Dynasty there has been a Spring Festival in its infancy. With the Spring Festival, there is the Spring Festival transportation, naturally, there is the "Spring Festival". Eastern Han Dynasty, "the first day of the first month, is called the first day. The rate of wives and offspring, regulate the ancestor of the record, Wei and Jin began to "keep the New Year's Eve", the Tang Dynasty has a "New Year's Eve stickers", the Song Dynasty, ordinary firecrackers, the Ming Dynasty, "to welcome the God of the stove! "As the flavor of the New Year becomes stronger and stronger, it is natural to need a family reunion to celebrate the New Year together. So far away from the traveler needs to go home, there will be a "Spring Festival" needs. However, the ancient Spring Festival compared with modern times, it is really small, not the same. From the size of the people, from the transportation, are not in a class.
First of all, the ancient population compared with the present, too much difference. Xia, Shang, Zhou period, China only about 13 million people; Qin Han to the Tang Dynasty, the peak of China's population is only 50, 60 million; Song Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, the population grew to 70, 80 million to 100 million or so; the Qing Dynasty's population skyrocketed, the Daoguang period to reach 400 million or so. Even a population of 400 million is only a fraction of the current population of 1.4 billion. Therefore, from the size of the population, the ancient "Spring Festival" simply can not be compared with the modern.
Secondly, the ancient spring population is different from the modern. In modern times, because of the high mobility of the population, the Spring Festival population includes almost all walks of life. The first is that it is not a good idea to have a good time, but it is a good idea to have a good time, and it is a good idea to have a good time. In ancient times, unlike modern times, those who had the need for spring transportation were basically civil servants and businessmen who traveled on business. Because workers and farmers basically work and live in one place. Only civil servants traveling on business need to go home. Merchants do business and need to go home. At the same time, the state in order to take care of people's Spring Festival reunion, as far as possible not to arrange for public servants to travel during the Spring Festival, so the Spring Festival army, or businessmen mostly. And the proportion of merchants in ancient times, not a lot. The social status of merchants in ancient times was very low.
Third, the thinking of the ancients limits the spring transportation. Since ancient times, China has the tradition of "parents are here, do not travel far". When parents are alive, people seldom go out. Generally at home to do filial piety. Even if they have no choice but to work outside, they will find a way to take their parents with them. That is why we can see that many officials who go to a certain place to take up a job bring their family members along with them. In other words, it is only as a last resort that there is a requirement for "spring transportation".
Fourth, the ancient transportation limitations of the spring demand. In ancient times, there were no airplanes, trains, automobiles, cars and such advanced transportation. At most, there were carriages. Poor can only rely on two legs. Facing thousands of mountains and rivers, the inconvenience of transportation affects the "Spring Festival". Therefore, no matter which dynasty in ancient times, you will never see the spring transportation like now.
Ancient transportation limited the Spring Festival
In ancient times, there were three kinds of transportation: first, the two legs of people; second, rickshaws and animal-drawn carts; and third, boats. For the poor, the most economical is to rely on two legs. Although the two legs do not have to pay the car and boat money, but because of the slow walk, food and housing is a problem, if you count in the cost is not low; boat is the most affordable transportation, in the Tang Dynasty, downstream of the water a day three money, against the water a day of fifteen money, traveling forty miles a day or so. But in winter, if the rivers freeze over, the boats can't be used. Then again, not every place is convenient for boats, because after all, the rivers are less, and the land accounts for more.
So the most common means of transportation, is the car. Before the invention of the animal-drawn cart, there was a rickshaw called the carriage, which later developed into the sedan chair. Going home in a sedan chair is fine for short distances, but if you are transported over long distances, one is going slow, two is exhausting the sedan bearer, and three is costly. So the domestication of livestock, animal-drawn carts replaced the rickshaw and sedan chair. In the long history of thousands of years, the most popular transportation in ancient times is animal-drawn carts, including horse-drawn carts, donkey carts, mule carts, oxen carts, etc. Of course, the most convenient to use is the horse-drawn carts, because the oxen carts are too slow, and the donkeys carts are very poor endurance.
As for the types of carts, there are many. The chariot for sleeping and sleeping, the covered wagon, the an-car, the dun-car, the demented car, the one-wheeled car, the chicken car, the yellow car, the three-wheeled car, and so on and so forth. The most luxurious was the hearse, a luxury sleeping car with windows and adjustable temperature inside, equivalent to a modern limousine; followed by the chariot, and then the chariot for sleeping and sleeping. Supply wagon is a kind of cargo, pulling people's passenger and cargo dual-purpose vehicles, demented car is to pull boulders and big wood car, unicycle and chicken car is to transport goods car, yellow car and tricycle is to pull close to the modern times of the fashionable car lose, by the car driver is responsible for pulling and sending.
Before the invention of trains, automobiles, and airplanes, rickshaws and animal-drawn carts limited transportation, and even if Emperor Qin Shi Huang invented the "Chidao" (ancient highway) more than 2,000 years ago, it could not solve the people's deep-seated transportation requirements. The age of the horse and carriage and the age of the automobile are two very far apart.
The Spring Festival does not reunite the melancholy left poem
Because of the inconvenience of transportation and economic conditions of the limitations, resulting in three aspects of the situation of the travelers. The first is that they can't go home because they are stranded outside the country, the second is that they have to spend a lot of money to get home, and the third is that they have to spend too much time on the road to finally get home. The ancients had the habit of reciting poems and making gifts, so there are many poems with real feelings left in history, which describe the feelings of experiencing the ancient "Spring Festival".
Xue Daoheng, a poet of the Sui Dynasty, could not return home in the Spring Festival, and wrote "People think of returning on the day": "Only seven days into the spring, leaving home has been two years. People return to the geese after the fall, think hair in front of the flowers". The poet has not been home for two years, the long distance and economic factors, so he can only infinite homesickness in the poem; Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wan is also the Spring Festival can not return home, wrote "under the second Beigushan": "the road outside the green mountains, boat before the green water. The tide is flat, the wind is a sail hanging. The sea sun is still alive, the river spring into the old year. Where can I send a letter to my hometown? The Returning Geese by Luoyang." I can't go home by myself, so I'll write a letter home, and I don't know when the letter will arrive. At that time, there is no cell phone, transportation and communication is not developed, so it can only be in infinite anxiety.
Gao Shi, a famous poet of the Tang Dynasty, traveled a lot and could not return home in the Spring Festival. He wrote "New Year's Eve," which reads: "The hotel cold light alone do not sleep, the guest heart why turn miserable? I think of my hometown tonight for thousands of miles, and my frosty temples will be there tomorrow for another year." Whenever you are homesick, your hair will go blank for a few more years. Thousands of miles away from the traveler, can only be sadness in poetry. The first thing I want to do is to get the best out of the world, and I want to be able to do that.
The Qing Dynasty poet Jiang Shiquan and the above poets are different, he is insisting on the Spring Festival home. However, this down-and-out talent is even more pitiful, once he went home for the Spring Festival, because there is no money, walking dozens of miles, drinking and thirst, almost did not die on the road. Thanks to a horseman who was carrying goods, he was saved. He took his own clothes as his traveling expenses and returned home wrapped in a straw mat. When his mother saw his son in such a sorry state, she sold all the poultry in the house to pay for his journey home. Therefore, Jiang Shiquan got a poem "home at the end of the year": "love son's heart endless, homecoming joy and the time. Cold clothes, needle and thread dense, family letter ink marks new. Meet the pity for thin, call the child to ask the pain and suffering. Wandering shame son, do not dare to sigh the wind and dust." The man who has no money is a hero. No money is hard to beat the hero, spare the talent, but also difficult to solve the pain of going home without travel expenses, although the pain of homesickness, but also faced with the embarrassment of the hardships of life at home.