Looking back at Chang 'an, Mount Li is like a pile of splendid scenery, and the gates of Huaqing Palace on the top of the mountain are opened in turn. Riding a princess and laughing in the world of mortals, no one knew it was litchi.
Litchi is produced in the south, and with the world rule that things are scarce, litchi is regarded as a treasure in the Central Plains, and it is hard to find one. The shelf life of litchi is only a few days. Where did the fresh litchi that Yang Guifei ate in Chang 'an in the Tang Dynasty come from in the south? What does this have to do with the post office in the Tang Dynasty?
The love story between Yang Guifei and Tang Xuanzong has been deeply rooted in people's hearts since Bai Juyi's Song of Eternal Sorrow and has become one of the well-known allusions in China. In order to win the favor of his beloved woman, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty spared no expense to transport fresh litchi from the far south.
When Bai Juyi was appointed as the magistrate of Nanbin, Sichuan, it was a great pleasure to produce litchi locally. In addition, he ordered the painter to draw a picture of litchi and make his own preface. In this preface, he summed up the fact that at that time more than 1000 years later, the preservation time of litchi was similar to today: leaving this branch, it changed color for one day, became fragrant for two days, changed flavor for three days, and lost color and fragrance after four or five days.
Litchi is not produced in Chang 'an, which is located in the heart of China, but must come from the south of Chang 'an. This litchi-rich south is probably nothing more than the following: first, Fujian; Second, Guangdong and Guangxi; Third, Sichuan. The story about Yang Guifei and Litchi is recorded in the most authoritative historical material "Biography of Yang Guifei" in the New Tang Dynasty. Unfortunately, it didn't mention the origin of litchi, only said: I love litchi, so I will have something to live for, so I rode thousands of miles and my taste hasn't changed. She has arrived in the capital.
Then, the question left to us now is: Where did Yang Guifei's smiling litchi come from?
Tang dynasty inn
To understand where Yang Guifei's favorite litchi came from, we must first understand the traffic conditions in the Tang Dynasty and even in ancient China. Before the pre-Qin dynasty, the vassal states were divided, and the territory of each country was not large, and the distance from the capital to the place under its jurisdiction was not too far, so there was no systematic national transportation system at that time. By the time Qin Shihuang unified China, a complete empire was born. To unify government decrees, a necessary prerequisite is that there must be powerful means to ensure the smooth flow of government decrees from the imperial city to the farthest frontier. At this time, as an important part of imperial rule, the post station came into being and lasted for 2000 years in China.
From the Qin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, nearly 1000 years passed, and the post station system was more reasonably improved during this period 1000 years. According to historical records, the post station system in the Tang Dynasty mainly followed the Han Dynasty, and there was a post station every 30 miles on the main road called the official road all over the country. According to statistics, from the early years of Tang Dynasty to the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, there were a total of 1 639 post stations in China, including 260 water posts, 297 land posts 1 297 land posts and 86 land posts. The system of post stations throughout ancient China was greatly developed in the Tang Dynasty, and the post stations in the Tang Dynasty were more developed than ever before.
Under the developed post system, these nerve-like post roads closely link Chang 'an, the heart of the empire, with all corners of the empire. Since ancient times, posthorses that postmen ride have to hang a special bell under the horse's neck, so that when the postmen are still galloping at once, the postmen at the next station can make preparations in advance after hearing the bell from a distance, and send the messages to be conveyed or small items to be transported to the next station as quickly as possible.
This busy and orderly scene is a common daily scene in ancient China. In the Tang Dynasty, which had the largest number of post stations and the longest postal route, many poets at that time wrote it into their own works, thus leaving us vivid historical information in another more vivid form, such as Wang Wei's A Horse in Ten Miles, A Whip in Five Miles, Cen Can's One Post After Another, A Post Riding Like a Milky Way, and Zhao Wei's The Warming of Birds.
The state's management of post stations is not only to set up post stations evenly in all places, but also to clearly stipulate the speed of document delivery by legal means: ordinary documents and articles, one day and night trip 180 miles; Emergency documents and articles, according to the urgency, range from 300 miles to 500 miles at most. When we read some historical novels, we often see the so-called 800-mile urgent documents. The most urgent documents came at the speed of 800 miles a day and night. But in the Tang dynasty, there was no such speed in the post station. Their fastest speed was 500 miles a day.
After making it clear that the limit of human speed in Yang Guifei's era can only be equal to or less than 500 miles per day and night, and the litchi beloved by beautiful women can only come from Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and Sichuan, we can now draw a conclusion that only litchi picked from the nearest place to Chang 'an can be carried by a stag with four hooves on the ancient post road, so that it can reach Chang 'an in the hinterland of the empire before these delicate and fragile fruits disappear.
The Three Homes of Litchi
Over the years, almost every litchi-rich place has tried to connect itself with Yang Guifei. Although there are many candidates, there is only one place that really wins.
One is from Fujian, that is, the litchi that Yang Guifei eats comes from Fujian. The most famous litchi variety in Fujian is Chenzi. In the Song Dynasty, there was a Fujian man named Cai Xiang who wrote a book on litchi. He thought that litchi produced in Fujian was the best in the world, and its origin was also very famous in Zhangfu. Looking at today's map of China, you will find that Jiangxi and Hubei provinces are separated between Fujian and Chang 'an, while Guangdong and Guangxi are separated by Hunan, Hubei and Chang 'an. On the surface, the distance between Fujian and Guangdong and Guangxi to Chang 'an seems to be similar, but it is not. Li Jifu, a national geographic official in the Tang Dynasty, went from Fujian to Chang 'an. His route is to bypass Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui and Henan, and the general routes are Fuzhou, Wenzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Hangzhou, Changzhou, Yangzhou, Huai 'an, Xuyi, Suzhou, Shangqiu, Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Lingbao, Tongguan and Chang 'an. If this circle is tossed down, even if it is 250 kilometers per day, it will take more than 10 days. Litchi that needs to be transported in 10 day is obviously inedible. Because, even Cai Xiang, who praised litchi in central Fujian because of "Who says my hometown is in a good mood", did not say that Yang Guifei's litchi came from Fujian, but pitied Yang Guifei and lamented that she was an imperial princess, but did not eat litchi in Fujian.
The second is the theory of Guangdong and Guangxi, that is, Yang Guifei's litchi comes from Guangdong and Guangxi. The most primitive basis of this statement is Li Zhaoguo's Ten Scores in the Tang Dynasty: Yang Guifei was born in Shu and loves litchi. People born in Shanghai, especially those who are better than Shu, so they gallop forward every year.
The so-called Nanhai County belongs to Panyu, which is today's Guangzhou. Whether in the Tang Dynasty or today, litchi in Guangdong flourished in Zengcheng, Conghua, Maoming and Zhanjiang, among which Maoming was one of the origins of litchi. The most famous litchi variety in Guangdong is called Feizixiao, whose name is said to be that Yang Guifei once smiled at the fruit. In Guangxi, Beihai, Rongxian, tengxian, Baise and other places are the most abundant, and the output and variety are second only to Guangdong, ranking second in the country. It is also the precious historical materials provided by Yuanhe County Records, which enables us to clearly draw the route from Guangdong and Guangxi to Chang 'an in the era of Yang Guifei. Take Maoming as an example. In ancient times, the Central Plains went deep into Guangdong and Guangxi, passing through Guangzhou and Zhaoguan successively, and then crossing the rugged Dayuling, which was a natural barrier. When Su Dongpo returned to the Central Plains from Hainan to turn up this mountain, he talked with an old man on the ridge and sighed for it. He wrote a poem and asked Weng Dayuling to live there. He had seen several people move south. It can be seen that this mountain was a screen that blocked the north-south traffic in ancient China. After Dayuling, the route to Chang 'an turned east, entered Jiangxi, and arrived in Nanchang Tang Dynasty through Ganzhou, which was called Hongzhou. Then from Nanchang to Wuchang and Hanyang via Jiujiang, then to Suizhou via Anlu, and from Suizhou to Chang 'an to Shaanxi. Compared with the journey from Fujian to Chang 'an, this journey is indeed a little short, but it takes about 9 to 10 days to calculate the distance of 250 kilometers per day, and it is impossible to guarantee the safe delivery of litchi to Chang 'an, the imperial capital. So the theory of Guangdong and Guangxi can't stand scrutiny.
After the advocates of Guangdong and Guangxi realized this problem, they put forward two hypotheses: one hypothesis is that Yang Guifei ate not fresh litchi, but wine made from litchi, which was made in the litchi producing area of Guangdong and Guangxi, and then transported to Chang 'an by post road. But if it's litchi wine, there's no need to worry, and it won't be sent to Chang 'an by express anyway. The second hypothesis is that when litchi is ripe, the whole litchi is cut down and all the branches and leaves are transported to Chang 'an. Because litchi still grows on the tree, although the litchi tree has been cut down, the preservation period of this method is longer than that of fresh litchi picked from the tree. However, this assumption is impossible for two reasons: First, the post roads in the Tang Dynasty were not as good as those in expressway today, and many sections were rugged paths that passed through the vast jungle. An adult litchi tree bearing fruit has branches at least several meters long, which will add a lot of trouble to transportation and slow down the speed. The increased shelf life and slower transportation time offset, and there is no advantage at all; Secondly, if the whole litchi tree is really transported to Chang 'an, then Du Mu can't say that the concubine riding in the world of mortals is laughing, and no one knows that it is litchi.
Third, Bashu said that Yang Guifei's litchi came from Sichuan. I think this is also the closest statement to the historical truth. Bashu said that although there is no evidence in the official history, some serious unofficial history records it clearly. For example, a book written by He Lin Yulu in the Song Dynasty said: When the emperor of the Tang Dynasty laughed on the world of mortals, he said that it was born by Lu Rong, so Du Zimei remembered the sentence of Lu Rong picking lychees.
In addition, Cai Xiang, who is full of praise for litchi in her hometown of Fujian, also thinks that the litchi eaten by Yang Guifei is from Sichuan. So, where were these lychees transported to Chang 'an from Sichuan? The following two places are possible, that is, Fuling in Sichuan and Hejiang in Sichuan. In today's Hejiang and Fuling, there are two fragrant ancient roads as historical witnesses.
A fragrant ancient road
As long as you don't peel off the shell of litchi, you can't smell the bright fruit flavor at all. However, in Sichuan, two roads were once famous for Yang Guifei's litchi. These are two ancient traffic arteries, which used to be an important way for this inland mountainous province to communicate with the outside world. Today, when you walk on these two ancient roads, once you think that the litchi that Yang Guifei loves is from here to the distant Chang 'an, you will soon see a scene of galloping post horses and flying hooves.
Du Fu traveled to Yibin today during his exile in Sichuan. He ate fresh litchi at a party, so he wrote a poem saying that spring wine is more important than red litchi. At that time, Yibin was called Rongzhou, and its jurisdiction area was much larger than today's Yibin. Among the counties adjacent to Rongzhou, Hejiang, which lives downstream, is an ancient county with a history of 2,000 years and the most important litchi producing area in Sichuan. Yang Guifei's litchi may have been transported to Chang 'an from here. Yang Guifei is from Sichuan, and her father has been a local official in Sichuan for many years. It was in Sichuan that she ate litchi, and Yang Guifei could not bear to forget litchi, so that later Tang Xuanzong smiled for Bomei at the expense of people and money.
There are several famous lychees in Hejiang, such as Jiangshalan, Lv Dai and Ti Tuo. This is the highest latitude litchi planting area in the world, and the fruit ripens more than two months later than those in coastal Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian. When the coastal lychees have already disappeared, the late-maturing lychees here are gradually maturing.
Hejiang, located on the bank of the Yangtze River, has always been a major traffic artery. Litchi picked from here at that time passed through Luzhou, Longchang, Zizhong and Jianyang, then arrived in Chengdu, and then went north from Chengdu, and entered the famous ancient Shu Road. Li Bai once lamented that the Shu Road was difficult to reach heaven, saying that 48,000 years had passed and there was no connection with Qin Sai. In fact, this is only the poet's exaggeration. Historically, since the pre-Qin period, although there were mountains, there were secret passages connecting Sichuan and Shaanxi between mountains and between mountains. This ancient road runs from Chengdu to the north, passing through Deyang, Mianyang and Zitong, crossing the big and small Jianshan, passing through Guangyuan chessboard, going out of Sichuan, crossing the Shimen along Baohe River, crossing the Qinling Mountains and reaching Chang 'an. For Yang Guifei's beloved litchi, those strong postmen and post horses gallop at a speed of 250 kilometers every day, and it takes about 4 to 5 days to reach Chang 'an.
For many years, a fresh-keeping method of litchi has been circulating in Hejiang. According to legend, it was invented by Yang Guifei when transporting litchi: just picked litchi was put into a big bamboo tube, and then the bamboo tube was sealed with wet mud to extend the shelf life of litchi by the vitality of bamboo. During the interview with Hejiang, I consulted Mr. Shen, an engineer of county agricultural station who has been engaged in litchi research for more than 20 years, and got his affirmative answer. Of course, whether this is really a folk preservation technique spread from the Tang Dynasty to the present remains to be verified.
Bai Juyi wrote in the Preface to Litchi: Litchi was born between the Three Gorges. Pakistan is today's Chongqing, historically belonging to Sichuan, and the gorge refers to the Three Gorges. The Nanbin where Bai Juyi wrote this article is today's stone pillar, in Chongqing. This shows that Shizhu area in Chongqing is also one of the producing areas of litchi in Tang Dynasty, although it is difficult to find the shadow of litchi in these places today. Cai Xiang believes that Yang Guifei's litchi originated in Fuzhou, Sichuan, which is now Fuling, Chongqing. For a long time, Shizhu was a county under the jurisdiction of Fuling.
Litchi transported from Fuling to Chang 'an passed another ancient road, which was even renamed as Litchi Road because Yang Guifei transported litchi. Its basic route was clearly marked in the works of scholars in the Ming Dynasty, namely, Jia Wei Tongjiang Changshi Town, Tongchuan Xuanhan, Liangping, Fuling, and Chang 'an, Ningshan. The total length of Litchi Road is about 1000 km, and the mileage is similar to Hejiang to Chang 'an, which takes 4 to 5 days. 2 10 national highway was built in 1950s, along the old litchi road between the mountains in Qinba mountain area. In Changshi Township, which belongs to Wanyuan County, there is a Gu Song with an altitude of 10 meters. This big tree standing beside Litchi Road is said to have a history of 1000 years. Near the pine tree, it used to be an ancient post station on litchi road. Perhaps many years ago, when this pine tree was still a seedling, those brave postmen rode post horses as anxious as lightning, carrying a king's favor to their beauty and hurried across the ancient road. These post horses and postmen, they are having a relay race with the waiting period. For this little bright red fruit, this empire named Datang left a deep and vivid back.