He was a first-class poet, struggling to develop his ambitions as an official in his middle age, and suffering from illness in his later years

"Relief of the sick, to make up for the time gap"

Bai Juyi composed more than one hundred and seventy satirical poems in his lifetime. He believes that the value of this type of poetry lies in "relieving people from illness and making up for the time gap.". He wrote these kinds of poems to speak for the oppressed people. Some of these poems oppose the tyranny of expropriation, and some oppose it

Some of the "martial arts" wars specifically attacked the rich and nobles, and some exposed corruption, rape and extravagant waste. The most famous of these poems are "Selling Charcoal", "Xinfeng Folding Arm", "Shangyang White-Haired Man" and so on.

The poem "Selling Charcoal" is easy to understand, but profound in significance, exposing the evils of the Tang Dynasty palace system. Miyaichi is when the emperor sends eunuchs to the market to buy things, extorting and robbing them at will. "Full of dust and fireworks, two sideburns and ten fingers black" selling charcoal, in the South Mountain to cut charcoal, "poor clothes are single", and every "night to come to the city outside a foot of snow", but he would rather endure the cold, but also want to sell charcoal for a good price,

"Worried about charcoal and wishing for the cold weather", "Xiao driving a charcoal car to rut the ice rut", "the cattle trapped people have been hungry and have pulled the charcoal to the market, but there are "yellow-robed messengers in white shirts, hand-holding the documents and mouths", pulling a cart of more than a thousand pounds of charcoal into the palace, "half a horse of red silk and a piece of silk, tied to the head of the bull to fill the charcoal straight." The end of the poem is subtle, with no condemnation on the surface, but on a deeper level, it attacks and condemns the emperor, the eunuchs of the tiger and the fox.

"Xinfeng Folding Arm" describes a very tragic story for us: during the Tang Tianbao period, Tang Xuanzong favored Yang Guifei. Yang Guifei's cousin Yang Guozhong also gained power and was given the title of prime minister. In order to make meritorious contributions, Yang Guozhong stood on his feet and launched a war to invade Nanzhao. This war brought great disasters to the people, causing wives and children to be scattered, the countryside to be desolate, and the people to be unhappy. "The south of the village and the north of the village wept and mourned, the children did not fathers, wives, wives, and wives, and all the barbarians before and after the clouds, and there was not a single trip for tens of millions of people." War has brought deep disasters to the people. In a hut on the edge of the village lived an old man with white hair. At that time, the young and middle-aged people in the village had already been conscripted, and only among the elderly were conscripted. The old man saw that his old wife was lying sick in bed, his son had long been killed by conscription, and his daughter-in-law was alone with his weak grandson. If the old man is recruited again and dies nine times, the old and young will be frozen to death and starved to death. The official pressed to the door and forcibly pulled the old man. What to do? The old man's heart went deeper into the night and a half, and he smashed it into his arm with a large stone mallet, only to see blood bursting out, broken bones and tendons, and the old man fainting in pain. The wife and children rushed over and crawled on top of him to cry.

After a long time, the old man woke up, the pain in his heart made his body tremble, he saw his broken arm, and he actually laughed: "Haha, I don't have to go to conscription, I don't have to go to war, you are also saved." ”

Bai Juyi also wrote a poem for the women confined in the palace

"Shangyang White-Haired Man". These poor women were forcibly summoned into the palace by the emperor and lived in melancholy and loneliness every day, from the age of 16 to 60 years old, all buried alive. From "the empty house, the autumn night is long" to "only looking at the bright moon in the deep palace, four or five hundred rounds of the east and west", this deep description seems to record the weeping of the women in the palace. The feudal emperor destroyed the youth of thousands of women for his own personal absurd life. Bai Juyi was very sympathetic to the plight of these women, and when he was serving as a leftist, he once told the emperor about releasing the women in the palace.

Later life

Yuan

and thirteen years (A.D

819

In the winter of that year, BaekJu-il was appointed Chungju Assassin. Chungju is in what is now Chung County, Sichuan Province. Thorn Shi is an official with some real power. After Bai Juyi heard it, his always depressed mood improved somewhat. Bai Juyi was very happy to be able to show his talents in Chungju, and he and his brother Bai Xingjian left Gangju to take up their posts in Chungju.

3

month

11

On the evening of the evening, the Bai Juyi brothers came to Yiling in Xiazhou (present-day YichangXi, Hubei) and stayed overnight by the river. Someone came to report that there was a visit from the deceased. Bai Juyi was not puzzled, so he ordered that there be a please. When Bai Juyi saw the person coming, he went forward to hug him, and the two laughed.

The person who came was none other than Bai Juyi's best friend and great poet Yuan Shu.

Yuan Shu is smaller than Bai Juyi

7

At that time, Bai Juyi was selected from the Jia Branch, and Yuan Shu was also enlisted, and later, the two served as school secretaries in the secretary province, and they had frequent exchanges and became the closest friends. The two were like-minded, both hated the corruption of the imperial court, and spoke out. Bai Juyi and Yuan Shu formed a friendship with Mo Rebellion, and later separated for several years, and met here unexpectedly, and the joy in their hearts was indescribable. For three days, the two were inseparable, talking all night long, and there were really endless words and endless feelings. Three days have passed, bai juyi is going to leave again.

Yuan Shu sent one ride after another, and finally the two said goodbye with tears.

Sichuan Zhongzhou is a small mountainous county, with inconvenient transportation, very isolated, many barren mountains in the territory, and the people's lives are very poor.

Bai Juyi came to Chungju to serve as an assassin and had a certain amount of power in his hands. He did some good things for the local people. He was very fond of plants, planting a large number of lychees in Chungju, and building a lychee building in the southwest of the county seat; at the same time, he also planted a large number of trees in the state, especially fruit trees. These practices have played a certain role in impoverishing local farmers.

Chungju is small and poor, and its economy and culture are very backward. Bai Juyi did the history of thorns here, although he did his best, but the appearance of this place did not change much. At this time, the imperial court issued an edict to send him back to Chang'an Baiju Yi reluctantly left Chungju. Before leaving, he came to the Kaiyuan Temple in the east of the city, climbed the attic, and looked at the newly planted willow trees on the east slope, peach trees, and plum trees, which had grown into a forest, and his heart was very happy. Bai Juyi led the whole family, young and old, boarded the official ship, and sadly left the mountain city where he had lived for two years.

The official ship descended east along the Yangtze River and came to the mouth of Dongting Lake. Looking at the vast smoke waves, Bai Juyi couldn't help but sigh with excitement, imagining that if the lake water was drained, the bottom of the lake would become a thousand acres of fertile land. So he wrote a long poem with romantic overtones. Of course, this ideal of his will never be realized, but it only reflects his idea of caring for the well-being of the people.

Bai Juyi returned to Chang'an after a six-year absence with a feeling of "returning to the country one by one and returning to the country one by one, and only the past is important". He first served as a "Simen WaiLang", and soon promoted to "Lang Zhongzhi Zhi Zhen" who wrote edicts for the emperor.

Bai Juyi stayed in Chang'an for two years, and when he saw the officials around him fighting openly and secretly for power, and did not hesitate to betray his personal personality, his heart was greatly shaken. He felt that he was an official in the capital, and he had no help for the country and the people, so he tried to be released and went to other places to become an official. In the second year of Changqing (AD

823

He was appointed to the Hangzhou Assassin History.

Hangzhou is called a paradise on earth, and bai juyi is naturally very happy to be able to go there as an official. He came to Hangzhou, on the one hand, he was busy dealing with government affairs, on the other hand, he traveled around and wrote many famous landscape poems.

In Hangzhou, Baiju easily accumulated lake water, protected the embankment, diverted lake water to irrigate the fields, rectified the rivers, and made the lakes, rivers, and fields unimpeded, and did a lot of good things for the local people.

Later, Bai Juyi also served as an official in Suzhou, such as Suzhou Assassin History and Secretary Supervisor. Because he gradually grew tired of politics and was not in good health, he resigned all official positions and went into hiding in Luoyang.

After Bai Juyi returned to Luoyang, he especially liked the beauty and tranquility of the Xiangshan Temple. He called himself a "Xiangshan resident" and often wandered around the Xiangshan Temple in white clothes. Later, he also settled his home at Xiangshan Temple. Whenever there was a slight snow in the winter, he took the monks with him, took a boat up the river, ate wine and tea, or whispered, or shouted long, and when others saw him so leisurely, they all envied his leisure. Bai Juyi suffered from severe rheumatism in his old age, and famous local doctors in Luoyang rose up to treat this great poet, but he was old and weak, and the illness became more and more serious.

a.d

846

Years later, Bai Juyi finished him

75

Years of history, died of illness.

He was buried at Longmen Mountain. Luoyang people and tourists from all over the world often come here to pay homage to bai juyi's tomb and pay homage to this great people's poet with wine.

Bai Juyi was a well-known realist poet of the Tang Dynasty. More than three thousand of his poems have survived. The most significant feature of Bai Juyi's poetry in art is that it is easy to be popular, simple and straightforward. It is said that after every poem he wrote, he always had to find a few people with low culture and read it to them, and if they could not understand it, he would revise it until they understood it. In this way, the poems created by Bai Juyi were even recited by ordinary grooms and shepherd boys.