'' by Jin Guliang, Ming dynasty The two "Books of Tang",
The Old Book of Tang and
The New Book of Tang, remain the primary sources of bibliographical material on Li Bai. Other sources include internal evidence from poems by or about Li Bai, and certain other sources, such as the preface to his collected poems by his relative and literary executor, Li Yangbin.
Background and birth Li Bai is generally considered to have been born in 701, in
Suyab of ancient Chinese Central Asia (present-day
Kyrgyzstan), where his family had prospered in business at the frontier. Afterwards, the family under the leadership of his father, Li Ke (), moved to
Jiangyou, near modern
Chengdu, in
Sichuan, when the youngster was about five years old. There is some mystery or uncertainty about the circumstances of the family's relocations, due to a lack of legal authorization which would have generally been required to move out of the border regions, especially if one's family had been assigned or exiled there.
Background Two accounts given by contemporaries
Li Yangbing (a family relative) and Fan Chuanzheng state that Li's family was originally from what is now southwestern
Jingning County, Gansu. Li's ancestry is traditionally traced back to
Li Gao, the noble founder of the state of
Western Liang. This provides some support for Li's own claim to be related to the Li dynastic royal family of the Tang dynasty: the Tang emperors also claimed descent from the Li rulers of West Liang. This family was known as the
Longxi . Evidence suggests that during the
Sui dynasty, Li's own ancestors, at that time for some reason classified socially as commoners, were forced into a form of exile from their original home (in what is now Gansu) to some location or locations further west. During their exile in the far west, the Li family lived in the ancient
Silk Road city of Suiye (
Suyab, now an archeological site in present-day Kyrgyzstan), and perhaps also in Tiaozhi, a state near modern
Ghazni, Afghanistan. These areas were on the ancient
Silk Road, and the Li family were likely merchants. Their business was quite prosperous.
Early years In 705, when Li Bai was four years old, his father secretly moved his family to
Sichuan, near
Chengdu, where he spent his childhood. Currently, there is a monument commemorating this in
Zhongba Town,
Jiangyou, Sichuan province (the area of the modern province known then as Shu, after a former independent state which had been annexed by the Sui dynasty and later incorporated into the Tang dynasty lands). The young Li spent most of his growing years in
Qinglian (), a town in Changming County, Sichuan, China. and exchanges of poems, including many expressions of love for her and their children. His wife, Zong, was a granddaughter of
Zong Chuke, an important government official during the Tang dynasty and the interregnal period of
Wu Zetian.
On the way to Chang'an Leaving Sichuan In his mid-twenties, about 725, Li Bai left Sichuan, sailing down the
Yangzi River through
Dongting Lake to
Nanjing, beginning his days of wandering. He then went back up-river, to
Yunmeng, in what is now
Hubei, where his marriage to the granddaughter of a retired prime minister,
Xu Yushi, seems to have formed but a brief interlude. During the first year of his trip, he met celebrities and gave away much of his wealth to needy friends. In 730, Li Bai stayed at Zhongnan Mountain near the capital Chang'an (Xi'an), and tried but failed to secure a position. He sailed down the Yellow River, stopped by Luoyang, and visited Taiyuan before going home. In 735, Li Bai was in
Shanxi, where he intervened in a court martial against
Guo Ziyi, who was later, after becoming one of the top Tang generals, to repay the favour during the An Shi disturbances. By perhaps 740, he had moved to
Shandong. It was in Shandong at this time that he became one of the group known as the "Six Idlers of the Bamboo Brook" or the
Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (
Rong Qiqi's inclusion was anachronous), an informal group dedicated to literature and wine. Emperor Xuanzong employed him as a translator, as Li Bai knew at least one non-Chinese language. A story, probably apocryphal, circulates about Li Bai during this period. Once, while drunk, Li Bai had gotten his boots muddy, and
Gao Lishi, the most politically powerful
eunuch in the palace, was asked to assist in the removal of these, in front of the Emperor. Gao took offense at being asked to perform this menial service, and later managed to persuade Yang Guifei to take offense at Li's poems concerning her. After leaving the court, Li Bai formally became a Taoist, making a home in
Shandong, but wandering far and wide for the next ten some years, writing poems.
Meeting Du Fu He met
Du Fu in the autumn of 744, when they shared a single room and various activities together, such as traveling, hunting, wine, and poetry, thus established a close and lasting friendship. They met again the following year. These were the only occasions on which they met, in person, although they continued to maintain a relationship through poetry. This is reflected in the dozen or so poems by Du Fu to or about Li Bai which survive, and the one from Li Bai directed toward Du Fu which remains.
Letters for political patronage A somewhat lesser known capital of Li Bai's life are the letters he wrote to various officials. In most of them, his aim was to seek political patronage. The famous letter to
Han Jingzhou () is maybe the most known example of his writing. Li Bai's style in his letters was very exaggerated, sometimes arrogant too. Contrary to what was the common practice at the time, i.e, depreciating tone for one's self and a praising tone for the candidate patron, Li Bai ornates his own personal image very vividly. Victor H. Mair translated some notable letters of Li Bai. An excerpt from the letter to Han Jing Zhou (), which Mair dates around 734 CE, illustrates Li Bai's perception of himself:
"At fifteen, I was fond of swordsmanship and ranged broadly in search of employment [131] with various lords. At thirty, I became an accomplished litterateur and contacted successively a number of high officers. Although I am not quite a six- footer, I am braver than ten thousand men. Princes, dukes, and high ministers admit that I have moral courage and high principles. This, then, has been my past spiritual biography. How could I venture not to explain it fully to Your Lordship?" War and exile At the end of 755, the
disorders instigated by the rebel general
An Lushan burst across the land. The Emperor eventually fled to Sichuan and abdicated. During the confusion, the Crown Prince opportunely declared himself Emperor and head of the government. The An Shi disturbances continued (as they were later called, since they lasted beyond the death of their instigator, carried on by
Shi Siming and others). Li Bai became
a staff adviser to Prince Yong, one of
Ming Huang's (Emperor Xuanzong's) sons, who was far from the top of the primogeniture list, yet named to share the imperial power as a general after Xuanzong had abdicated, in 756. However, even before the empire's external enemies were defeated, the two brothers fell to fighting each other with their armies. Upon the defeat of the Prince's forces by his brother the new emperor in 757, Li Bai escaped, but was later captured, imprisoned in
Jiujiang, and sentenced to death. The famous and powerful army general
Guo Ziyi and others intervened; Guo Ziyi was the very person whom Li Bai had saved from court martial a couple of decades before. Upon General Guo Ziyi's offering to exchange his official rank for Li Bai's life, Li Bai's death sentence was commuted to exile: he was consigned to
Yelang.
Return and other travels When Li received the news of his imperial pardon, he returned down the river to
Jiangxi, passing on the way through
Baidicheng, in
Kuizhou Prefecture, still engaging in the pleasures of food, wine, good company, and writing poetry; his poem "
Departing from Baidi in the Morning" records this stage of his travels, as well as poetically mocking his enemies and detractors, implied in his inclusion of
imagery of monkeys. Although Li did not cease his wandering lifestyle, he then generally confined his travels to
Nanjing and the two
Anhui cities of
Xuancheng and Li Yang (in modern
Zhao County).
Death , Sichuan The new
Emperor Daizong appointed Li Bai as a court counsellor in January 764, but by the time the imperial edict arrived in
Dangtu, Anhui, Li Bai had already been reported dead for more than a year. Local authorities, however, were only able to ascertain that he died sometime in 762, with the date and cause of his death lost to history. Later writers speculated about Li's death. The ninth-century Tang poet
Pi Rixiu suggested in a poem that Li had died of chronic thoracic suppuration (pus entering the chest cavity). Li Bai was a skilled
calligrapher. One surviving piece of his calligraphy work in his own handwriting exists today.
Surviving texts and editing Even Li Bai and Du Fu, the two most famous and most comprehensively edited Tang poets, were affected by the destruction of the imperial Tang libraries and the loss of many private collections in the periods of turmoil (
An Lushan Rebellion and
Huang Chao Rebellion). Although many of Li Bai's poems have survived, even more were lost and there is difficulty regarding variant texts. One of the earliest endeavors at editing Li Bai's work was by his relative
Li Yangbing, the magistrate of
Dangtu, with whom he stayed in his final years and to whom he entrusted his manuscripts. However, the most reliable texts are not necessarily in the earliest editions. Song dynasty scholars produced various editions of his poetry, but it was not until the Qing dynasty that such collections as the
Complete Tang Poems made the most comprehensive studies of the then surviving texts. ==Themes==