A post station refers to a place where people delivering government documents in ancient times changed their horses or rested or stayed overnight.

History of post stations:

In the Tang Dynasty, post posts were set up all over the country. They were divided into three types: land post, water post and both land and water post. Post stations were equipped with post houses, which were the only ones in the country. There are 1,639 post stations with a total of 20,000 people. The central government is under the jurisdiction of the doctor of the Ministry of War, and there are 4 post inspectors under the Jiedushi. Each county is managed by the county magistrate who is also in charge of post affairs. On November 9, the fourteenth year of Tianbao, Fan Yang raised troops in Anlu Mountain. The two places were 3,000 miles apart. Six days later, the incident was reported to the capital, which shows the rapid efficiency.

There is evidence in the quatrains of Du Mu's "Passing the Huaqing Palace": Looking back at Chang'an, there are piles of embroidery, and thousands of gates are opened one after another on the top of the mountain. Riding on the red dust concubine smiled, no one knew it was lychee. They had to work hard to transport Yang Guifei's lychees across the state, and several horses and poor post officers and soldiers would be exhausted every year.

Qing Dynasty Post Stations:

In the 1870s, the Qing Empire began to establish postal delivery agencies. In 1878, Hurd, then the Customs and Excise Department, proposed the establishment of an official modern post office. At that time, Li Hongzhang, then Minister of Commerce of Beiyang, decided to pilot postal services in five locations: Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Yantai and Niuzhuang (today's Yingkou), and entrusted Hart's General Taxation Department to manage them.

Hurd established the Customs Post based on the British and European postal systems, and issued China's first set of modern stamps from July 24 to August 1, 1878 as proof of payment. This set of stamps was printed by the Register Office of Shanghai Border Defense and Customs. It uses dragon as the pattern and comes in a set of three. A five-clawed golden dragon is painted in the center of the stamp pattern, lined with clouds and waves. The stamps have different colors and face values, and the face value is calculated in silver taels.