Du Fu

Standing atop Mount Tai, 24-year-old Du Fu wrote his magnum opus 'Gazing on Mount Tai': 'I shall ascend the supreme peak, and in one glance look down on all other mountains!' It showcased his boundless youth ambition.

In Luoyang, 33-year-old Du Fu met Li Bai in a legendary brotherhood. Afterward, Du Fu journeyed to Chang'an, seeking official examinations amidst a decaying imperial bureaucracy.

In Luoyang, Du Fu formed a profound friendship with Li Bai and Gao Shi, writing fondly of their days roaming side by side and sharing poetic visions of China's Golden Age.

Aspiring to imperial service, Du Fu traveled to Chang'an, only to face a corrupt examination system under autocratic ministers.

Stranded in Chang'an for ten agonizing years under corrupt ministers, Du Fu lived in poverty selling herbs, writing the scathing indictment: 'Behind crimson mansion gates, meat and wine spoil with rot; along the frozen highways, dead bones lie unburied.'

In 755, the An Lushan Rebellion erupted. Rebel troops captured Chang'an. Fleeing with his family, Du Fu was captured by rebels and held under armed surveillance in the fallen capital.

Trapped in occupied Chang'an, Du Fu penned 'Spring View': 'The state is shattered, yet mountains and rivers endure; spring descends on the city, overgrown with grass and trees. Beacon fires rage through three months; a letter from home is worth ten thousand pieces of gold.'

In 757, Du Fu risked execution to escape across the walls in rags, reaching the provisional court at Fengxiang. Appointed Imperial Advisor, his fearless moral critiques quickly alienated the new emperor, leading to exile.

In hemp sandals Du Fu reached the emperor at Fengxiang and was made Reminder; after remonstrating over Fang Guan he was posted to Huazhou. His 'Three Officials and Three Partings' were not written while serving at Fengxiang, but later on the road from Huazhou toward the eastern capital, amid conscription and wartime ruin—crowning him 'Poet Historian'.

As famine and warfare intensified, Du Fu resigned in protest, leading his family across snowy mountain passes into refuge in Gansu.

In Tonggu amidst raging blizzards, Du Fu dug wild tubers from frozen dirt to feed his starving children, composing his heartbreaking 'Seven Songs of Tonggu'.

Fleeing starvation, Du Fu trekked down the precipitous mountain roads into the fertile basin of Chengdu, Sichuan.

At Chengdu's Thatched Cottage, supported by friends, Du Fu found temporary peace. When autumn gales ripped the thatched roof off, he cried from his shivering bed: 'Could I but shelter the cold scholars of the world in ten thousand great mansions, I would gladly freeze to death in my ruined hut!'

Following the sudden death of his patron Yan Wu, Du Fu boarded a river boat down the Yangtze into Kuizhou (Three Gorges), where he would spend two prolific years.

In Kuizhou by the roaring Three Gorges, Du Fu reached the pinnacle of classical Chinese verse, composing 'Climbing High': 'Boundless rustling leaves fall continuously; the endless Yangtze roars ceaselessly along.' It is hailed as the greatest regulated verse poem in history.

In 768, Du Fu sailed out of the Gorges onto Dongting Lake and Yueyang in Hunan, spending his final years floating on a wooden river barge.

At Yueyang Tower overlooking boundless Dongting Lake, elderly and ill, Du Fu gazed north toward wartime frontiers and wept, embodying ultimate patriotic compassion.

Floating southward on the Xiang River, destitute and chronically ill, Du Fu spent his final days on his lone boat.

In the winter of 770, Du Fu died aboard a small river boat on the Xiang River at age 58. Revered as China's 'Sage of Poetry', his compassionate soul and monumental poetry shine eternally in world literature.