Friends who like Tang poetry know that the great poet Li Bai once wrote a very popular poem for the famous poet Wang Changling:
Yang Hua fell to the end of the rules,
Wen Daolong marked the Five Streams.
I send sorrow to the bright moon,
Follow the wind until night Lang Xi.
The poem, titled "Wen Wang Changling's Left Migration of Longbiao YaoYou", is an emotional poem written by Li Bai when he heard that Wang Changling had been demoted to Longbiao County (in present-day Hongjiang District, Huaihua City, Hunan Province, also known as Qianyang).
Coincidentally, Wang Changling also wrote a poem of high artistic level for Li Bai - "Baling Sends Li XII"
Swaying BalingZhou, the Qingjiang river is rumored.
The mountain chief does not see the autumn city color, and the sun is full of water clouds.
Obviously, this is not a huairen poem, but a farewell poem, that is to say, Li Bai met Wang Changling, so what is the situation of this encounter between the two great poets?
Because the poem written by Li Bai for Wang Changling mentions the night wolf, and Li Bai in his later years had the experience of being exiled to yelang because of his participation in the yongwang Li Xuan's army, and the poem written by Wang Changling to Li Bai was full of sentimentality that "he was also a fallen man in the end of the world", some scholars took it for granted that this poem should have occurred during Li Bai's exile in 758 AD, which was actually impossible to happen, because Wang Changling was no longer alive in 758.
So, when was the poem "Baling Sends Li XII" written? Of course, it was the time when Wang Changling and Li Bai were in Baling, specifically a date in the autumn of 739 AD.
Baling is now Yueyang City, Hunan Province, which was a relatively remote place at that time. Why did Li Bai and Wang Changling come here? They each have their own sad past.
Let's start with Li Bai. When Li Bai traveled to Jingchu in his early years, he had a good friend named Wu Guide, unfortunately, Wu Guide suddenly fell ill in the area of Dongting Lake, and soon died, Li Baifu cried bitterly next to his friend, "weeping and then blood". Because he did not have enough travel expenses, Li Bai had to temporarily bury Wu Guide by Dongting Lake, and at the same time promised his friend who had just died and his soul was not far away that he would find an opportunity to move his bones back to his hometown of Ezhou for burial in the future.
Fourteen years later, Li Bai was finally able to fulfill his original promise, and he came to the sad place of Baling in a dusty manner, and happened to meet Wang Changling, who had returned from the south to the north.
Wang Changling returned from the amnesty in Lingnan, just as Li Bai later received the holy decree of amnesty on the way to exile Yelang, but we cannot be sure whether Wang Changling had already arrived at the Lingnan penal colony when he learned of the amnesty order.
Why did Wang Changling encounter the dilemma of exile in Lingnan? Because he had offended those in power by "impertinent sub-sections" while serving as a lieutenant in Shuishui County, which was in the territory of present-day Xingyang District in Henan Province, and Lingnan was as far away as present-day Guangxi, Guangdong, thousands of miles away.
When Wang Changling was first exiled to Lingnan, he once went to visit the great poet Meng Haoran, whom he admired, and Meng Haoran was deeply uneven about his encounter, and wrote "Sending Wang Changling to Lingnan" with a stroke of his pen——
The cave court goes far and near, and the maple leaves are early in autumn.
Da Shou Yang Gong Love, Changsha Jia Yi Sorrow.
The soil hair is hairless, and the rustic taste has a hammer head.
I have embraced the chronic disease, and I am even more troubled and worried.
Several years with the same pen, zi xi wore a coat.
Where is the spirit now, lovesickness and bullfighting.
Wang Changling is a good friend with a beginning and an end, and when he returned from the north, he visited Meng Haoran again, because he wanted to share the joy of regaining his freedom with his old friends. Meng Haoran had a gangrene on his back, and when Wang Changling visited again, his injuries had just improved, and his old friends were very happy to reunite, so he was happy to forget the doctor's instructions for a while, ate some of the river fresh that he was afraid of eating at the time, and died soon after.
Meng Haoran's death was after Wang Changling and Li Bai met in Baling, and the reason why I want to write about it by the way is because Li Bai is also a super fan of Meng Haoran, and his "Gift to Meng Haoran" is a masterpiece throughout the ages——
I love Mengfuzi, and the world hears of it.
The red face abandons the crown, and the white head lies in the pine cloud.
Drunken moon frequent saints, lost flowers do not matter.
The mountains are safe and admirable, and the qingfen is in vain.
The encounter between Li Bai and Wang Changling in Baling should not be the first meeting between these two great poets, otherwise, the poem written by Wang Changling for Li Bai should not be named "Baling Sends Li XII", but should be called "Reward Taibai Baling's First Meeting on the Table", just like the poem "Reward Lotte Yangzhou First Meeting on the Table" belongs to the poem "Reward Lotte Yangzhou First Meeting on the Table".
So, when and where did Li Bai first meet Wang Changling? This requires good reasoning.
According to the footprints of Li Bai and Wang Changling before they met, their first intersection should have occurred in Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty. In 727, Wang Changling went to Chang'an to take the exam, and was appointed secretary of the provincial school secretary. From this year to 738, when he was demoted to Lingnan, although he had been out of Beijing as a lieutenant of Shuishui County, he lived most of the time in Chang'an City.
Li Bai first arrived in Chang'an in 730 AD, for some reason he always refused to take the imperial examination, but hoped to be an official by recommending him, and after several efforts, he saw that there was no hope, so he left Beijing in 733.
To sum up, Li Bai's first encounter with Wang Changling should be in Chang'an City between 730 and 733 AD, I don't know whether they did not sing at the beginning of their lives or the poems left at that time were later lost in the long river of history, but in any case it is a great regret...
Special Writer of "Night Wolf Literature and History Studio": Yi Jiangnan