Jun 28, 2024
For entirely unrelated fic research reasons, I stumbled upon this great academic book chapter on gift giving and associated letter writing in early medieval China including letters from Cao Cao and Lady Bian to the parents of Yang Xiu, letters from Cao Pi dissing the fruit of the Shu and Wu regions, and letters from the later Liang Dynasty on the qualities of oranges (making reference to previous Three Kingdoms writings while doing so). There's also a fun little story right at the end about the possible ways of interpreting a gift of cloves from Cao Cao to Zhuge Liang.
With much appreciation to the author for having the chapter publicly available on her academic website!
