The Story of China's Greatest Poet - Li Bai 李白

the tongue Dynasty is one of the greatest empires in all of human history and is considered China's Golden Age The Pinnacle of Chinese civilization among many things it was a golden age of the tongue was considered a golden age of Chinese poetry with over 48,000 poems by 2,200 tongue Dynasty poets surviving to this day there are poems by famous shuren such as duu W way and by you but there is no more famous a poet than the legendary Lee B who wandered the Empire saved a tongue Dynasty General dazzled the Imperial Court with his poetry and narrowly escaped death on one occasion he is known as the greatest poet in Chinese history and this is his [Music] story Lei is thought have been born in the year 701 ad in what is present day kyrgistan his family did business on the frontier there and later moved back into China and settled in suine Province when he was young he studied the Confucian Classics but he never actually took the Civil Service examination Lee also learned swordsmanship which would mean the Chinese straight sword or J he later told another poet when he was young he was chivalrous helping the weak and killing many men although all the accounts of this come from leei himself so maybe he was good with a sword but parts of these stories are probably exaggerated especially because he was drunk most of the time as recorded in the old book of Tong or Tang he was addicted to alcohol he spent his days with Drinking Buddies drunk at the bar sounds like he'd fit right into 21st century America to be honest that's my little Drinker Homer what gifts it's only Tuesday and you're drinking like it's a Thursday but I'm guessing drinking was a lot more elegant than that it would have been Chinese wine rather than beer and it opened up his creative abilities to write great poetry and we're going to get to all that in just a moment but first after Lei left sichan Province he began wandering around the country and eventually ended up in what is modern day Shandong Province during this period of wandering around though he married his first wife who was the daughter of a retired government official from a very well-connected family in hubbe it seems his Connections in government served him well because in the year 735 he was in shansi Province and he intervened in the court Marshal against GUI a tongue Dynasty military General now remember this fact because it becomes important later on around the year 740 or so Lei makes friends with a DST priest who eventually has an audience with emperor shenzong in changan the capital and Praises Lei to the emperor so much that the emperor summons Lei to Chan now Lei shows up drunk of course but immediately composes a beautiful poem praising the beauty of the emperor's consort yangu the same yangu who would be ordered to commit suicide because the emperor was too infatuated with her and he was neglecting his duties to the country but that's a different story anyway the poem went like this [Music] Emperor was so impressed that he appointed Lei to the hanlin academy which provided scholarly tasks to the court such as translation interpretation of the classics and the creation of poetry for the emperor leei continued to compose great poetry and there were themes that continually come up in his poems like the moon one of the most famous poems in all of Chinese poetry that is taught normally as the first poem in any course on Chinese literature is or thinking on a quiet night I know it so well I just recited it from memory and then of course another topic that comes up is well wine one of my personal favorite poems from Lei combines both wine and the moon it's called or drinking alone under the moon [Music] that was about half of it you get the idea but anyway Lei spent some time at the palace and all was well and good until he got on the wrong side of a conniving unic named gishu there's always an evil unic in these stories but anyway this unic managed to convince lady yangu that Lei meant offense in one of the poems he wrote about her and she told the emperor to get rid of him which reluctantly he did but he sent him off with a load of gifts of gold and silver leei then wandered the empire for another 10 years or so writing more poetry he met his contemporary dufu and the two exchanged a load of poems back and forth many of which still survive to this day but things were about to take a turn in the year 755 the anlan Rebellion broke out and anlan who was a military governor of three prefectures and had originally curried favor with Emperor shenzong took over the city of lyang and declared himself the Emperor of a new Dynasty while his troops tried to take over the remainder of the country this forced Emperor shenzong to flee changan but out on the road his soldiers blamed lady yam for taking his mind off of handling the Affairs of the Empire and forced him to have her commit suicide but how does this all relate to Lei well when emperor shenzong left changan and Lady Yang died his son declared himself the new emperor Emperor suong at this time Lei had already found a job working for another prince in the Imperial household a brother of the new emperor well in the chaos this Prince actually used his army to make a go for the throne himself and was then defeated by his brother Emperor sudong who then ordered everyone working under the Challenger sentenced to death including Lei but remember at the beginning of the story we told you about General gzi whose Court Marshal Lei intervened in well he showed up just in the nick of time to return the favor to Lei he was now a powerful General in the tongue Dynasty Army and he asked for Lei to be spared death instead he was exiled to what is now gu Joe which was a far off corner of the tongue Empire but in true Lei fashion he didn't hurry there instead he spent months traveling in in the general direction of guo stopping to visit friends drink wine and write poetry before even reaching the destination he was actually pardoned and the News caught up with him on the road so he simply turned back around in the 760soldskooljams [Music] really known how he died but there are a few theories do you want to hear the cool Theory or what probably actually happened of course you want to hear the cool one Legend has it that Levi was drunk on a boat at night and he leaned over the side and he saw the reflection of the moon in the still glasslike water in his drunken stuper he did what you or I might do at a 3D movie he reached out for something that wasn't there his hand breached the surface of the water and his body followed for falling into the lake and drowning I think it's a very fitting death you have all the elements of a lei story drunkenness the moon a quiet night it probably didn't happen but his ambiguous death only adds to the legend of the greatest poet in Chinese history guys what do you think of this story please leave your comments below and let us know what other cool historical stories you would like us to cover on this channel in the future subscribe to our Channel if you're new for more videos like this we'll see you next time bye-bye [Music] [Music]