Chapter 30 Li Baiyi

Li Bai's surname is not Li; Li Bai is a foreigner; Li Bai's origin is complicated and confusing; there are several contradictory theories about Li Bai's death... There are many debates about Li Bai in history.Some great literati, such as Guo Moruo and Yu Pingbo, wrote letters and articles, and fought fiercely.Chen Yinke advocated that Li Bai was not Li, and many scholars opposed him.I have limited information at hand, but I already feel very lively.Among them, there are disputes over the details of survival, and even more controversy over the overall evaluation.Like Li Bai and Du Fu, whoever is superior has been fighting from the Tang Dynasty to today.So, the question arises: Why are people so interested in Li Bai, why are they not hesitating to fight with each other, and even break friends with teachers and students?

There are a few more questions that this article attempts to answer: Li Bai is the son of a wealthy businessman, and he has a lot of money. Why does he always go to the officialdom and condescend to write so many job application letters? Li Bai is a swordsman, who once "killed several people with his hands", but the reason and process of his killing, why are later generations kept secret? Is Li Bai a heartless person?What does heartlessness have to do with artistic creation? There are so many books written about Li Bai that it takes a train to pull them.Throughout the ages, Chinese characters measured in tonnages have been pressed on him. Can we clear the fog, ask these simple questions, and approach the core of this outstanding life?

I am a reader of Li Bai, not an expert on him.Let's throw bricks to attract jade. In addition, Li Bai's experience is very legendary, and some things are very funny. I have been writing novels for many years, and my old habits are hard to change. Li Bai was born in Suiye, Central Asia, which now belongs to the Kyrgyz Republic and was in China in the Tang Dynasty.His ancestral home is Chengji, Longxi (now southwest of Jingning County, Shaanxi), and he claims to be a descendant of Li Guang, a parachutist.When I wrote Sima Qian earlier, I was deeply moved by Li Guang's character.Li Guang enjoys a high reputation in history, which shows that history's choice of celebrities is a kind of righteousness that overwhelms evil.Sima Qian's values ​​influenced later historians.

When it comes to what Li Bai's ancestors did, historical materials are usually evasive, and the word "according to legend" is often used.Huge family, why the big migration?Is it related to Wu Zetian's massacre of Li's ancestors?According to legend: Li Bai's great-grandfather was related to the royal family.Tang Taizong Li Shimin was also from Longxi. Li Bai's father, Li Ke, moved back when he was five years old (706) and moved to Mianyang, Sichuan, where he settled in Qinglian Township, Mianzhou at that time.At that time, Wu Zetian abdicated and returned the imperial power to the imperial family surnamed Li.Li Bai's parents and grandparents migrated twice within a few decades, which is hard to guess.Sichuan is blocked by the Qinling Mountains, and is relatively remote. Li Ke's choice may have a factor of avoiding disaster: he was worried about Wu Zetian's remaining power.Although he is a businessman, he is far away from politics.I estimate that this Li Ke has many secrets in his heart, including his own name.Scholars have doubts about Li Ke's Ke character.Li Ke avoided living in Qinglian Township, leaving people with the impression of being anonymous.Not only is he cautious with his external words, but he is also very strict with his family.

Li Bai ranked twelve, and later he was called Li Twelve.He learned swordsmanship at a young age, presumably because of his father's consideration of defending the family.Later, he traveled far and wide with his sword, and repeatedly went to the officialdom, sometimes arrogant, sometimes servile, presenting a psychological pattern of mixed inferiority and arrogance.What his father asked before leaving, he rarely mentioned in one cover letter after another. Maybe his father only hoped that he would be successful in the world. But what does it mean to be promising?It is not enough to have money, you have to be an official. Only by being an official can you have social status, and you can honor your ancestors and shade future generations.No matter how rich the ancient merchants were, their wealth was fragile and they had to rely on officialdom.This is a major feature of the so-called autocratic society.

Li Bai was born in the Western Regions, but he was shrouded in the mysterious atmosphere of Chinese civilization: his mother dreamed of Taibai Jinxing, so she became pregnant.Almost all the biographies of ancient celebrities I read have similar legends, and the ancients believed in this.Li Bai's name and character are connected with a white light in his mother's dream.Taibaijinxing, we call it Venus now. Li Bai was in his teens and read all kinds of books, including the esoteric works of Laozi and Zhuangzi.This is also a common record involving outstanding figures in historical books. I believed it at first, but later became suspicious and found it impossible.It will take several years to pass the level of Chinese characters alone.The German female philosopher Arendt read Kant at the age of fifteen, I believe.Li Bai read Lao Zhuang at the age of ten, and I really don't know what he can read.

He wrote a good poem when he was a child, which is more believable.Describing fireflies: When the rain hits the lights, the lights are hard to extinguish, and when the wind blows, the colors are brighter.If it flies up into the sky, it will be a star on the edge of the moon. This little poem was praised by everyone, and taught his husband to recite it whenever he met.There are guests at home, and his father asks him to perform.He wrote the poems in cursive into banners, and hung them on the beams with a ladder.There were cheers everywhere... He was excited for half a year, and the rewards he got were too numerous to count.He said to his companion: It's a good deal to write poetry!

So he studied hard, and his head kept shaking when he entered the classroom.After class, he ran away in a hurry, and every day he had to play until he touched the door in the dark, and his mother called him everywhere.In an old Sichuan saying, this is called no collection at night.Mianzhou has mountains and rivers, and is not too far from Chengdu and Yuzhou (Chongqing). He studied literature and practiced martial arts, and his father taught him swordsmanship.Among the twelve brothers and sisters, his father regarded him highly.But in his later poems and essays, there are very few references to his family.He was enshrined in Hanlin in the imperial court, and Yang Guozhong (one said Yang Guifei) was asked to hold the inkstone when he wrote poems, but he never wrote a book to his family.Not sure what's going on here.His parents died, and there is no record of him going to the funeral and staying in the funeral.

At the age of fifteen, Li Bai imitated Sima Xiangru to write Fu.Sima Xiangru was born in Chengdu, and he was a man of honor in front of the throne of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.From the Han and Wei Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, many literati yearned for his style: talented, rich, official, famous and beautiful.The young Li Bai wrote "Mingtang Fu", "Da Hunting Fu", and "Worshiping Fu" in one breath, with thousands of words, wishing that he would become Sima Xiangru tomorrow.In Sichuan, Xiangru is even more well-known. Even if he couldn't understand his articles, he knew that he went to Linqiong County to get Zhuo Wenjun, a rich girl, and he gained a lot of money.Ordinary people, as long as it is mentioned that he has worked under Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and King Liang, they will immediately respect him. It is understandable that Li Bai yearns for him.

But we understand Li Bai, and we should not blindly elevate him, find chapters and excerpts from his works, and strengthen his "helping the common people" side.Literary history, literary biography, beautify sages at every turn, it is very tiresome.Poets have their own brilliance, and there is no need to always use ruling standards to restrain poets, or even tie them up for us to see.The aesthetic space should be larger than the poor and the rich. An outstanding artist is nothing more than using good means to push his special experience of life to the extreme.If you use the standard of whether you pay attention to the sufferings of the people to apply to Western writers, people will find that this is absurd.

It should be roughly clear in which direction the young Li Bai's willpower spurts: he dances the sword under the moon, writes the chapters in front of the lamp, and never forgets the officialdom and the court.The will of the family was passed into his blood through his father's careful cultivation.Including those shadowy family legends that have accompanied him since he was a child. Father designed him, molded him, and died quietly. The strong man is gone forever.Li Bai left Sichuan at the age of twenty-five and never came back.His struggles in the officialdom, his triumphs and disappointments, together with his wives and children, seem to be completely unknown to his relatives in Qinglian Township, Mianzhou. Before that, he traveled to Bashu and visited many places.There is plenty of money at home.There is Kuang Mountain in Mianzhou, where he had a fierce fight with Taoist priests, studied alchemy, and longed to become a god.He went to Xiang'er Town, Meizhou (now Meishan City), and saw an old woman grinding an iron rod into embroidery needles.He climbed Mount Emei at an altitude of 3,099 meters, watched the sea of ​​clouds and Buddha light, and had no chance to see the gods, but got a good poem: In the half moon of Mount Emei in autumn, the shadow enters the water of Pingqiang River. Send out the clear stream to the Three Gorges at night, and go to Yuzhou if you don't see you. He went to Chongqing by boat. Li Bai didn't start a family in his twenties, and it seems that he didn't intend to take root in Mianzhou.When he became a weapon, his father pushed him out and told him to go out into the world alone.In the spring of the twelfth year of Kaiyuan (724 A.D.), he set off with an attendant who he named Dansha.He didn't go out, but swam out. In the spring of the following year, he went out of Kuimen to Jingmen. His vision suddenly widened, and the mountains of Bashu were left behind. He wrote a poem: Traveling far away from Jingmen, I came to travel from the state of Chu.The mountains follow the plains, and the river flows into the wilderness. Flying sky mirror under the moon, clouds grow and build sea towers.I still pity the water of my hometown, and send a lone boat thousands of miles away. He left Sichuan with a lot of money, much better than Sima Xiangru.For more than half a year, he wandered back and forth in the middle of Shu, and climbed Mount Emei again, which paved the way for his later amazing and outstanding "The Difficult Road to Shu". At that time, Mount Emei was very difficult to climb. You had to use a sword to open the way, and you had to be wary of wild animals. Li Bai's landscape poems have the momentum of landscape.This word is exquisite, it is not only the shape, the scene, but also the charm.Mountains are different from mountains, and water is different from water. What a poet can write depends on what he can feel.Li Bai is a man who is chivalrous, literary and immortal. He experienced long-distance migration when he was young, crossing half of China by land and water.It is difficult for us to penetrate his special feeling for nature.Rational analysis and poetic experience are even more opposite.Great poets feel what's around them, and we feel what they feel, that's all.We cannot enjoy the "first shock" of aesthetic experience.To change the analogy: the dark matter that exerts force is outside our field of vision. Li Bai's official career experience, which is about to start, can be judged by ordinary people.