Some people may think this is not a problem. Bai Juyi likes to write a poem whenever he has something to do, so the number of his works far exceeds that of other poets in the Tang Dynasty. Isn't that normal? However, the fact is not that simple.
There is no doubt that the number of Bai Juyi's poems ranked first in the Tang Dynasty, but compared with the poets in the Song Dynasty, even the top three could not be squeezed in. Lu You wrote more than 9,000 songs in his life, including 4,804 by Liu Kezhuang and 4,239 by Yang Wanli. The number of Su Shi's works is relatively small, but it has reached 3459. Why is the creative ability of poets in Song Dynasty far superior to that of poets in Tang Dynasty? In fact, it is not that the Song people were more inspired, but that printing made a qualitative leap in the Song Dynasty. The works of literati in the Tang Dynasty are mainly preserved by hand-copying, which is bound to greatly reduce the number. After the popularization of movable type printing in Song Dynasty, literati's works have more opportunities to remain in the world. So why did Bai Juyi, who was also a poet in the Tang Dynasty, keep so many poems? This has to talk about Bai Juyi's foresight.
Bai Juyi leads a relatively smooth life, that is, in modern terms, he has money and leisure, so he has a lot of time to devote to literary creation. For most people, there are generally only two ways to make a name for themselves in Qing history: one is to make contributions, and the other is to leave outstanding works. As a literati, the first road is too far away from Bai Juyi, so one of the most important issues he considered in his later years is how to preserve more than 3,000 poems he wrote.
After a period of hard thinking, Bai Juyi finally found a relatively safe preservation method, that is, don't put eggs in one basket. He edited all his life's works into volumes, and then made five copies, which were stored in five different places in the country. First, he left a copy at Tolin Temple in Lushan Mountain, on the grounds that he had served as Jiangzhou Sima and made friends with Tolin Temple people. Second, I left a copy in nanzenji, Suzhou, because he served as the secretariat of Suzhou in 825-826, and his official voice was good; Thirdly, he left a copy in Shengshan Temple in Luoyang, because he spent the last 17 years in Luoyang. The fourth is to leave a copy for his nephew (Bai Juyi has no son); The fifth is to leave a copy for his grandson.
To be on the safe side, Bai Juyi wrote a poem for every set of poems. The main idea of the poem is to say where his works are kept, ostensibly to thank the other party for keeping them, but also to publicize them to the whole world and let everyone know where Lao Bai's works are kept. Whoever loses these works in the future will not be drowned by everyone's spit.
Through this series of careful arrangement, Bai Juyi's "Bai Changqing Collection" has finally been effectively preserved and has become a masterpiece handed down from generation to generation. At the same time, Bai Juyi has always ranked first in the number of Tang poetry creations.