Bai Juyi

Bai Juyi

Bai Juyi (772-846) was born in Xinzheng, Henan Province. He was born in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, and moved to Xiaying when he was his great grandfather. He is a great realistic poet and one of the three great poets in Tang Dynasty. Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen jointly advocated the new Yuefu movement, known as "Yuanbai" in the world, and together with Liu Yuxi, "Liubai".

Bai Juyi's poems have a wide range of themes, various forms, and plain and popular language, which is known as "the devil of poetry" and "the king of poetry". Official to Hanlin bachelor, Zuo zanshan doctor. In 846 ad, Bai Juyi died in Luoyang and was buried in Xiangshan. There are "Bai's Changqing collection" handed down, representative poems are "song of everlasting regret", "selling charcoal Weng", "Pipa line" and so on.

In 1988, the Japanese Society for the promotion of Chinese culture donated a stone tablet to Baiyuan to commemorate Bai Juyi. The inscription is written in Chinese and Japanese. In 1995, four Japanese wrote "Sakura offer" here.

Life of the characters

Born in troubled times

In the first month of 772, the seventh year of zongdali in Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi was born in Xinzheng, Henan Province. Shortly after Bai Juyi was born, war broke out in his hometown. Li Zhengji, a fan Town, ruled more than ten prefectures in Henan Province, and the people were in dire need of living because of the war. When Bai Juyi was two years old, Ren Gong's grandfather died in Chang'an, and then his grandmother died of illness. Bai Juyi's father, Bai Jigeng, joined the army by Songzhou Si Hu and was granted the magistrate of Pengcheng County in Xuzhou (780). A year later, Bai Jigeng and Li Zhen, the governor of Xuzhou, were promoted to be another driver in Xuzhou because of their contributions to Xuzhou. In order to avoid the war in Xuzhou, he sent his home to Fuli in Suzhou. Bai Juyi was able to spend his childhood in Fuli, Suzhou. Bai Juyi was very intelligent and studied very hard. His mouth was sore, his hands were cocooned, and his hair was white when he was young.

Official life

In 806, Bai Juyi left school. In April of the same year, he tried his ability and knowledge, and he was also a member of the Department of physical education. He was also awarded the title of "Wei" (now Zhouzhi County of Xi'an). In 807, he served as a Jinshi examiner, a Jixian school manager, and a Hanlin bachelor. In 808, Ren Zuoyi married Yang Yuqing's younger sister. In 810, he joined the army in the household Department of jingzhaofu. In 811, his mother Chen died, leaving his job and returning to Xiaying. In 814, he returned to Chang'an and granted the crown prince Zuo zanshan the title of doctor.

When Ren Zuo picked up the relics, Bai Juyi thought that he was appreciated and promoted by the emperor who liked literature, so he hoped to repay his kindness by doing his duty as a speech officer. Therefore, he wrote a lot of poems reflecting the social reality, hoping to supplement the current politics, and even pointed out the emperor's mistakes face to face. Bai Juyi's words were accepted by many people. However, the directness of his words made Tang Xianzong feel unhappy and complained to Li Jiang: "boy Bai Juyi, I was promoted to a famous position, but I was rude to me. I can't help it." Li Jiang thought that this was Bai Juyi's loyalty, and advised Xianzong to speak widely.

Demoted to Jiangzhou

In 815, Prime Minister Wu Yuanheng was assassinated and killed. Bai Juyi claimed that the murderer should be strictly punished, which is considered as a matter of Yue's words. Later, Bai Juyi was slandered: his mother died of falling into a well after seeing flowers, but Bai Juyi wrote poems about "appreciating flowers" and "new well", which was harmful to the famous religion. Therefore, he was demoted as Sima of Jiangzhou (now Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province). In 818, Bai Juyi's younger brother Bai Xingjian went to Jiangzhou to meet Bai Juyi. When Bai Juyi was appointed governor of Zhongzhou, Bai Xingjian also went up the river with his elder brother. On the way, he met Yuan Zhen in huangniu gorge. The place where the three people swam was called Sanyou cave. During his time in Zhongzhou, Bai Juyi planted flowers on the hillside in the east of Zhongzhou city and named it "Dongpo". In the winter of the same year, he was appointed as the governor of Zhongzhou (now Zhongxian County, Chongqing), and took office in 819. In the summer of 820, he was recalled to Chang'an and served as a member of the Department of Shangshu.

Although Bai Juyi's mother died because she saw flowers falling into a well, Bai Juyi had many poems about flowers. According to the records of the Song Dynasty, Xinjing's poems were written around the first year of Yuanhe (Xinjing's poems have been lost now), so it can not constitute a crime. The main reason for his relegation may be that he offended the authorities by writing satirical works. Banishment to Jiangzhou was the turning point of Bai Juyi's life: before that, he was determined to "help both sides", hoping to make a beneficial contribution to the people of the country; after that, his behavior gradually turned to "be alone". Although he was still concerned with the hearts of the people, his actions had no fire in the past. However, although Bai Juyi was not successful in Jiangzhou, he was still able to live peacefully. He once built a thatched cottage in the north of Xianglu peak in Lushan Mountain and made friends with local monks.

Working in Suzhou and Hangzhou

In the winter of 820, he was transferred to be a master and guest doctor. In 821, doctor San of the Jiachao Dynasty began to formally wear the five grades of scarlet (scarlet is the color of red, which is used by officials above five grades). He turned to the kingdom of Zhu, and then to the scholar of Zhongshu. In 822, Bai Juyi wrote a book on the military affairs of Hebei at that time, which was not adopted, so he asked to work in other places. He was appointed governor of Hangzhou in July and took office in October. During his term of office, he made achievements in building West Lake dyke and dredging six wells. In May 824, he served as Prince Zuo Shuzi's branch of Dongdu. In autumn, he went to Luoyang and bought a house in lvdaoli of Luoyang. In 825, he was appointed as the governor of Suzhou and took office in May. In 826, he left his job because of illness. Later, he accompanied Liu Yuxi to visit Yangzhou and Chuzhou.

During his term as governor of Hangzhou, he saw that six ancient wells in Hangzhou were in disrepair for a long time, so he took charge of dredging the six wells to solve the problem of drinking water for Hangzhou people. In addition, the West Lake silted up the farmland and was dry. Therefore, the dike was built to accumulate the lake water for irrigation and alleviate the harm caused by drought. The stone record of Qiantang lake was also written. The policies, methods and precautions for controlling the lake water were engraved on the lake for later generations to know, which had a great impact on the later control of the lake water in Hangzhou. Before leaving office, Bai Juyi left a sum of official salary in the state treasury as a fund for the official turnover of later Hangzhou Administration, and then made up for the original amount. When the fund had been operating until the chaos of Huangchao, when Huangchao arrived in Hangzhou, many documents were burned and lost, the fund disappeared.

There is a white dike in the West Lake, and willows are planted on both sides of the lake. In fact, this "white dyke" existed before Bai Juyi came to Hangzhou. It was called "white sand dyke" at that time and was found in Bai Juyi's poems.

When Bai Juyi was in Hangzhou, Yuan Zhen also transferred from the prime minister to the observation envoy of eastern Zhejiang. It was not too far away from the Prime Minister of eastern Zhejiang and Hangzhou, so there were many returning poems between them. When Bai Juyi left Hangzhou at the end of his term, Yuan Zhen asked Bai Juyi to hand over all his works and compile them into fifty volumes of Bai's Changqing collection.

During his term as governor of Suzhou, Bai Juyi, in order to facilitate the water and land transportation in Suzhou, dug a long Shantang River from Huqiu in the west to changmen in the East, and built a road to the north of the Shantang River, called "Qili Shantang", or "Shantang Street" for short.

Life in old age

In 827, Bai Juyi went to Chang'an as a Secretary Supervisor. He was equipped with purple goldfish bags and changed into purple court clothes (the color used by officials above grade three). In 828, he was transferred to the Minister of punishment, and was granted the title of Jinyang County male. In the spring of 829, due to illness, he was given the crown prince's guest division and returned to Luoyang. In December 830, he served as Yin of Henan Province. Yuan Zhen died in July 831. In 832, he wrote an epitaph for Yuan Zhen. The yuan family gave Bai Juyi 600000 yuan and 700000 yuan. Bai Juyi gave all the money to Xiangshan temple in Luoyang. In 833, he was released from Henan Yin due to illness, and then served as the guest branch of the crown prince. In 835, he was appointed as governor of Tongzhou, but he did not leave. Later, he was appointed as Prince Shaofu's branch of Dongdu, Fengyi county's Marquis, and he remained in Luoyang. In October of 839, he got wind disease. In 841, the crown prince was dismissed and his salary stopped. In 842, he served as Minister of the Ministry of punishment and received half salary.

In his later years, Bai Juyi's life mostly reflected his life philosophy of "poverty alone" with "leisure" life. In 844, at the age of 73, Bai Juyi paid money to excavate the stone beach in the Longmen area, which hindered the boat's travel. After the event, he wrote a poem "two poems of stone beach at the eighth festival of kailongmen" as a memento, which still reflects his philosophy of "achieving the goal and helping the world".

In his later years, Bai Juyi spent most of his time in lvdaoli, Luoyang, singing with Liu Yuxi, and often traveled around Longmen. He wrote about himself in "chapter on the pond" and "biography of Mr. zuiyin". In 845, at the age of 74, Bai Juyi was still holding the "seven elders' meeting" in ludaoli. The participants were Hu Gao, Ji Jiao, Zheng Zheng, Liu Zhen, Lu Zhen, Zhang Hun and Bai Juyi. In the summer of the same year, he drew the "nine elders' picture" with seven elders' monks Ruman and Li yuanshuang. In his later years, Bai Juyi believed in Buddhism and was called a Buddhist monk in Xiangshan.

An Shi Luoyang

Bai Juyi died in Luoyang on August 14 (September 8), the sixth year of Wuzong Huichang (846), at the age of 75. He was given the title of "Wen" as a gift to the minister and was buried in Xiangshan, Luoyang. After Bai Juyi's death, Li Chen, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem to mourn him, saying, "who taught Ming Lu to be an immortal poet after sixty years of jade and Pearl weaving? Fuyun is not named Juyi, but Wuwei is called Rakuten. The boy can sing the song of everlasting regret, and hu er can sing the piece of pipa. The article is full of people's ears, and once I felt sad. " He is the author of "Bai's Changqing collection", a total of 71 volumes.

Main achievements

officialdom

In the early stage, it was the period of helping the whole world at the same time, and in the later stage, it was the period of being independent. In the 16th year of Zhenyuan (800), Bai Juyi was a Jinshi in the middle school at the age of 29. He successively served as secretary of the provincial school, scholar of the Hanlin Academy. During the reign of Yuanhe, he was left to pick up a large number of allegorical poems. His representative works were ten Qin Zhongyin and fifty new Yuefu. These poems made the dignitaries cut their teeth, strangle their wrists and change their color. In the sixth year of Yuanhe, Bai Juyi's mother died of neurological disorders in Chang'an. According to the rules at that time, Bai Juyi went back to his hometown to observe filial piety for three years. After filial piety, he returned to Chang'an. The emperor arranged for him to be doctor Zuo zanshan.

In June of the 10th year of Yuanhe reign, when Bai Juyi was 44 years old, Wu Yuanheng, the prime minister, and the emperor

Chinese PinYin : Bai Ju Yi