There is a ruin of Broken Leaf City near the city of Tokmak, east of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, which is believed to be the birthplace of the great Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai. There is also a tomb of Li Bai in the Dungan settlement of Kazakhstan, which is only separated from the city of Tokmak by the Chu River. In recent years, cultural exchanges between China and Central Asian countries have been deepening, and Li Baire has also quietly risen on both sides of the Chu River. Li Bai's ancestral home is in Chengji, Longxi (now Qin'andong, Gansu), about his birthplace, there is a lot of discussion in the historiography, it is generally believed that he was born in the first year of Wu Zetian's Chang'an (701 AD) in Central Asia's Broken Leaf City, and some scholars believe that it is Luoyang, Henan, Mianyang, Jiangyou County, Sichuan and other places. At that time, Broken Leaf City was an important city on the ancient silk road, which belonged to the westernmost town of Anxi Protectorate in the Tang Dynasty, and was one of the "Four Towns of Anxi" at that time.
The reason why Li Bai's family moved to Broken Leaf City is that some scholars believe that his ancestors were exiled for crimes in the Sui Dynasty, and some people say that the family moved here because of business. But it is difficult to find out the truth in history, and even the name of Li Bai's father, Li Ke, is full of the sense of wandering in a foreign land. Under the guidance of the tour guide, we found the ruins of Li Bai's birthplace after a difficult trek. Today's Shattered Leaf City is no longer an important town on the ancient road. Judging from the ruins, this was once a large mansion building, with quite a few houses and yards. Reasoning from this, the conditions of Li Bai's family at that time should have been very good. According to the tour guide, Li Bai was born here and moved back to the Guanzhong area with his parents at the age of 5. We came to visit the ruins of Broken Leaf City this time, hoping to get a little bit of the poet's aura and find the relics of the Tang Dynasty. Unfortunately, the site is overgrown with weeds. From a distance, the ruins of Shattered Leaf City were only slightly higher than the fertile Chu River Plain, without any markings. I can't help but wonder: was Li Bai, a famous poet of the Tang Dynasty, born here?
The following is a photo I took of the site of Li Bai's birthplace and shared it with my friends here.
