LEAVING SICHUAN
All Li Bai chronologies and biographies place 724 as the year that he prepared to set out on the road again. This time he planned to leave Sichuan for the central land, where he would attempt to find his way into the official world. He wouldn’t go directly to Luoyang, which had become the East Capital a decade before; nor to Chang’an, which remained the West Capital, seat of the central government and the court. Instead, he would travel widely through the lands of Chu and Wu (present-day Hubei and southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang). Such a journey was surely planned carefully before his departure. The Chu and Wu regions were prosperous, rich with farmland and brisk commerce. They were crisscrossed by water routes—rivers, lakes, and canals—that connected the major cities and functioned like today’s network of railroads. Goods and foodstuffs were continually shipped to Luoyang through these waterways, which also facilitated communications between Chang’an and the lands of Chu and Wu. Li Bai’s plan was to build up his reputation in that part of the country so as to attract the attention of court.1 Indeed, it would have been rash to enter the capital directly.
For Bai, this coming journey would also turn out to be a long poetry tour of sorts—not only of performance but also of composition. As he traveled, he would leave hundreds of poems in his wake. These poems, especially those with a female persona, became songs performed in taverns, inns, and restaurants along the waterways. People loved his verses, and this helped spread his name. “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter,” best known in the West from Ezra Pound’s masterful translation, was composed on this journey. His most popular poems tend to be shorter, easier to set to music and to memorize.
In the fall of 724, Li Bai and his pageboy Dansha left Jiangyou and headed first for Chengdu. The memory of his failure in seeking office there three years earlier still stung, so he didn’t stay long and continued south toward Mount Emei, one of the four sacred Buddhist mountains in China. Bai had a habit of traveling long distances to seek xian in famous mountains. He had visited Mount Emei before—this was where he had met Monk Jun at White Water Temple—but this time he didn’t make an excursion to the monastery, having heard that Guang Jun had left for the south. Now Bai simply roamed the mountainous area. As a Daoist, he believed that xian resided in the caves of every mountain. A high mountain, to his mind, was an intersection between heaven and earth, a place where deities and humans could meet. That was why the country’s rulers and countless pilgrims would ascend to the summits of mountains to pay homage. Although Li Bai didn’t find any divine figures he had imagined in Mount Emei, he was inspired by his journey nonetheless.
On a clear fall night, as he was leaving the mountain and sailing down the Qiang River, he was touched by the tranquil beauty of the waterscape and suddenly felt homesick. Overwhelmed with emotion, he composed this poem:
峨眉山月半輪秋 影入平羌江水流
夜發清溪向三峽 思君不見下渝州
《峨眉山月歌》
The autumn moon is rising, halfway out of Emei Mountain,
Its shadows floating on the Qiang’s currents.
Tonight we left Qingxi, heading for the Three Gorges,
And I miss you, but have to sail down to Yuzhou.
“SONG OF THE EMEI MOON”
The poem is a milestone in his poetic career, and its beauty can be fully appreciated only in the Chinese. The language in the poem is colloquial and transparent, the setting clear and immense, the music of the words fresh and fluid. There are five place names in the four lines, but they pose no impediment to the verbal flow, and instead generate propelling energy. The poem is a perfect and seemingly effortless piece of art. A work like this couldn’t come into being by luck and talent alone—it was clearly the result of Bai’s past three years of study at Daming Temple. He must have worked very hard to shed all the traces of imitation. Now he was an original poet in every sense.
Before making his way toward the Three Gorges, Li Bai lingered in Wan County in Sichuan for about half a year. We cannot know why he stopped there for so long—it is likely that he enjoyed the peace and mystery of the place, where he explored mountains, pored over books, and played chess while drinking. Literary historians have long argued about his motivations and searched for more evidence, but to date little is known about this long stopover. There should be no question, however, about his presence in Wan County. Numerous landmarks commemorate Li Bai’s visit to the area: the words Tai Bai yan (Li Bai’s Rock) were carved on the face of a cliff, still visible to this day, where it is said he used to sit and play chess. Similar words appear at other spots as well. Legend says that there is a fountain believed to have been opened by a wine cup Li Bai dropped when he was drunk. For centuries local breweries have used its water for making wine, which has evolved into the modern brand-name product Tai Bai Wine. In the Ming dynasty, a temple named after Li Bai stood in this area. It is claimed that he came to Wan County three times throughout his life, though the exact number is still a point of contention.
After passing the Three Gorges, Li Bai reached the region of Chu, sailing down the Yangtze toward Jing Prefecture. The mountains were behind him now, and the land ahead opened as the river widened. He was eager to enter a place where numerous ancient figures had once wandered, such as the statesman Wu Zixu (559–484 BC), the flood-control expert Sun Shu-ao (630–593 BC), and the poet Qu Yuan. Along the way he composed poems and shared them with those he met at the river ports. People recognized that his poetry was strikingly original: bright in imagery, fantastic in vision, spontaneous in feeling. Coming out of the town of Jingmen—an entryway to the land of Chu—Li Bai was swept up with emotion and composed this poem:
渡遠荊門外 來從楚國遊
山隨平野盡 江入大荒流
月下飛天鏡 雲生結海樓
仍憐故鄉水 萬里送行舟
《渡荊門送别》
Having left Jingmen far behind,
I am approaching the State of Chu.
Hills have receded to the end of the land
And the river flows into the vast wilderness.
Below the moon a heavenly mirror flies
While the clouds unite to raise a mirage.
How I am attached to this water from my hometown—
It’s still sending my boat downstream.
“SAYING GOODBYE TO JINGMEN”
Although he is more than five hundred miles from Jiangyou, he views the water of the Yangtze as a continuous flow from the Fu River that runs through his hometown. In a way this is true, because the Fu is a tiny branch of the Yangtze. Another truth is that Li Bai would never return home again. He had no strong feelings of attachment to any place in his life, not even his hometown back in Sichuan, but as he was sailing down the Yangtze, he must have sensed that he was about to become rootless. He would have to accept his homelessness in this world. He began to feel the pain of bereavement and couldn’t help lamenting it. Yet as a constant traveler, his essence would exist in his endless wanderings and in his yearning for a higher order of existence. But for now, he was to roam through the central land as a miraculous figure of sorts, as people later fondly nicknamed him the Banished Immortal. This moniker, which he embraced readily, implied that he belonged to heaven and was here only because he had misbehaved up there. It became essential to his sense of identity—it gave him a narrative for his extraordinariness and a kind of entitlement to proper treatment from the rich and powerful. He was fond of the expression “to be equal among princes and marquises.”
Jiang-ling was the capital of Jing Prefecture (modern Hubei). It was a major city in central China, serving as a transportation hub with Sichuan to the west, Luoyang to the north, Jinling (Nanjing) to the east, and Hunan to the south. In Li Bai’s time, it already had a history of more than a thousand years and had once been the capital of Chu State. Li Bai was familiar, through his reading, with the historical sites in the city, but he was most taken by the songs performed in its restaurants, taverns, and teahouses. They were folk songs, full of feeling, that often lamented the loss of love, the separation between women and men, and the passage of time that inevitably diminishes youth and beauty. Sometimes Li Bai was so touched by the honesty and grief in the songs that he turned tearful, wrote the lyrics down, and even memorized them. Since his father had provided him lavishly for this journey, through Dansha’s hand he was able to pay the singing girls generously to show his appreciation for their art.
Soon Bai began to write his own folk songs in the local style. Some of his attempts were unsuccessful, and he threw them away. But there were also efforts that stood out as minor masterpieces. Here is his “Song of Jingzhou”:
白帝城邊足風波 瞿塘五月誰敢過
荊州麥熟繭成蛾 繰絲憶君頭緒多
撥穀飛鳴奈妾何
《荊州歌》
Around Baidi Town rise too many waves.
Who dares to pass Qutang Gorge in May?
In Jingzhou silkworm cocoons have become moths.
Pulling and rolling the silk, I’m full of worries,
Oh more helpless while cuckoos fly and cry.
In late spring the cocoons grow into moths, signaling that the time for harvesting silk has begun. The woman speaking here boils the cocoons and untangles the natural silk. It is a long, laborious process. As she works, her mind is pregnant with thoughts of her man who has traveled up the Yangtze to Baidi Town, which was in Sichuan near the Hubei border. The endless strands of silk, tangled and knotted, embody the constancy and complication of the woman’s feelings. She tries to forgive him, blaming the waves and the perilous gorge for his delayed return. The cuckoo indicates the passage of time—another spring is nearly gone while the woman grows older and her dejection deepens. The poem has been widely praised. Some scholars even say that in all of Tang poetry, this piece alone deserves to be ranked among the marvelous folk songs of the Han dynasty.
A fellow townsman of Li Bai’s turned up in Jiang-ling. His name was Wu Zhinan, a skinny young fellow with asthma who had studied with Bai at Daming Temple. Bai was delighted to see his childhood friend, who had been roving the Chu region, and the two decided to travel together. Zhinan heard that Sima Chengzhen (647–735), a grand Daoist master, was passing through the city on a pilgrimage to Heng Mountain, where there are many temples and monuments. Li Bai remembered his teacher Zhao Rui praising Sima Chengzhen for his study of Daoist texts, so Bai was eager to meet the master and seek enlightenment. It was an opportunity to network as well, because Sima was well connected with the royal family: he was a teacher of the emperor’s sister, Princess Yuzhen, and had issued Emperor Xuanzong a Daoist diploma four years before, which meant he had accepted the emperor as his disciple. Xuanzong and his father, the previous emperor, had both invited Master Sima to court to preach.
Bai and Zhinan went out in search of Sima. There were many visitors rushing to see the master, mostly local officials eager to hear his secrets of longevity and the prospects of their careers. Master Sima, already in his late sixties, lounged on a wicker chair with his eyes almost closed. Now and then he flickered his horsetail whisk to show he hadn’t dozed off. At the sight of Li Bai, the master sat up and looked spirited. He was struck by Bai’s appearance, which was strapping, carefree, and confident. Bai sat down with him. The two of them discussed Daoist principles, Li Bai asking questions as the master gave succinct answers. Bai revealed his political ambition to the master. Sima emphasized that the best way to run a country was to follow the natural way without pressuring its populace or undertaking too many expensive projects. This echoes the Daoist principle of “ruling without action.” He praised Bai, saying he had an otherworldly demeanor and should have high expectations for his future. But what was Bai’s goal in pursuing an official career? Without hesitation Bai replied, “When I have accomplished great deeds and made a name for myself, I will retire into the wilderness.” The master smiled and waved his whisk in agreement.
Li Bai’s answer sounded stock on its surface, but had meaningful and even moving resonances. It implied that he accepted his limitations as a human being and was aware of the perils in a political career—if one did not withdraw from the court after achieving success, one might become enmeshed and destroyed. This is a concept found repeatedly in the Tao Te Ching, the fundamental scriptures of Daoism—“After success, do not stay on” (chapter 2); “To withdraw after your success, this is the way of heaven” (chapter 9). It is a Daoist principle that reflects the rise and fall of fortune that all disciples must follow.
Bai’s meeting with the Daoist master moved him so deeply that he revised his rhapsody “The Great Peng.” In the new version, he portrays Sima Chengzhen as the only other divine bird who can appreciate the grandeur of the roc, Bai’s self-styled symbol for himself. His meeting with Sima reinforced his belief in his own extraordinariness as a supernatural being, and he was convinced that he too might become a Daoist master someday if he didn’t succeed in his official career.
His friend Wu Zhinan, however, didn’t seem to share his excitement about the meeting with Master Sima. Soon the two young men started out for Dongting Lake in the south. It is the largest lake in central China, more than a thousand square miles in size. The Yangtze flows into it and the water spreads to the end of the sky like an ocean. The two of them planned to acquire a boat so they could enjoy sailing on the lake. But then Zhinan fell ill and they had to stay at an inn. Li Bai cared for him and treated him with herbal medicine, but to no avail. His condition grew worse and worse, and within a few days he died.
Heartbroken, Li Bai wore a white hooded mourning gown and wept over his body. He decided to bury his friend on the lakeside, where he would rest until Bai could find a way to bring him home. According to Li Bai’s own words, after the burial he lingered at his friend’s grave for a long time. A large tiger appeared, scattering people in every direction, but Li Bai drew his sword and confronted the beast until it retreated. Later, in his “Letter to Deputy Prefect Pei of Anzhou,” he cited the incident as evidence of his loyalty to his friends. By his account, three years later Bai returned to Zhinan’s burial spot and exhumed the body. He cleaned the bones, placed them in a sack, and carried the bundle away on his back. Having no money left and unable to have his friend’s remains shipped back to their home region, he chose an auspicious site east of Ezhou (near modern Wuhan) and buried him there.
Li Bai’s description of this second burial for his friend is quite bizarre—it does not coincide with the traditional practices of the time. In the mid-1990s, scholars began to reinterpret this incident. They asserted that Li Bai had in fact followed a foreign burial ritual. The practice he describes, which was called “the burial of scraped bones,” can be traced to southern minority tribes.2
Thus the controversy around this burial gives rise to a more fundamental issue—the question of Li Bai’s birthplace and origins. There is further textual evidence for Li Bai’s alien background. Some of his letters, as he claims in his poetry, are written in Tocharian script—a now-extinct language of the Indo-European peoples of Xinjiang—which would not be possible if he had not lived among them at some point. At the end of 761, when he believed he was dying, Li Bai recounted his life to Li Yangbing, a devoted friend who Bai claimed was his uncle; in his account, he said that his ancestors had originally been banished “for some groundless accusation” to the vast region west of China, and that later his family returned inland and settled in Sichuan when he was a young child. Some Sichuan scholars have asserted that he was in fact born in their home province, not in Suyab, Kyrgyzstan, as is the general consensus of opinion. This is a matter of pride and cultural inheritance—and business opportunities. The Kyrgyzstan government recently expressed its interest in using Li Bai as a tourist attraction. The truth is that the poet has long been uprooted from any specific place and belongs to the world. For our purposes, it is entirely reasonable to assume that he was originally from Central Asia, if not a half Chinese.
What is more significant is that Li Bai unwaveringly viewed Jiangyou as his hometown and treated people from Sichuan as his kin. In many of his poems, he speaks about his homesickness, longing for the land of Shu. He also claimed that he was “from Mount Emei” although he was not Buddhist and had no religious ties to the sacred mountain. In this sense, we can say with complete certainty that he believed his roots were in Sichuan. Nothing matters more than Li Bai’s own sense of belonging.