The Modernization Of Late Qing Dynasty's Post

The post is an important aspect in people's daily life. Our country is one of the countries that have established the correspondence organization the earliest in the world. Calculated from the Shang Dynasty which had a conclusive writing record, it has a history of some more than 3000 years .The rullers from the central government to local authorities attached great importance to establishing correspondence organization ,.forming a correspondence network which extended in all directions. In the long historical perpetual flow rivers, the postal system developped and consummated itself unceasingly. By the time of the feudal society, our country's postal system has been among the first ranks in the world.But the traditional government post-house only transmitted documents for the government and did not send the personal letters. The personal letters had to be carried by acquaintances. This method needed long time and was unsafe. So in the Ming Yongle period, the private postal service emerged which transmitted the personal letters specially. The private postal service administration was flexible and the postage was cheap. It gained much popularity. By the end of the Qing, there had been thousands of private postal services .It had become a folk communication agency paralleled to the post-house.In the end of the Qing dynasty, the traditional posthouse declined day by day. It was not able to undertake the duty of transmitting information. The private postal service also had long-standing abuses. The Opium War opened the front door which China stopped all foreign contacts, Western advanced political, economic and the cultural systems spread to China one after another. The establishment of the"Guest postal"and the customs postal service as an experiment finally urged the Qing government to set up the Qing Dynasty country postal service in 1896. It was established on the basis of the customs postal service .It was completely different from the traditional postal system. It adopted the Western modern advanced management and operation methods. It had advanced human affairs, financial systems and the goods and material management systems with which the traditional post-house and the private postal service could not compare. Some systems continue to be used until now.The research on the modern postal service history focused mainly on the establishment, the development and the evolution of the postal service enterprise of the late Qing dynasty. It also concentrated on the aggression. This dissertation, on the basis of some existing achievements, attempts to study the modernizing process and the management forms from a viewpoint that the western advanced postal service system has a progressive impact on the Chinese modern postal service enterprise.In brief, the modernizing of the postal service in the late Qing dynasty is a necessary condition for the development of current situation. Meanwhile, the modernization of the postal service enormously promoted people's daily communication. It also promoted the political, economical, cultural and foreign exchanges, making Chinese society develop towards modernization in every aspect.