Now june is a good time to eat lychees, and the faint fragrance overflows before it has been peeled. But when peeled off, the air is full of lychees that belong to it alone, with a sweet fragrance. Inside is a translucent and translucent flesh, and when you take a bite, you are full of juice, and the taste is very sweet. Lychees have existed for a long time, but the ancients could not eat like modern people, not even the emperor. Like Yang Guifei, she was very happy, but she left a name for eternity, and later Qianlong had a hard time getting forty, and the harem concubines could only have one for each person, which was still a great honor.
The earliest document on the lychee is Sima Xiangru's "Shanglin Fu" in the Western Han Dynasty, which is written on the branches, which shows that people at that time had realized that this fruit could not leave the branches and leaves. Lychee is not suitable for planting in the north, it prefers high temperature and humidity, preferably with sunlight. Although lychees can be grown in many places because of modern technology, its main production area is not in the north, mainly in the south, such as Guangdong, Fujian, Sichuan, Taiwan, Hainan and other places. Lychees are not easy to preserve, Bai Juyi made a summary: if you leave this branch, one day color changes, three days taste changes.
That is to say, after three days, the taste of lychee will completely change, and three days is actually enough for modern times. And there is also a period of ripening time available, if fast, even a day can transport lychees from Guangdong to Beijing and other places. There are several days to keep selling, but ancient society can't do it, and ancient transportation technology is not as developed as modern. Ordinary people go out to walk so far, in ancient times it was estimated that it would take so many months, and the delivery of goods would be faster, but it was difficult to arrive in three days. However, the taste of lychee is really beautiful, which Su Shi, as a foodie, has the most experience.
He wrote a lot of poems, all of which showed one thing, lychees are delicious, and I think about it every day. On April 11 of the second year of Shao Sheng, Su Shi ate lychees for the first time and praised them extremely. He has been thinking about it for many years. "Five Songs of the New Year" asks when the lychee is ripe. The "Gift Show" says that it is not enough to stay in the teacher's bamboo shoot fern, and I hope that the lychee will be dan. "Two Songs of Eating Lychees" also says that three hundred lychees are eaten every day, and they will not quit being Lingnanians. Well, for the sake of lychee are willing to grow up to be Lingnanians. You should know that at that time, Lingnan was always considered to be a barbaric place in the south, and few people were willing to go, and Mr. Dongpo was also obsessed with lychees.
In order to be able to eat this delicious and juicy, sweet and delicious lychee, the ancients can be said to have tried their best. In 111 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty built a Fuli Palace in Shanglin Garden, hoping to grow southern fruits such as lychees. This is also the world's earliest written greenhouse, but the climate difference is too large, and Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty's plan to plant lychees has failed. Emperor Wu was not a foodie, nor did he force it, so he simply gave up. But Yang Guifei loves to eat. In order to win the beauty of the smile, Xuanzong thought of a good way to build a special road between Sichuan and Chang'an, and then let people send it in an eight-hundred-mile expedited way.
This has Chang'an looking back embroidered piles, and the thousand doors on the top of the mountain are opened one after another. A red dust concubine laughed, and no one knew that it was a lychee coming. Lychee is delicious, but it also leaves a name for eternity, and Du Mu's poem is a satire of the extreme desire for the supreme ruler. Because for this mouth of lychee of the noble concubine, several people and several horses have to run to death every year, so extravagant, it is strange not to provoke infamy, from the above, lychee was really a luxury in ancient times. The noble concubine was scolded so badly that Qianlong, a lychee lover, could not make such a mistake again, and he thought of another way.
The Qing Dynasty's "Cantaloupe and Honey Lychee Bottom Book" records that in the forty-seventh year of Qianlong, the Fujian inspector planted lychee trees in small buckets. After the flowers and fruits in April, they are immediately transported to the boat and set off by water, and it is june when they arrive in the capital, which is the season when the lychees are ripe. It is equivalent to packaging the whole lychee tree in the past, which appears in the TV series Yanxi Raiders, and what the TV series says is also true. The lychee tree was not good for the treasure, but there were still not many in the hands of the emperor.
The "Cantaloupe and Honey Lychee Bottom Book" also records the distribution of lychees, and the total number of lychees shipped is 220, which is repeated. On the day of June 18, Qianlong received a report that 36 of his lychees were ripe. According to the rules, you have to take ten offerings to the Buddha, and the rest of Qianlong is sent over after breakfast the next day, why not eat at night, Xiaobian does not know. Probably too precious, he had to consider how to divide it, and the next day, the Qianlong Emperor thought about it. First of all, his mother, Empress Dowager Zhen Huan, had to have two, one for Emperor Wenhui's Noble Concubine and One for Princess Yu.
The rest had to be given to the empress, Ling Guifei, Shu Concubine, Concubine Yu, Qing Concubine, Ying Concubine, Wan Concubine, Xin Concubine, Yu Concubine, Lin Guiren, Lan Guiren, Guo Guiren, Yi Guiren, He Guiren, and Rui Guiren, and the emperor himself was the most numerous. Seeing this, I understand why the Eight Precepts of the Pig can't taste the three fruits, and what can one taste? Modern people eat lychees without scruples, and it is estimated that they can eat a full meal. And the above is still the royal family to taste one or two, ordinary people have not yet got, as a foodie, or live in the modern good ah.
References: Old Book of Tang, Cantaloupe, Honey Lychee Bottom Book