 right|250px|thumb|the "large dragons", china's first postage stamps, 1878, of the  post office. the history of the postage stamps and postal history of china is complicated by the gradual decay of imperial china and the years of civil war and japanese occupation in the 1930s and 1940s. ==early history== right|130px|thumb|this 1-candareen stamp of 1885 has an unidentified seal cancellation and a postmark from the french post office in shanghai. right|130px|thumb|a 1/2-cent value of the 1897 issue, lithographed in japan.  great qing land post regular government postal service is known from the zhou dynasty in the 1st millennium bc. during the yuan dynasty under kublai khan in the 12th century, china was integrated into the much larger mongolian ÃrtÃ¶Ã¶ system. marco polo reported that there were 10,000 post stages during that time. in addition, private letters were carried by the min hsin chu, a system of letter guilds (hongs). later the 1727 treaty of kyakhta with russia provided for the first regular exchange of mail. ==qing dynasty== a policy of isolation was forcibly ended in the 19th century by the opium war and the subsequent opening of treaty ports; several nations opened foreign post offices from 1844 on. this expanded to involve dozens of cities, mostly on the coast, along the yangtze river, and in the far south. shanghai organized its own shanghai local post in 1865. in the same year, the englishman robert hart developed a mail service for the imperial maritime customs, initially to carry consular mail to and from treaty ports. this service was opened to the public on 1 may 1878, and china's first postage stamps, the "large dragons" (),institute of chinese studies, university of heidelberg, germany: shelfmark: he6185.c55 t33 1989|title: å¤§é¾éµç¥¨èæ¸ä»£éµå² / ä¸­åéµç¥¨åç©é¤¨ ç·¨ ta-lung yu-p'iao yÃ¼ ch'ing-tai yu-shih / chung-kuo yu-p'iao po-wu-kuan pien |published: é¦æ¸¯ : ååå°æ¸é¤¨ hsiang-kang : shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1989 |description: 212 p.: col. ill.|isbn 7-80047-120-8|language: chi.; eng.|corp. body: ä¸­åéµç¥¨åç©é¤¨ chung-kuo yu-p'iao po-wu-kuan|parallel title: a picture album of the large dragon stamps and the postal history of the qing dynasty|subjects: postage-stamps - china - history were issued to handle payment. the stamps were inscribed "china" in both latin and chinese characters, and denominated in candareens. initially, all mail to foreign destinations went through shanghai, but by 1882 there
Philately_of_China Postal_system_of_China