The Great Qing Imperial Post Office, which began as an offshoot of the Customs’ postal service, was established in 1896 and opened to the general public the following Spring. Although the Customs’ post had been in operation since 1878, it was only available in certain treaty ports. As consequence, the service of the new national post office was initially very limited in inland areas, and was unable to compete with the private letter hongs. This situation can be seen very clearly in Chongqing and Chengdu, Sichuan province. In addition to examining the role of letter hongs, the article also explores how a native Chinese Postal Clerk developed mail routes for the Imperial Post Office, reaching out from Chengdu.

In order to explore the way in which Post Office and private letter hongs co-existed, the article focuses on surveys done by Customs Commissioners at various treaty ports for the Customs’ Decennial Reports. The preliminary conclusion is while the number of private letter hongs was reduced at some treaty ports, in others it increased.


大清郵政在1896年正式成立, 在隔年的農曆春節期間挂牌運轉.儘管從1878年起海關就開始進行郵政服務, 但都局限在通商口岸. 因此在郵政局成立之後,對於内地的服務依然有其局限性,無法與民信局抗衡.位處四川的重慶和成都就是非常好的例子.本文進而申論大清郵政在這個人口稠密以及富庶的地區,如何依賴郵政華員的篳路藍縷精神,開設郵路.對於郵政局與民信局共生的情況,本文也從海關十年報告,來綜合性的分析民信局在大清郵政成立前後十年的發展.本文的初步結論是,民信局的數量并沒有完全因爲官方郵局的成立而產生普遍性的衰退.相反的,在一些區域裏,我們反而看到顯著的成長.