Through the ages, hard work is the only way to do things - reading "Chang'an's Lychees"

I finished reading Prince Ma’s new book "Lychees of Chang'an" in one sitting.

The plot of the story is quite simple: During the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shande, a ninth-grade official in the Forestry Department of Chang'an who was responsible for the procurement of fruits and vegetables for the imperial court, had just bought a mortgaged house outside the Fifth Ring Road, and he was in trouble: I’m going to Lingnan to buy fresh lychees! While he was going through the house purchase and loan procedures for half a day, the Forestry Department received an errand to purchase fresh lychees. Colleagues in the department naturally recommended Li Shande, who was not present, to take over the job. Lychee is a good fruit in Lingnan. It is famously difficult to store and transport. Its color changes in one day, its fragrance changes in the second day, its taste changes in the third day, and it oozes juice and rots in the fourth day. It loses its color, fragrance and flavor. Lingnan is five thousand miles away from Chang'an. Even if we use the fastest eight hundred miles to rush, it will be difficult to transport fresh lychees to Chang'an. If the errand sent by the emperor himself fails, it will be easy to die a hundred times.

Li Shande was encouraged by Du Fu and determined to fight to the death. He went to Lingnan alone to experiment with transshipment of lychees, and he had to die clearly. After repeated field tests, "fresh" lychees were finally successfully transported to Yang Guifei's birthday banquet, which made Chang'an famous. This ninth-grade official has received a personal promise from the Right Prime Minister Yang Guozhong that he can immediately go to the sixth-grade "transition". From now on, he will prosper and have a bright future. He will wear scarlet purple and is just around the corner.

Li Shande, who personally experienced this unprecedented lychee transfer, found that the closer he was to success, the fewer friends he had. He was heartbroken about his loss and the cost of the lychee transfer. However, during the conversation with Yang Guozhong, I found that not only did the imperial court not spend any money, but it also made nearly twice as much oil and water from it. The cost of transshipment and the imperial court's surplus naturally fell on the people along the way. This aroused Li Shande's conscience and original intention to be an official, and he couldn't help but clash with Yang Guozhong. At the moment when he was about to die again, he was rescued by a mysterious man and was transported to Lingnan. In the lychee garden in Conghua, Guangzhou, he found inner peace and was willing to stay there for the rest of his life.

Prince Ma maintains the same fictional historical facts, the same narrative of small characters, and the same speed of life and death. 90,000 words, the novella is too long, and the novel is too short. Compared with "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an", "The Fifteenth Day in Two Capitals", and "The Wind Rises in Longxi", it is much smaller and does not constantly wander on the edge of life and death. It's exciting, but the storyline still has twists and turns and ups and downs that make people unable to put it down after picking it up.

After the plot of the first chapter was laid out, and starting from the second chapter, when I read Li Shande’s thinking, planning, and calculations for transporting lychees, I couldn’t help but pat my thigh and yell, “Holy shit.” , isn’t this a novel version of “The Ming Dynasty under the Microscope”? After reading the postscript with such doubts, I discovered that Prince Ma’s original intention for the creation came from "The Ming Dynasty under the Microscope". A joke he made with his friend "Yang Guifei can’t eat lychees when she goes to Japan" made him try to create it from From the perspective of an implementer, explain the hardships behind "The Red Dust Rides a Concubine's Laughter".

At first glance, Li Shande is going to complete an almost impossible task. The result of failure is death. When he takes over the task, he is already a dead person in the eyes of others. But like a project manager, he carefully thought, calculated, tried and made step by step, and finally completed this impossible task. Many of his methods, such as setting time nodes with deadlines, on-site investigation and research, and conducting AB tests , multiple trial and error iterations, digital management, introduction of venture capital, etc., are actually methods used by modern enterprises every day. His approach is even more detailed and precise than those who start a business if they disagree. Putting aside the dramatic plot of the novel and the ideological nature of exploring human nature and morality, this story can be used as a business case that combines positive incentives, structural thinking, innovative thinking and project management.

Throughout the ages, the only way to achieve success is to work hard. Prince Ma vividly describes the difficulties faced by people in the workplace and also writes a wonderful story.