The Creation Background of Seven Songs of Tonggu Gan

This group of poems was written by Du Fu in November, 759, the second year of Gan Yuan. Du Fu was forty-eight years old this year. In July, he gave up his official position in Huazhou and settled in Qin Zhou (now Tianshui, Gansu). /kloc-in October, he moved to Tonggu (now Chengxian County, Gansu Province) and lived there for about a month, which was the most embarrassing period in his life. The family was sick in bed because of hunger, so they had to dig up taro to fill their intestines. In the days of hunger and cold, the poet wrote "seven songs with the same valley" in the genre of seven ancient times.