POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT

In the fall, an emissary came from a distant land and presented a letter to the Tang court. It was clear to the top officials that the diplomat was from somewhere near Central Asia, but no one could tell from which country nor comprehend the letter. The emissary couldn’t speak Chinese, so for half a month the central government was unable to ascertain his identity or mission. The emperor flew into a fury and threatened to disband the cabinet if they didn’t decipher the contents of the letter within three days, so the high officials began desperately searching for someone who knew the foreign language. Chancellor Li Linfu, who was in charge of diplomatic affairs and would be held responsible if China lost face, was more shaken than the others. The emperor’s son-in-law Zhang Ji was nervous as well: he headed the Imperial Academy, which ought to have been able to produce a translator for the letter.

In a way, however, this lack of preparedness was unsurprising. For many centuries China had treated the countries beyond the western frontier with little distinction. The peoples of Central Asia were all called fan, a term that was also used to refer to Tibetans and Mongols. There were many fan peoples and languages, and China had diplomatic relationships with some of those states. But no Chinese, at least no one in Chang’an, could understand the fan script in the letter delivered by the new emissary. And so He Zhizhang again recommended Li Bai to the emperor, suggesting that Bai, who had once lived on the western frontier, might be familiar with the script. Bai was summoned to court. Glancing over the letter, he told the emperor that it was a script (scholars surmise that it was probably Tocharian) used in Yuezhi Country, which consisted of many tribes. Bai had often seen this script as a young boy and even had learned quite a bit of it. In a poem, he describes writing a letter in this foreign tongue: “Lu silk spreads glossy like frost, / On which I inscribe the Yuezhi script” (“Letters for the One Far Away: 10”). We should keep in mind that his mother had been from a western tribe, and that Bai had grown up in a bilingual or multilingual family. Now, in front of the entire court, he read out the contents of the letter, which contained a threat. The Yuezhi Country demanded that China cede some land to it or it would dispatch a powerful expeditionary army to Chang’an, destroy the city, and sack the palace.

The threat flustered the emperor and his courtiers—it was a message that demanded an immediate response. Li Bai assured His Majesty that he could write a reply, but he wanted Li Linfu to prepare the ink for him so that he could inscribe the script here and now. He hated Li Linfu, knowing the man had withheld his “Grand Plan for Our Dynasty” from the emperor, and he intended to humiliate the chancellor openly. Without delay Li Linfu began to grind an ink tablet on a stone, urging Bai to write the letter. Bai wrote the reply rapidly and then translated it into Chinese for the emperor. The contents of the letter wouldn’t have been difficult for him to compose: the civil-service examination had always contained a section for such a diplomatic essay, and although Bai had never entered for the exam, he was familiar with the preparatory materials.

The emissary was called in to listen to Li Bai announce the reply. In a loud voice, which had a slightly metallic twang, he summarized it thus: China would not yield to their demand and was unafraid of their military. If the Yuezhi Country instigated a war, China, which was many times bigger and mightier, would retaliate, destroying all of Yuezhi’s tribes. China was willing to exist peacefully with their country if they were not bellicose. Awestruck, the emissary hurried back with the official reply. Thereafter no word came from Yuezhi Country again.1

The emperor was so pleased that he kept Li Bai at court so that he could assist with foreign affairs. He was promoted to royal secretary at the fifth rank, whose principal duty was to write decrees and summarize petitions. In practice Li Bai didn’t do much of those either, and yet the new position gave him an opportunity to witness political proceedings in the top circle. His presence at court made some of the ministers wary, and they began to view him as a potential rival and a troublemaker. Li Linfu and Gao Lishi in particular both hated him and were determined to make his life difficult. Bai, however, was buoyant with illusions and even believed himself to be one of the indispensable courtiers at the center of power. He was no longer just an academic fellow but a real official with a respectable rank and a handsome salary. He should be able to save enough to buy a house within a year and then bring his children to the capital.

But soon a secret smear campaign was launched against Bai. In addition to Gao Lishi and Li Linfu, others in power also regarded him as unstable. His constant drunken state gave the impression that he was incapable of steady work, so top officials would dismiss him when a consequential issue was at hand. They didn’t want him to meddle with administrative affairs, and so although Bai would go to court for audiences, his voice was rarely heard. It was well known that Emperor Xuanzong loved Bai’s talent and swift literary imagination, and these officials feared that he might earn more favors from the emperor at the expense of their own advancement. Gradually Bai came to feel the sting of envy and malice. “Although His Majesty loves what is beautiful / The jealousy in the palace can still kill you,” he says in a poem titled “Song of a Jade Flask.” He became frustrated at every turn and began to lose heart.

One morning Bai arrived at Grand Bright Palace to listen to officials as they presented petitions and to the emperor as he issued decrees. To his surprise, His Majesty declared his intent to start a war against Tufan (modern Tibet), which had posed a threat to China in recent decades. The emperor ordered Wang Zhongsi, who was the marshal of the Tang army and also the commander of the Western Regions, to organize an attack on a small town in Tufan known as Stone Fort.

Wang, a stalwart man in his late thirties, was from a family of military officers and had successfully fought several battles against Turks and Tibetans. The instant he heard the imperial decree, his face darkened. Several officials voiced their support for the war and a few junior generals even volunteered to depart with Marshal Wang the next spring. But to everyone’s amazement, Wang stepped forward and spoke to the emperor, saying, “My father fought and fell in the battleground for our country. I was raised here, in the capital, and since my childhood I have been bathed in Your Majesty’s love and kindness. You gave me the name ‘Zhongsi,’ so I never dare to forget my family’s hatred for the barbarians and the royal bounties you have bestowed on me. Even the successful battles I have fought are far from enough to repay your benevolence. Since you granted me the high position of the marshal, I have pondered my former deeds and have come to believe that attacks and killing are not the best way to serve our country. I would like to follow the model of the great general Li Guang in the Han dynasty, who stayed at the border to stabilize the region. If the barbarians leave us alone, we will leave them alone. If they come to attack, we will be ready to repel them. In that way we will surely succeed and stabilize the hundreds of miles of our frontier. If we make constant war, we waste a great amount of manpower and resources. That could damage the foundation of our country….I am afraid that is not a wise approach, so I am begging Your Majesty to keep peace for now and wait for an opportune time if we have to fight. Please think twice, my Lord.”2

Bai was deeply touched by Marshal Wang’s candid words. He had always felt uneasy about the warfare waged in the western regions; because he had once lived there and had known the tribal peoples, he couldn’t view them as enemies deserving to be destroyed. (Unlike other writers of his time, in his writings, he never used the word “savages” [man] to refer to those tribesmen.) As he was about to step forward in support of Marshal Wang, he saw the emperor’s face drop, so Bai paused. Then Chancellor Li Linfu began to criticize Marshal Wang, claiming he had let the emperor down. Other courtiers and officers also joined the debate. Most supported the expedition, but Wang argued that Stone Fort had no strategic value—it was not worth thousands of soldiers’ lives, to say nothing of the civilians who would lose their homes. Li Bai was about to condemn the hawks, but his friend Cui Zongzhi (the handsome man “like a jade tree in the breeze”) held him back and whispered not to act rashly. Zongzhi had been Bai’s loyal friend since their first meeting in Jiang Prefecture eighteen years before, and Bai trusted him.

Finally Marshal Wang ran out of patience, lowered himself to his knees, and said to the emperor, “Every year we start an expedition and recruit young men for war. There are not many young men left in our central land. Everywhere you encounter widows and orphans. I am not afraid of death, but I don’t want to exchange tens of thousands of lives for my own glorious position. Please cancel your decree, Your Majesty, and stop those who only want personal gains at the cost of others’ lives. If you do so, our country will be blessed and all the common people will be blessed.”3 Wang then knocked his head hard on the stone floor again and again; his forehead became smeared with blood. The emperor looked upset, but he valued the marshal’s bravery and ability—and, having seen him grow up, was personally fond of him—so he only stood and dismissed the audience.

Still restless that night, Li Bai set about composing a petition in support of Marshal Wang. He sat at his desk wielding his brush. As he was writing, his friend Zongzhi stopped by and urged him not to become involved in such a matter—the emperor could very well be furious at Marshal Wang and might take it out on someone less essential to him. To Zongzhi, whose family had served the court for generations, the emperor was no longer the ambitious and conscientious sovereign dedicated to his country’s security and prosperity. Look what was going on in the palace. Every day there were dances and ball games and other frivolities. The emperor was already nearly sixty, but was careless about his health and wasted his vitality, indulging in women, wine, decadent music, and elixirs of life, dreaming of immortality. He was completely under the spell of Lady Yang, that Fox Spirit. Keep in mind, Zongshi warned, she must still hate Bai’s guts and was surely prepared to pounce on him at any moment. To speak truth to the royal couple now could only incur their wrath against him.

So Bai abandoned his half-written petition. He felt more isolated than before, afraid that all his enemies would join hands in reducing and ruining him. Moreover, he knew that his advocate He Zhizhang, frail and already eighty-four years old, was considering retirement back to his home village on the seacoast. The eight “drinking immortals” would not revel together any longer, and Bai often drank alone, sitting moodily in the moonlight. When drunk, he would dance around the yard by himself, regarding the moon as a companion. “When I sing, the moon will waver, / When I dance, my shadows will be scattered,” as he said in “Drinking Alone in the Moonlight.” He began to care less about attending the audience at court. He was not indispensable at all, he soon realized, and no one paid heed to his absence.

He remembered Husi, his farmer friend living in the southern outskirts of Chang’an, near Zhongnan Mountain, and went to visit the man one day in the early spring. When Bai arrived, Husi was sowing millet but stopped to receive him heartily, like in the old days. They both marveled at each other’s gray hairs. Husi’s cottage was even quieter than before—his children had grown and no longer lived with him. The two friends chatted over Husi’s home-brewed wine. For the first time since coming to the capital, Bai enjoyed a moment of peace. Husi was a good, patient listener and relished the anecdotes Bai told him about the palace. They also talked about Daoism. Husi knew the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu quite well and, as before, mentioned that fortune and misfortune were often indistinguishable and one should take them with equanimity. Bai agreed, and shared with Husi his disappointment in the capital, which he had once viewed as a heavenly place where he could realize his political ambition. Now he felt completely out of place. They talked deep into the night.

This visit made Bai see that he did not belong to Chang’an and cemented his resolve to resign. He walked all the way back to the city, carrying a pannier of medicinal herbs, as he always did when he went out to the countryside. This was an old habit he had learned from his teacher Zhao Rui, and he would gather herbs whenever he was in the wilderness.

But before Bai submitted his request for resignation, he did something extraordinary, something that would save his life later on. One day, he joined a group of officials in an excursion to the north of Chang’an. Passing a small town, he saw a convict cart carrying a caged criminal with a narrow placard planted behind his head, followed by a group of troops armed with flat swords. By all appearances they were on their way to an execution ground. The criminal, strapping with a broad back, looked to be a junior officer. His eyes shone with defiance. Bai, who was well read in physiognomy, was struck by the man’s thick bone structure and square face.

He went up to speak to the leader of the troops and learned that the convict was Guo Ziyi, an assistant officer under General Geshu Han. Geshu was from a Turgesh tribe, in which his ancestors had been chiefs for generations, but he served China and had become a general in the Tang army under the command of Marshal Wang Zhongsi. The leader of the detail told Bai that Guo Ziyi’s troops had accidentally burned a large quantity of army provisions and numerous tents in the barracks, so Guo had been sentenced to death. Bai turned to speak with Guo, who answered his questions clearly and calmly like the officer that he was. Guo also said he had obtained his position via excelling in the military-service tournament.

Bai, as a court official, told the leader of the troops to halt and wait for him to return. He went to their headquarters to see General Geshu and attempted to convince him of his prediction that Guo could become an extraordinary officer. Geshu, who knew of Li Bai and admired his poetry, received him right away, but he could not make an exception and release Guo Ziyi because of the larger need to keep discipline among his men. Only the emperor could pardon such an offender. Bai implored him to at least postpone the execution, to which General Geshu agreed.

As soon as Bai returned to Chang’an, he drafted a petition to appeal to the emperor for Guo Ziyi’s life, writing that Guo might well become an exceptional warrior and could be very useful for the dynasty. His Majesty, despite all the slander against Li Bai, still cherished his talent and learning, so he agreed to grant Guo Ziyi a pardon. Guo was released and remained in service. A decade later, he became a major commander of the Tang army, confronting the rebel forces from the northeast and helping the royal family restore the shattered empire. Although no one could know this at the time, by saving Guo’s life, Bai had performed a great service to the central government.

Most Li Bai chronologies state that in the late spring of 744 he submitted to the emperor his request for resignation. Knowing that Bai’s presence would make Lady Yang unhappy and many others nervous, His Majesty approved it without the usual formality of urging him to stay. Although he admired Bai’s talent, he also feared that Bai, who got drunk so frequently, might divulge the court’s secrets and cause damage to the reputation of the royal family—it was better to let him leave and keep the palace in peace. His Majesty gave Bai a good amount of gold (more than a hundred ounces) as severance pay. In addition, Bai received the title of “Carefree Scholar.” Although this was a nominal honor, Bai alone was granted such a title, which allowed him to consume wine free of charge and to receive a gift of money at every county and prefecture on his way home.

As he was leaving the capital, Bai donned a Daoist cloak and hat, outwardly showing that he was no longer concerned with politics and would exist only in the religious order from now on. To some extent this was also a form of self-protection, because Bai knew that his political enemies could hound him wherever he went and even have him eliminated if they believed he still posed a threat. By wearing Daoist garb, he meant to demonstrate that he was no longer a rival of theirs. His enemies were happy to see him leave Chang’an, whereas his friends rode with him for many miles before turning back to the city.

In total, he had served at court for less than two years.