General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Li Wei the Magistrate (李卫当官)

Li Wei the Magistrate (李卫当官), also known as Yongzheng Dynasty: Li Wei the Magistrate (雍正王朝之李卫当官), is a 30-episode Chinese costume comedy directed by Zheng Jun, starring Xu Zheng, Chen Hao, and Tang Guoqiang, first broadcast in September 2001 on Tianjin Cable Television.¹^•² Set in the late Kangxi and early Yongzheng years of the Qing dynasty, it follows Li Wei, an illiterate commoner who stumbles into officialdom and rises through the ranks by outwitting corrupt officials.¹

Key fact	Detail
Original title	李卫当官, also 雍正王朝之李卫当官¹
Format	30 episodes, 45 minutes each; costume comedy in Mandarin¹
Premiere	September 2001, Tianjin Cable Television²
Lead cast	Xu Zheng (Li Wei), Chen Hao (Yue Siying), Tang Guoqiang (Yinzhen), Jiao Huang (Kangxi)¹
Production	Hainan TV and Hainan Zhouyi Film Company; 15 million yuan investment¹
Ratings	Douban 7.7/10 from 32,250 users; Mtime 7.9/10 from 145 users (as of April 4, 2024)¹
Follow-ups	Li Wei the Magistrate 2 (2004), Li Wei Resigns (2005), Li Wei the Magistrate 3 (2010)³

Spoilers

Plot

The story opens in Jiangnan during a flood. The three million taels of disaster-relief silver allocated for river works is embezzled, and the censor Yue Zifeng, who exposed the corruption, is murdered. The Kangxi Emperor orders the Fourth Prince Yinzhen and the Thirteenth Prince Yinxiang to investigate incognito.⁷^•⁸

Li Wei, a low-born refugee traveling with his mother, meets Yue Zifeng's daughter Yue Siying and her brother on the road. When Li's mother and the boy are arrested and sentenced to death on trumped-up treason charges by the corrupt Jiangdu magistrate Feng Yueqing, Li Wei poses as an imperial envoy and storms the execution ground, using a sword stolen from the lodging Yinxiang. The stunt exposes a vast corruption network reaching the river director-general, and Yinzhen, impressed by the "outwardly roguish, inwardly upright" young man, has Li Wei appointed a seventh-rank magistrate of Suyang County.⁷^•⁸

Illiterate and unschooled in officialdom, Li Wei blunders comically at first but uses his street cunning to crush local bullies, earning the people's praise. When war in the northwest strains the treasury, he is promoted to prefect of Yangzhou, a major tax region, to investigate salt merchants' tax evasion and punish corrupt officials; the story ends with his rise to governor-general of Liangjiang.⁷^•¹ The opening theme song is "Shen Wu Qian Gua Dan Qi Cu" (身无牵挂胆气粗), sung by Guan Peng.¹

Production

The series came out of the team behind Yongzheng Dynasty (1999), the historical drama whose chief producer Su Bin and chief screenwriter Liu Heping had made it a nationwide success. After about a year and a half of deliberation, the two decided in 2000 to collaborate again, this time on a costume comedy rather than a solemn historical drama; Liu Heping described the new project as a thorough "self-subversion."¹ Hainan TV and the Hainan Haifeng Film Company invested 15 million yuan in the 30-episode production.¹

Because the series reused the Yongzheng Dynasty cast for its court figures, only the two leads needed casting. A public recruitment was posted online on August 14, 2000; Xu Zheng, then known for the comedy Sunny Piggy, was chosen as Li Wei, and Chen Hao, a Central Academy of Drama student, as Yue Siying.¹ Tang Guoqiang (Yinzhen, the future Yongzheng Emperor), Jiao Huang (Kangxi), Wang Hui (Prince Thirteen), Wang Huichun (Prince Eight), Xu Min (the Crown Prince), and Du Zhiguo (Nian Gengyao) all reprised the roles they had played in Yongzheng Dynasty.¹^•⁴ Filming took place from late 2000 to early 2001 in Beijing, Suzhou, and Wuxi.⁵

Screenwriting credit varies among sources: Baidu Baike credits Yu Yue (毓钺) as screenwriter,¹ The Paper credits Liu Heping and Yu Yue,³ and Sogou Baike lists Liu Heping and Su Bin.⁶

Relationship to history and to Yongzheng Dynasty

The historical Li Wei was a real and prominent Qing official, but the drama's version shares little with him beyond the name. Screenwriter Liu Heping said the character's background, personality, and experiences were almost entirely invented, while the historical setting was kept authentic so that the invented plots remained plausible for their era.³ The real Li Wei, whom the Yongzheng Emperor ranked among his three most valued officials alongside Ortai and Tian Wenjing, was praised for boldness and criticized for crudeness; he had purchased his initial office and was not a jinshi graduate.⁹^•¹⁰

Liu Heping also rejected calling the series a sequel to Yongzheng Dynasty: the two dramas begin at roughly the same point in the Kangxi era, and Li Wei the Magistrate is a comedy played with the serious faces of the earlier drama's cast rather than a continuation of its story.¹¹ The first season was planned as the Kangxi-era stage of a three-stage arc covering Li Wei under Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong.¹¹

Reception and sequels

Critics received the series well. NetEase Entertainment praised the script and the characterization from Jiao Huang's Kangxi down to Li Wei's unruly mother, singling out its treatment of officialdom's unwritten rules; Sina Entertainment noted that the characters' traits give the show a comic register very different from Yongzheng Dynasty, while its battles against dark officialdom give the comedy a reflective undertone.¹ On Douban it holds 7.7 out of 10 from 32,250 users, and on Mtime 7.9 from 145 users, as of April 4, 2024.¹

The success produced a loose franchise. Li Wei the Magistrate 2 (2004), with a largely replaced creative team, follows Li Wei under the Yongzheng reign as a Suzhou imperial textile commissioner investigating corruption; critics judged it markedly weaker than the first season.³ Li Wei Resigns (李卫辞官, 2005), a 42-episode series starring Qin Pei as an aging Li Wei under the new Qianlong Emperor, premiered in 2006.¹² Li Wei the Magistrate 3 (大内低手, 2010) brought back Xu Zheng and screenwriter Yu Yue but shifted to Li Wei's grandson Li Chuanwei in the late Qianlong and early Jiaqing years.³ A remake under the title Bu Yi Qing Tian was filed for production around 2021.³

The Paper's retrospective places Li Wei in the same lineage of popular underdog figures as Wei Xiaobao and Xiaoyanzi: a草根 hero who despises the powerful yet thrives under imperial favor, a combination the critic reads as reflecting popular Chinese attitudes toward power.³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › Chinese modern and contemporary drama

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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