Chapter 79 170 Bai Juyi enters Chang'an

After Tang Xianzong came to the throne, he carried out some political reforms and appointed some upright ministers like Li Jiang as prime ministers.But he still favors eunuchs.He wanted to crusade against the feudal town and use a eunuch chief as commander.This incident aroused opposition from some ministers.The most fierce opposition was Zuo Shiyi Bai Juyi. Bai Juyi, a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, was born in Xiagui (now northeast of Weinan, Shaanxi, sound gui).His reputation for being good at writing poems spread very early.Bai Juyi was clever since he was a child. He was able to recognize the words "zhi" and "wu" when he was only six or seven months old, and he began to learn to write poems at the age of five or six.When he was about fifteen or sixteen years old, his father Bai Jigeng was an official in Xuzhou and asked him to go to Chang'an, the capital city, to meet the world and make friends with famous people.

At that time, after Zhu Xi's rebellion, Chang'an was greatly damaged.Especially after successive years of wars, there was a food shortage everywhere, and the price of rice in Chang'an soared, and the people's life was very difficult. At that time, there was a writer in Chang'an, Gu Kuang, who was quite talented but arrogant.When Bai Juyi heard of Gu Kuang's fame, he brought his manuscripts to Gu Kuang's house for advice. Gu Kuang heard that Bai Juyi was also a son of an official family, so he had no choice but to welcome him.Bai Juyi paid a visit to Gu Kuang and presented him with famous cards and poems.

Gu Kuang glanced at the young man, then looked at the name post, saw the word "Juyi", frowned and joked, "Recently the price of rice in Chang'an is very expensive, I'm afraid it's not easy to live in!" Bai Juyi was inexplicably reprimanded by Gu Kuang, but he didn't care, he stood by respectfully and asked for advice.Gu Kuang picked up the poem scroll and flipped through it casually, his hand stopped suddenly, his eyes fixed on the poem scroll, and he began to chant softly: "The grass on Liliyuan grows once it grows old; the wild fire burns endlessly, and the spring breeze blows and regenerates..."

When Gu Kuang read this, his face showed excitement, he stood up immediately, held Bai Juyi's hand tightly, and said enthusiastically: "Ah! It is not difficult to live in Chang'an if you can write such good poems. Just now Just kidding with you, don't take it wrong." After this meeting, Gu Kuang admired Bai Juyi's poetic talent very much, and he boasted how great the children of the Bai family were when he met everyone.Once spread to ten, ten to hundreds, Bai Juyi became famous in Chang'an.In less than a few years, he passed the Jinshi examination.When Tang Xianzong heard of his fame, he immediately promoted him to be a Hanlin scholar, and later appointed him as Zuo Shiyi.

Bai Juyi was not the kind of bureaucrat who sought fame and fortune and flattered his superiors.While constantly creating new poems, he exposed some unhealthy phenomena in the society at that time: On the one hand, he has repeatedly admonished in front of Xianzong, especially against letting eunuchs control military power. This time, Bai Juyi admonished Xianzong to make eunuch commander in chief, which made Xianzong very angry.He told Prime Minister Li Jiang: "Bai Juyi, I promoted him. How could he be so disrespectful to me? I really can't bear it!" Li Jiang said: "Bai Juyi dared to speak out in front of His Majesty, and he was not afraid of beheading, which shows his loyalty to the country. If he is punished, no one will dare to tell the truth in the future.

Tang Xianzong reluctantly accepted Li Jiang's opinion and did not dismiss Bai Juyi for the time being.However, not many days later, he was finally removed from Zuo Shiyi's position and changed to a faction official position. Bai Juyi wrote many poems, many of which reflect reality, such as "Qin Zhongyin" and "New Yuefu".In these poems, some expose the crimes of eunuchs oppressing the people, some satirize the extravagant life of bureaucrats, and some reflect the sufferings of the working people.His poems were popular and easy to understand, and were welcomed by the people at that time. Bai Juyi's poems were recited everywhere in the streets and alleys.It is said that when Bai Juyi finished writing a poem, he always read it to an illiterate old lady first, and if there was something he didn't understand, he would revise it until she could understand it.This is of course just a legend, but it shows that his poems are relatively close to the masses.

Just because his poems reflected the reality, he offended the eunuchs and big bureaucrats in power, and also attracted curses and hatred from some people.Some people wanted to frame Bai Juyi, but they couldn't find an excuse for a while. A few years later, Bai Juyi worked as a doctor in the Prince's East Palace.Once, Prime Minister Wu Yuanheng was assassinated by assassins.The assassination had a complicated political background, and none of the court bureaucrats wanted to speak up.Only Bai Juyi stood up and first sent a memorial to Xianzong, demanding that the murderer be wanted.The eunuchs and bureaucrats seized this opportunity, saying that Bai Juyi was not an admonisher and should not make arbitrary claims on major court affairs, and filed a lawsuit against him.

Then, another group of officials who always hated Bai Juyi spread rumors and slandered him, and poured dirty water on Bai Juyi.Some people say that Bai Juyi's mother drowned while watching the flowers fall into the well, but Bai Juyi actually wrote poems "Appreciating Flowers" and "New Well", isn't that unfilial? After such accusations, no one could defend Bai Juyi, and Bai Juyi was finally demoted to Jiangzhou (now Jiujiang, Jiangxi) to be a Sima. Bai Juyi was relegated innocently, and after arriving in Jiangzhou, he felt very depressed.One night, when he was seeing off guests at the Penpukou in Jiangzhou, he heard a sad sound of the pipa from the river, and asked people to find out that it was played by an old singing girl wandering in the rivers and lakes.When Bai Juyi saw the singing girl, and heard her tell her sad life experience, he felt very sympathetic; thinking about his own experience, his heart was full of worries.After returning, he wrote the famous narrative poem "Pipa Xing", which says:

I sighed when I heard the pipa, and chirped again when I heard the words.The same people who have fallen in the end of the world, why meet each other before. Later, Bai Juyi returned to the capital several times and served as a senior court official.But the government at that time was very chaotic, and it was impossible for an upright person like Bai Juyi to do anything.He poured all his energy into poetry creation.He wrote a total of more than 2,800 poems in his life, which have become a very precious legacy in the treasure house of Chinese literature.