Tianfu official post

There are antique quadrangles with green tiles and grey walls in the pit bottom yard of Tianlong Bridge, which is the natural third bridge. The lanterns hanging in front of the yard write "Tianfu Official Posthouse". Founded in the second year of Wude in the Tang Dynasty (AD 619), this post house is located between the "Diamond Shop" and the "Ginkgo Shop". It was an important post house for official information transmission in ancient Fuzhou and Guizhou, and was destroyed in the war. The building is located in Wulong Tiankeng, the lower end of Qinglong Bridge of Tiansheng Third Bridge. There is a valley road at the bottom of the pit, which is about 5 meters wide and resembles an ancient post road. It can pass wooden cars and ride horses. The house is located beside the road, and the roof is covered by the abyss of the Tianlong Bridge. Surrounded by towering rocks and green shrubs, there is a deep and gloomy atmosphere.

For human beings, our luck is that God seems to be a perfectionist.

Since he has endowed Wulong Tiansheng Sanqiao with so many wonders of "the best in the world", it is natural that he will not be stingy to add more to the wealth, and give rise to some details, stories, and a history to make this precious natural masterpiece more perfect.

And this icing on the cake story happened in the first natural bridge on the Yangshui River Valley - the "Tianfu Official Posthouse" at the bottom of the Tianlong Bridge pit. This is a quadrangle located beside the road, with its roof covered by the abyss of the Tianlong Bridge, surrounded by towering rocks and green shrubs. The courtyard is composed of several connected chambers with green tiles and grey walls. It is antique and full of ancient taste. On the open grassland in front of the hospital, the big red lanterns hanging high above the courtyard were marked with the words "Tianfu Official Posthouse". When the wind blew, it was like a flame swaying in the air. The fence posts outside the post station and the flag of the post station hanging on the high pole show that this place is a noble place for officials to enter and leave. In addition, there is a road about 5 meters wide, which is built by imitating the ancient post road, and can pass wooden cars and tall horses.

Push the door into the courtyard and you can see that all the buildings in the courtyard are of wooden structure with simple and elegant style. In fact, this is a rectangular array formed by two quadrangles. In addition to the front door, each wing room has cornices, glazed tiles, exquisite carved beams and wooden walls on its small green tile roof. In the corner of the courtyard, there is also a wooden horse drawn car for ancient officials to use.

In the inner courtyard of the post station, there are about 20 rooms in all directions, including the main room, courtyard, wing room, reception hall, stables, etc., covering an area of more than 1000 square meters. If we infer from the function distribution of houses in ancient times, the left hall should be the main hall for officials to work and receive guests, while the right side should be official houses and guard houses.

In fact, the appearance of the post station we see now is a re imitation of the post station style of the Han and Tang Dynasties. In order to better restore the original appearance of history, all details should be kept as the original appearance of history as much as possible during the restoration of the post station. Even the black bricks and grey tiles were specially made and shipped to other provinces, and the carvings on the roof beams and doors and windows were also specially "worn out". It is worth mentioning that because the film "Full of Golden Armor" was shot here, there are still carriages, armor, swords and so on that were used as props in the play.

So, what's the origin of this post station? Wulong is not the only ancient post station in all parts of the country. Therefore, Zhang Yimou must have another idea to choose scenery here. From the existing historical data, Tianfu Official Posthouse was built in the second year of Wude in the Tang Dynasty (619 A.D.), which is located between the "Diamond Shop" and the "Gingko Shop". Historically, it was an important post house for official information transmission in ancient Fuzhou and Qianzhou, but it was destroyed in the war.

The building is a wooden structure with classical style. It has a small green tile roof and cornices. It is connected by two quadrangles into a rectangular array. The front door has a facing door. There are about 20 houses in the four directions of the inner court. The left hall is the main hall for officials to work and receive guests, and the right side is the official house and guard house. There are wooden cars pulled by ancient officials in the courtyard.

There are fence posts outside the post station, and the flag of the post station is hung on the high pole, which shows that this is the place where the officials and powerful people go in and out to rest.

To solve these mysteries, we must first figure out what the official post was used for in ancient times? Is it an information transmission organization similar to the modern "post office" or a reception organization similar to the "hotel"?

Tracing back to the dynasty before the earliest construction of Tianfu Official Posts (Tang Dynasty), we found that China had started the system of "integration of post and transmission" as early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties. "Posthouse" has replaced all previous "posts", "pavilions" and "messengers". It covers all kinds of tasks. It is not only responsible for the transmission of national official documents and letters, but also for the transmission of emergency military intelligence. It is also responsible for receiving and sending officials, Huairou ethnic minorities, pacifying civil strife, chasing criminals, comforting and transporting prisoners in disaster areas, and sometimes also for the transportation of tribute and other small items.

It can be seen that when Tianfu Official Posthouse was built in 619 AD, China had already achieved the integration of "post" and "transmission". In other words, as a local official post, Tianfu official post not only plays the role of "post office", but also plays the role of "hotel", and even plays the role of escorting prisoners and transporting tribute.

Then, how many post stations like Tianfu Official Post were there in the country at that time? How are they related? As we know, by the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the post houses had spread all over the country, like a big net on the national roads. According to the records in the Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty, there were 260 water posts and 1297 land posts in the country at the peak. The post stations are closely connected with each other, forming a huge traffic network of points, lines and surfaces.

However, what position does Tianfu Official Posthouse occupy in this network? To solve the mystery of Tianfu Official Posthouse's life experience, we must look for clues from its geographical location. Looking through the ancient books of the Tang Dynasty, we learned from the famous essayist Liu Zongyuan's "The Story of the Wall of the House and Posthouse Envoy" that "at that time, with the capital Chang'an as the center, there were seven important radial post roads leading to all parts of the country." The other six Tianfu Official Posts can be excluded from the place where each route passes and between "Fuzhou" and "Qianzhou", and it is finally determined that "Tianfu Official Posts" should be located on the post road from Chang'an to Jingzhou, Kuizhou (now Fengjie County, Chongqing), Zhongzhou and other Yunnan Guizhou regions in Sichuan.

Judging from such a clear hierarchy of post stations and route settings, the post system of the Tang Dynasty must be very mature. This not only ensured the efficiency of postal transmission at that time, enabling the above decrees to reach all parts of the country in time, but also enabled local developments to be shown to the imperial court in time. For example, if there is a local rebellion, the imperial court can receive information in a timely manner and quickly send troops to suppress it, so as to maintain the unity and stability of the country.

However, such a huge postal network must require a large number of postal personnel. It is said that at that time, there were more than 20000 employees specializing in postal services, including 17000 post men, which was a very large postal team. In addition, the number of post servants varies according to different post station levels. In this way, it is bound to require a lot of funds to maintain the normal operation of the post station.

So, in the ancient Wulong, where tourism has not been developed, what does a local post station like Tianfu Official Post rely on to maintain its operation? It turned out that the rulers of the Tang Dynasty had issued special laws and regulations, stipulating that postal agencies throughout the country had different postal properties to ensure the normal expenditure of postal activities. These post properties include post houses, post fields, post horses, post boats, post tools, daily office supplies and accommodation needs of the buildings. In addition to these, the Tang government will give a certain amount of subsidies to each post station every year. According to some data, the Tang government collected about 1.5 million yuan of post tax from all parts of the country every year, and on average, it allocated about 1100 yuan to each post station. Therefore, it seems that the officials who are engaged in transmitting government documents along the way are well treated, and even the post master who is a station long at the grass-roots level can lead a more leisurely life.

This is the location of the movie "Golden Flower in the City" directed by Zhang Yimou. He chose locations throughout the country, and finally made use of the special terrain of Tiankeng and Qinglong Bridge to build this special building, named Tianfu Official Posthouse. It is specially used for shooting a scene in which the king murdered Jiang Taiyi. The film has become a national hit. This building is preserved and used for visitors to visit, and has become a witness of the historical value of the Tiansheng Three Bridges. The plot of this play is as follows. After the fall of the Tang Dynasty in ancient times, when the Tang Dynasty entered the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, there were more than ten Fang Kingdoms. The king of one of the Fang Kingdoms was originally a commander of the imperial guard. He murdered the king and became the king himself. He married the princess of the State of Liang to be the queen, leaving the original wife. But he had no feelings for the new queen. He insisted that the queen was suffering from asthenia cold and ordered the imperial physician Jiang to add the poison of kutou black to the queen's medicine so that the queen could die of chronic poisoning. It happened that Doctor Jiang was also the husband of the king's original wife. After knowing this, the king pretended to let Chief Physician Jiang get promoted. He was transferred from the capital of Wang and went to other places to take up his post. When the family of Chief Physician Jiang arrived at the Tianfu Posthouse on the way, the king sent experts to secretly assassinate the family of Chief Physician Jiang. His secret was also discovered by the queen. In order to make her son become the king, the queen intended to kill with a knife and secretly kicked to destroy the king's armed forces, so she hid many archers in the grass of Tianfu Official Posthouse. In this way, Tianfu Posthouse will become the focus of the three sides' struggle: the King's Guard, the Queen's Guard, and the Jiang Taiyi's Guard.

In the scene, dozens of high ropes hang from the Tianlong Bridge, and the black clad guards sent by the king fly back and forth with machetes. They cut down the fleeing knights of Imperial Doctor Jiang. The Queen's secret army in the grass shoots down the bat guards in the air with thousands of arrows. The sword comes and arrows, the killing sound is loud, the earth shakes and the mountains shake. A wonderful fight is dazzling and applauding. This kind of characteristic martial arts play can only be shot in a unique place, so a unique architecture is built here with unique artistic style.