长江历来为我国黄金水道。上海至长江各埠早有商船来往,这给大清邮政开通相关邮路提供了有利条件。大清邮政正式开办后,镇江、南京、芜湖、九江、汉口、沙市、宜昌、重庆等八埠相继建立邮政总局,上海至八埠的邮路当即开通(这些城市原来大多建有海关邮政寄信局),且维持近两年未变(图1)。 The Yangtze River has always been our golden waterway. Merchants from Shanghai to various ports in the Yangtze River had already had exchanges of merchant shipping, which provided favorable conditions for the opening of relevant postal routes by Daqing Post. After the postal service of Qing Dynasty was officially opened, Post Office was established one after another in eight ports, including Zhenjiang, Nanjing, Wuhu, Jiujiang, Hankou, Shashi, Yichang and Chongqing. The postal service from Shanghai to Wu Bu immediately opened (most of these cities originally had postal mail Bureau), and remained unchanged for nearly two years (Figure 1).