Chapter 81 - 72: Fourth Level Dao Foundation Perfection: Primordial True Spirit
Lin Chuan.
Since Gu Wen began collecting medicinal fruits, this county located in the mountains had constantly been under his watch. Nearly half of Bianjing’s medicinal materials came from Lin Chuan County, and now it had fallen?
Gu Wen continued reading the letter, which was not sent from Lin Chuan but from the South Water County Governor.
The gist of it was that merchant ships sailed from Lin Chuan along water routes through South Water and Luo River Counties and reported the fall of Lin Chuan County to the officials, who then sent the information onwards to the governor’s mansion. The Prefectural Governor then wrote a feather dispatch and sent someone to deliver it to Bianjing.
What followed was a long section where the South Water County Governor boasted about his own accomplishments, seeing it as an opportunity to curry favor with higher-ups.
Daqian had a complete station system: every five miles had a post, ten miles had a pavilion, and thirty miles had a station. On regular days, they relayed imperial documents and managed the selection and appointment of various officials.
The stations were staffed with couriers, and since official documents could not eat and might instead infuriate the court, ordinary people would not intercept them. Moreover, within one’s own borders, if the communication could not be secured, it meant the nation’s downfall was close.
How to ascertain if the feather dispatch in one’s hand was the only copy?
Once, while drinking with an official who managed a station in Bianjing, Gu Wen had asked about it and was told it was impossible; there were always duplicates and never multiple copies of the same message.
Firstly, sending urgent messages over eight hundred miles cost money, and many horses died each time. Secondly, these missions were always launched urgently, utilizing the same road and river routes; sending multiple copies of the same message was redundant.