Arithmetic national hand, lychee road and noble concubine's birthday
-- Examining historical events from the perspective of grassroots clerks
Text/Chen Dan
Ma Boyong digs deep into historical events from a unique perspective, examines the Chang'an Litchi that we are familiar with from the perspective of grassroots clerks, "Litchi of Chang'an" takes Supervisor Li Shande of Ming Shuke and No. 1 as the starting point, deeply probing the working mechanism of Tang Dynasty officials, the story is unique, the narrative is clear, the rhythm is tight, around the noble concubine's birthday preparation lychee fresh shop, pulling out a series of characters, writing the bitterness of the low-level officials and the complexity of human nature, showing Ma Boyong's storytelling talent and depth of thought.
"Lychee fried"? "Lychee fresh"!
Li Shande was a little flattered, he never dreamed that he would serve as the lychee envoy for the concubine's birthday, responsible for procuring ten catties of Lingnan Tegong lychee fried. Because lychees are extremely perishable, they have to be salted or dried in Chang'an over the years, and then impregnated with raw honey and then sealed with beeswax is "lychee frying". This lychee envoy's errand was to jump out of the temporary dispatch of the government office and directly handle the emperor's affairs, which was rich in oil and water. Li Shande was in a state of extreme excitement, he thought that he was running from time to time, and the "mortgage" was just around the corner!
At the beginning, Ma Boyong sets up such a fascinating plot, grasps the mood of a grassroots clerk about money and power, and rolls out the story for us.
In fact, Li Shande is just a supervisor, how can colleagues not compete to grab such good errands? When he woke up drunk and looked at the edict, a yellow piece of paper flew out with the word "fried", but the word "fresh" was pressed underneath! "Lychee fresh" and "lychee fried", the difference between one word, but the nature is a world of difference. Lychee changes color in one day, incense changes in two days, taste changes in three days, and in the Tang Dynasty, lychee is produced in Lingnan, Guizhou and Luzhou in Shudi. No matter where it is transported from, with the traffic conditions of the Tang Dynasty, this tolerance brings by no means a good future and a lucrative return, and there is no doubt that this hot potato is avoided by everyone in the Shanghai Forestry Department.
Ma Boyong set up such a mystery. February 3 completely changed Li Sundeok's fate. Li Shande was negligent for a while, signed the letter, and he was remorseful, and he even thought that only divorce and ending his own life could end this errand. Within a day, Li Shande experienced great joy and great sorrow.
Go Lingnan, pull sponsorship!
The concubine's birthday was June 1, and the emperor wanted the concubine to eat fresh lychees from Lingnan that day. It is absolutely impossible for a dragon horse to transport fresh lychees from Lingnan, which is five thousand miles away, to Chang'an, let alone Li Shande? By the third day, he knew he had to face this reality. The emperor's edict could not be changed, and his friend Du Fu believed that Li Shande could only go to Lingnan in person, and there was still a glimmer of life in letting go.
Ma Boyong pointed out the system of the Tang Dynasty: tolerance did not cost money for food and lodging at post stations along the way. Li Shandeming Arithmetic and No. 1, as a national arithmetic player, this road can also be regarded as a field investigation and research mileage route. However, as Lingnan draws closer, the data suggests that this is simply an impossible task. When Li Shande finally arrived in Lingnan, although he had been mentally prepared, local officials Zhao Xinmin and others thought it was whimsical, and they intended to perfunctory and send away this thorny problem.
Ma Boyong cleverly designed the process, Li Shande first met Hu Shang Su Shu, established a cooperative relationship, and then went deep into the front line of lychee planting, understood the planting technology of lychee and painstakingly sought a way to keep lychee fresh, and he was trusted and helped by a big planter. Therefore, in March, when the lychees first ripe, he even began to transport the lychees in advance, adopting precise calculation methods, designing statistical tables, and marking the itinerary of each route and the freshness of the lychees according to the color change, so as to clarify the maximum mileage and time that can be transported before the lychees deteriorate.
After hard exploration, when Li Shande finally solved the technical problem, a new difficulty came, in the face of complicated procedures and limited allocation of resources, to ensure that every link did not go wrong, in theory, it took eleven days to transport lychees from Lingnan to Chang'an. Li Shande understood that in order to ensure the smooth transfer of lychees, in addition to spending money and food, it also required the close cooperation of many government agencies.
Originally from Lingnan, Colix secretly observed that Yu Chaoen, the deputy envoy of Miyaichi, coveted Li Shandeok's work and managed to obtain his manuscript, so as to avoid his greed for his own merits, he arranged an interview between Li Shande and Yang Guozhong. This time, Li Shande gave full play to his arithmetic advantages, coupled with several months of painstaking research into the business, the report was very successful. Ma Boyong set up a plot: Li Shande gave all the credit to Yang Guozhong, as long as he gained Yang Guozhong's trust and favor, the transfer was logical. All levels of the ministry did not dare to slack off for Yang Guozhong's sake. Everything was ready, and Lee Sun-deok began the final fight. However, given the unexpected developments, how easy is it to implement the programme? First of all, Hu Shang Su Shu questioned Li Shande for breaking his trust, Li Shande was busy implementing the deployment of lychee transportation, Su Shun was wanted for forging the Five Provinces Passage Talisman, he escaped from the sea, but took away the most important essential tool for the first ring of lychee preservation - the double urn, and then, due to the temporary plugging, the purchased lychee was more than 10 pounds and caused transportation costs and risks, because of the violation of the interests of the Lingnan Chao Jisi, Li Shande was chased and killed by mercenaries along the way, and then the pick-up personnel of a post station fled, Add to that the difficulty of transporting ice... Ma Boyong had many emergencies at once, and Li Shande finally came to Chang'an despite all difficulties.
Boundless career? The way of the courtiers?
"A red dust concubine laughs, no one knows that it is Lychee." Ma Boyong reproduces this process, and when the last horse appears in the capital, Li Shande, who is waiting for Litchi in the capital, knows that he has done it. It only took him 7 days for this grassroots official to complete this unprecedented "little thing", and he was also able to become famous in Kyoto, gain Yang Guo's loyal eyes, and even receive the courtesy of noble concubines and saints.
Ma Boyong wrote an unexpected ending. Li Shande, who was originally a great talent, came all the way, but unexpectedly abandoned his great future, and he reprimanded Yang Guozhong for exploiting the people and anointing the people. As a direct consequence of this act, Li Shande was eventually assigned to Lingnan and never became official. Although he hopes to improve the life of himself and his family, and can have a great future, but he sees that all this is nothing more than a fly camp dog, for the official search for the lack of way, for the loss of the way of the minister, Li Shande chose to face the powerful Yang Guozhong, he became a clear stream, not with it. This may be the good pen of the writer Ma Boyong, the fate of such small people in history is tragic, they drown in the dust of history, become a name or a sentence in the texts, and no one even pays attention to everything they have worked so hard for. The depths of history are astonishingly sad.