'Express delivery' puts spotlight on ancient Lingnan

Adapted from a novella, drama about "lychee envoy" makes a summer TV hit, Xu Fan reports.

As summer heats up, lychee fruit becomes one of the season's most sought-after treats. However, for people living in northern China during ancient times, it was a luxury, most time, impossible to procure.

To demonstrate his love for Yang Yuhuan, the most famous concubine of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Emperor Xuanzong ordered officials to transport lychees from Lingnan (a region encompassing Guangdong and Hainan provinces, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and parts of Yunnan and Fujian provinces) to Chang'an, the country's then capital, now Xi'an, in Northwest China's Shaanxi province.

The journey spanned over 2,500 kilometers (from, say, Guangdong province) and took more than 20 days on horseback, yet lychees only stayed fresh for three days.

How could the officials devise a feasible method to fulfill the emperor's seemingly absurd demand? Failure meant death. This life-or-death challenge fell upon Li Shande, the fictional "lychee envoy" in award-winning writer Ma Boyong's best-selling novella The Litchi (lychee) Road.

First published in the literary magazine Harvest in 2021, the story, despite originally containing 70,000 words, was adapted into a 35-episode TV series of the same title, which aired on CCTV-8 and streamed on Tencent Video on Saturday.

Starring actor Lei Jiayin as Li, a low-ranking official, the drama follows his struggles amid a difficult life. As a widower raising a young daughter, he borrows a large sum of money to buy back the house he once pawned.

Framed by his boss and colleagues, Li, previously not daring to accept the impossible mission, is tricked into signing up for the task, unknowingly becoming the envoy assigned to transport fresh lychees as a birthday gift for the emperor's beloved concubine.

Feeling despair at the start, the resilient man with a talent for mathematics sets off on a grueling journey to investigate methods of extending the preservation of the lychees while reducing travel time. Along the way, he must overcome natural obstacles and jealous Lingnan officials sabotaging his mission.