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Story 6: Xi Shi and Li Folktales
Xi Shi and Li
Author: Chun Lei
There is a plum garden in Taoyuan Village, Baitao Township, Tongxiang City. The plums grown in this plum garden have huge fruits, bright red skin, unusual fragrance, sweetness and deliciousness, ranking first among all plums. There is a claw mark on the top of the plum fruit that looks like a nail pinch. It is said that this is the mark left by the beauty Xi Shi.
In the Spring and Autumn Period a long time ago, the Baitao area was the border between Wu and Yue.
Here, there is a city in the Yue Kingdom named Li. The Spring and Autumn Period was eventful, with Wu and Yue often at war, and the Yue Kingdom was defeated by the Wu Kingdom. The Yue King Gou Jian had to retreat to Kuaiji and become a minister to Wu.
Gou Jian suffered so much shame and humiliation that he swore revenge and avenged his shame. When he learned that King Wu’s wife was lecherous and lecherous, he decided to adopt the “beauty plan” proposed by the minister Wen Zhong. He sent his wise minister Fan Li to Zhuji Zhuluo Village to find a Xishi girl who was smart, beautiful and extremely patriotic, and planned to dedicate her to the King of Wu.
Xi Shi understood the intention of the King of Yue. In order to wash away the shame of subjugating her country, she resolutely endured humiliation and married into an enemy country. She studied court etiquette and silk and bamboo singing and dancing in Kuaiji for three years. In the spring of this year, escorted by a group of maids, she took a fragrant carriage and a BMW and set out from Kuaiji, passed Qiantang, and headed north along the ancient road.
Along the way, I saw willows as green as smoke and spring flowers as bright as fire. When they passed by Jianli City, they looked up and saw plum trees everywhere. Snow-white plum flowers clustered into balls and bloomed all over the branches, like a sea of snow. When Xi Shi saw this beautiful scenery, she felt nostalgic for her hometown. She couldn’t help but sigh in a low voice:
“The plum blossoms in my hometown cause nostalgia. When will I return home?”
When Xishi entered Wu Palace, King Wu Fu Chai was really moved by her beauty and stayed with her all day long. In order to win Xi Shi’s favor, King Wu always catered to her needs. The tributes sent from various places must first be selected by Xi Shi.
In the summer of this year, the State of Yue paid tribute to King Wu with a batch of plums. Fu Cha immediately ordered the palace maid to give these plums to Xi Shi to taste. When Xi Shi heard that these were plums sent from her motherland, she felt emotional about them and recalled the scene roaming in the pear orchard in spring.
She really wanted to grow a pair of wings and fly back to Yue Kingdom immediately, so she would not have the time to taste these plums.
After a while, King Wu came into the palace. When he saw the plums brought by the palace maid, which were still sealed and placed on the table, he said flatteringly: “My dear concubine, why don’t you taste such a good tribute fruit?”
Xi Shi replied: “It has been too long since I picked these plums, and they are no longer fresh.”
“I order them to bring some fresh plums immediately!” King Wu said and was about to pass on the order.
Xi Shi waved her hand and said: “The two places are far apart, and it is difficult to keep them fresh if they are delayed on the road. I want to go to Liyuan to pick and taste them myself.”
Hearing that Xi Shi wanted to go on a trip to taste Li, the King of Wu readily agreed. So he mobilized troops and selected a group of palace maids to accompany Xi Shi to Li Garden. Xishi came to Jianli City and felt very comfortable returning to her homeland. I saw plum trees in rows outside the city, and the tree heads were covered with bright red plums. The scenery was beautiful and moving. Surrounded by a group of palace ladies, she strolled to Li Garden.
The ripe plums are green inside, red inside, densely dotted with yellow spots, and covered with white powder on the outside. Their flavor is alluring. Xi Shi picked one at random and pinched the top of the plum lightly with her fingernails. The juice immediately overflowed and the aroma filled her nose.
Put it in your mouth and suck it, the plum juice is like sweet wine. Xi Shi ate several pills and got drunk. From then on, people named the plums here “drunk plums”.
Because “Zui” and “懇” (Kěn) have the same pronunciation, and the city was named Xiuli, people later called the plums here Xiuli.
Strangely enough, ever since Xi Shi came to Li Garden, the plums grown here have a scar shaped like a claw mark on the top of the fruit. People say that this is the nail mark left by Xi Shi when she ate plums. They call it “Xishi’s claw marks”, just like the finger marks of the imperial concubine on peonies.
It has been passed down through the ages and has been a good talk. Zhu Zhusha, Taishi of the Qing Dynasty, once wrote in “Yuanhu Zhuoge”: “I heard that Xi Shi once pinched her, and now there are claw marks all over her.”
Source: China Folktales
