China was one of the earliest countries to begin a communication system. About some 2,500 years ago, China already had an efficient postal system at that time. However, until late 19th century, China had not yet established a government operated postal system to serve the country and her people. There were several postal systems and many postal organizations existed in China concurrently that not only caused inconvenience for the general public but also infringed the sovereignty of China.

ICHAN - government operated courier network that delivered only governments official and military documents.

LETTER HONG - private operated postal services that mainly handled Chinese mails for commercial and civil purposes.

LOCAL POST - municipal postal services operated by alien residents autonomies in treaty ports that served foreigners local and inter treaty ports mail matters.

GUEST POST - alien postal organizations in China operated by Western Powers that mainly served foreigners correspondents between China and foreign countries.

CUSTOMS POST - postal system operated by the Customs House that provide postal service on a trial basis. Although the operation was limited to treaty ports and cities where there were customs offices, Customs Post was the embryo of modern Chinese post service, which laid foundation for the Post of China.

(After the Customs Post transformed into Imperial Post, all the Local Post offices closed in 1897. The rest of the postal setups still operated until some time of the Republic period. The Chinese Imperial Post had been growing under competition with private letter hongs and foreign postal organizations as well as cooperation with them.)

On March 20, 1896, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs submitted a memorial to the throne to propose establishment of the National Postal Service. Emperor Kuang Hsu wrote "Proceed accordingly" in vermilion. This date became the birthday of Post of China.

The Imperial Post Office was planned to inaugurate on January 1, 1897, and changing the currency used for postage unit from Candarin of Silver to Silver Dollar. Due to some delay on schedule, the Imperial Post Office officially opened on February 20. In order to meet the immediate needs for new postage stamps of silver dollar system, a quantity of Small Dragon and Empress Dowager issues of the Customs Post and unissued Red Revenue stamps were surcharged with new values in silver dollar denomination.