During the Wanli era, tea was a national resource, and horses were an instrument of statecraft.
The ancient Tea Horse Road was bound up with the security of the empire’s frontiers and the shifting currents of court politics.
Lu Yanqing, the last heir of a Jiangnan tea-merchant family, saw his clan destroyed by a grave injustice: they were accused of trading with foreign powers. To clear his family’s name, he assumes another identity and infiltrates the southwest, only to become entangled in the “Lintao Tea Scandal,” a case that sends shockwaves through the court. The government tea meant to be exchanged for warhorses has been filled with sand.
Inferior tea means weaker horses; weaker horses mean danger at the border.
As he investigates, he meets Duoji Ciren, a Tibetan warrior burdened by a blood feud. United in their mission to expose the fake tea and seek justice, the two become brothers in life and death. Armed with extraordinary cunning and deep knowledge of tea and horses, Lu Yanqing follows the clues from petty embezzlers in the Tea and Horse Office, to powerful clans monopolizing the ancient route, and finally to a mighty court official seeking to destabilize the government through the tea and horse trade...
He faces not only one bizarre corruption case after another, but also an ultimate struggle over the “tea and horses,” a vital lifeline of the state.
From minute disputes over testing tea and distinguishing its flavor to the nation’s calculations in judging and ranking horses; from clashes of steel along the ancient route to verbal battles in the halls of power, Lu Yanqing and Duoji Ciren, one a scholar and the other a warrior, one Han and the other Tibetan, embark together on an epic journey through an era steeped in the aroma of tea and the cries of horses. They seek to clear Lu’s family name, speak up for the people, and establish justice for all under heaven.
