Bai Juyi was clever since childhood. He learned to write poetry at the age of five or six, and became familiar with phonology at the age of nine. Study hard and make your mouth and elbows sore. When I was a teenager, I traveled to many places to avoid the chaos in the south of the Yangtze River. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, he wrote, "The endless grass on the grassland comes and goes with the four seasons, and the wildfire burns endlessly, and the spring breeze blows high", which was appreciated by the famous poet Gu Kuang at that time. However, Genius of Heaven has been ranked first for many years. During the Zhenyuan period, Fang Zhong was a scholar and was appointed secretary of provincial studies. When Tang Xianzong was in Yuanhe, he served as a bachelor of Hanlin, a bachelor of Zuo Shiyi and a bachelor of Zuo Zanshan. In the tenth year of Yuanhe (8 15), Li Shidao and Wang Cheng sects in the buffer region assassinated Prime Minister Wu. He demanded that the murderer be severely punished and offended the powerful, and was demoted to Jiangzhou (now Jiujiang, Jiangxi) Sima, and later transferred to Zhongzhou Secretariat. Tang Muzong acceded to the throne and was recalled to Chang 'an. In view of the eunuch's arrogance and political chaos, he was the secretariat of Hangzhou and Suzhou. Later, he was appointed as the guest's prince, secretary, prince and Xiao Fu, and the official was the minister of punishment. Resigned in his later years, living in Luoyang, whoring, drinking, playing the piano, writing poems, traveling, "Buddhism" and borrowing Buddha. However, he still thinks of the people from time to time. At the age of 73, he also raised funds to dig Longmen Bashi Beach to facilitate navigation. Two years later, posthumous title died and was buried at Pipa Peak in Xiangshan, Longmen, near Luoyang. The poet Li Shangyin wrote an epitaph for him.
The Tang Dynasty was the golden age of Chinese ancient literature, and poetry creation was vast. Among them, the talented poet Bai Juyi ranked first with more than 3,800 poems. Among all the Tang poems, prostitute poems account for a large proportion; Among them, Bai Juyi's prostitute poems are the highest among the poets in the Tang Dynasty, both in quantity and quality. It can be described as the first "Sao" guest in ancient and modern times! In addition, Bai Juyi also had intimate relationships with dozens of prostitutes such as A Ruan, Li Mou, Ma Mou, Pei Xing Nv, Shang Linglong, Xie, Wu Niang, Rong Mou, Man Mou, Juan Mou, Tai Mou, Su Fan and Xiao Man. From this point of view, he is also worthy of being the first "Sao" guest in ancient and modern times!
Under the influence of the social fashion of "eat, drink and be merry" in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi could not help drifting with the tide. As soon as I entered the official career, I lingered in music. According to reliable records, Bai Juyi's first thing after graduation was to go to a brothel, and soon he got to know A Ruan, a famous prostitute in Chang 'an, and praised A Ruan's beauty with the poem "A blue lotus blooms and a hundred flowers bloom without color". These two poems are Bai Juyi's early works, which were not included in his poetry collection, but were loved by some romantic men at that time and widely copied, so a manuscript was circulated; After Yuan Zhen arrived in Tongzhou, he saw two sentences in this book and sighed. He thought it was a strange thing, so he copied it down and gave it to Bai Juyi to share. When Bai Juyi looked at it, he found that it was 15 years ago when he graduated from college.
Bai Juyi was a scholar, and later worked as a secretary and a provincial school bookkeeper. His career is booming and he doesn't spend much time in Pingkangli. Later, because of offending powerful people, he was demoted to Jiangzhou Sima, and he was even more addicted to debauchery. In the 11th year of Yuanhe (8 16), when Bai was seeing off his good friend He Liang, he met Pei Xingnv, a woman in Liangqing brothel (a famous pipa girl in Tang Dynasty and a famous pipa player in Yuanhe) and won her famous piece Pipa Trip.
Naturally, the most important thing in this poem is sincere feelings. Scholar Chen Yinque once commented on this poem: "I wrote it in Chang 'an to encourage women to feel sorry for the past and even lose their way. "directly combine the people who cooperate with this poem with the people who sing this poem." Poetry in the Tang and Song Dynasties also said: "I am full of exile, and I am in the same boat with a merchant woman." Compared with xing, it is deeply suppressed. "Songs are bitter and words are familiar. Pipa girl's pipa music sings that the world is cold and human feelings are warm and cold; Bai Juyi's Pipa Journey is full of sorrow of meeting and knowing each other. A pipa song seems to be resentful, regretful, crying and complaining; A "Pipa Travel" is like a song. It is the pipa girl who helped Bai Juyi to create a masterpiece that has been told for generations in the history of literature.
Yuan Chaoxiang, a famous playwright Ma Zhiyuan (1250 ~ 132 1), started with this long poem Pipa Xing, and wrote Tears in Shirt, describing the love story between Bai Juyi and Pei Xingnv, a prostitute.
The story tells that Bai Juyi was an official in Tang Xianzong and went to visit Pei Xing, a famous prostitute in Chang 'an, with friends Jia Dao and Meng Haoran. Star girl is quite talented, especially good at pipa; She values Bai Juyi's talent, keeps close contact with him, and is willing to entrust her life. Later, Bai Juyi was demoted to Jiangzhou Sima, and when he left, he made an appointment with Xingnv to marry her. A Jiangxi tea merchant named Liu Yi heard that Xingnu was beautiful and wanted to marry her. Mrs. Xing was greedy for money and advised her to marry Liu Yi, but she insisted on waiting for Bai Juyi. Madam conspired with Liu Yi to cheat Xing Nv that Bai Juyi died, and Liu Yi took the opportunity to marry Xing Nv. Liu Yi and Xing spend the night in Jiangzhou. Xing Nv knew that this was Bai Juyi's residence, so she played the piano to mourn under the moon. It happened that Bai Juyi and his good friend Yuan Zhen were boating in the river. When they heard the sound of pipa, they suspected that Xingnu was playing, so they went aboard to visit. Bai Juyi was deeply moved by Xing Nv's crying and wrote the long poem Pipa Xing. When Liu Yi was lying in bed drunk, Yuan Zhen asked Bai Juyi to take Xingnu back by boat. He went back to Beijing first, explaining that Bai Juyi, the Ming emperor, deserved it, and lied to Liu Yi about marrying Xing. Under the imperial edict, Bai Juyi was restored as an assistant minister, Bai Juyi became a slave, and Liu Yi was punished.