After the Liu entourage crossed Tungting Lake, they continued up the Hsiang River and stopped in Tanchou 潭州 (Changsha) to visit Liu Tsung-yuan’s father-in-law, Yang P’ing 楊凭. Yang was serving not only as town magistrate but also as governor of the entire West Chiangnan Circuit 西江南道, which included Yungchou, Langchou, Chenchou 郴州, Taochou 道州, and half a dozen other outposts. Liu Yu-hsi then headed west to his post in Langchou, and Liu Tsung-yuan continued south to Yungchou, another 250 kilometers upstream to where the Hsiang was joined by the Hsiao River 瀟河.
The prefecture toward which Liu and his family were traveling included 25,000 square kilometers of forests and farmland and a tax-paying population of 150,000. It had been brought into the Chinese orbit centuries earlier, and its population consisted mostly of Han Chinese. But it also included a mixture of Chuang 壮, Miao 苗, Yao 瑤, and Tung 侗—ethnic groups that had previously occupied the river valleys but had been forced into the hills by migrations of Han Chinese. Finally, in the last month of the year, eighty days after leaving Ch’ang-an, Liu reached the Hsiao River town of Yungchou. His post not only didn’t include any responsibilities or authority, it didn’t include a place to live. Fortunately for Liu, this wasn’t a problem. His mother was a devout Buddhist, and he himself had long been interested in the Dharma. The abbot of Lunghsing Temple龍興寺 welcomed them. Liu’s two cousins later found lodging across the river, but for Liu the monastery became his home for the next five years.
Less than a month later, at the beginning of 806, the emperor announced a new reign period and a general amnesty, which extended to all exiles except the Eight Assistant Magistrates 八司馬, as they were called. It didn’t take long for Liu to realize he was going to be in Yungchou for a while, and the wind that once filled his sails died. For the first time he experienced depression. As spring gave way to summer, his mother’s illness worsened, and she died. Liu arranged for her body to be sent back and buried in the family graveyard south of Ch’ang-an on the Chifeng Plateau 棲鳳原. Now it was just himself, his daughter, and a nursemaid.
There was a bright side, though, to being an assistant magistrate. It was a forced vacation, and Liu began to take advantage of it. He spent his time hiking through the countryside, drinking with like-minded individuals, and writing whatever came to mind. Inspiring him were friends who joined him there, as well as his two cousins. Liu Tsung-chih 柳宗直 was his cousin on his father’s side and became the brother he never had. Tsung-chih had also passed the imperial exam but decided he would rather accompany his cousin than wait for the unlikely prospect of an appointment. Lu Tsun 廬遵 was his cousin on his mother’s side and was a constant companion, not only in Yungchou but also at Liu’s next place of exile. Other friends included Wu Wu-ling 吳武陵, who passed the imperial exam in 807 but was banished to Yungchou the following year, and Yuan K’e-chi 元克己, who was another regular at evening get-togethers and on excursions. Also, Liu’s maternal uncle, Ts’ui Min 崔敏, arrived and served as magistrate of Yungchou from 808 until 810. Considering the circumstances, Liu couldn’t have been better off. The group that gathered around him became so famous, it was talked about in the capital, and would-be officials came from far afield to study with him. Liu was just as famous for his calligraphy as he was for what he wrote.
Most periods of exile in China ended after two years or at the most five. When the five-year mark went by with no reprieve, Liu concluded he was never going back. Some days he identified with Ch’u Yuan 屈原 (340–278 BC), the exiled poet whose laments he knew by heart and to which he responded with his own sense of unjust banishment. Other days he identified with T’ao Yuan-ming 陶淵明 (365–427), the poet who retired from government service early enough to enjoy life as a farmer, and Liu began to plant things.
Once the five-year mark passed, Liu decided to move out of the monastery and to build a hut across the river. He didn’t exactly take up farming, but he did lead the life of a retired gentleman. Once again, just as he was getting settled, sorrow visited. His daughter, Happy Girl, succumbed to illness. Before she died, she asked her father if she could become a nun. She was only ten, but Liu arranged for her to be ordained, and she took the name Ch’u-hsin 初心, Beginner’s Mind. Another reason Liu might have moved out of the monastery was that he had formed a relationship with a local peasant woman. She became his de facto wife and gave birth to another daughter a year after Beginner’s Mind died.
The place Liu chose for his new home was on a tributary of the Hsiao. It was called the Janhsi River 冉溪, but Liu soon changed the name. He reasoned that he was living in Yungchou because he was so stupid, that it was his stupidity that had led him to oppose the eunuchs and other entrenched officials at court. He renamed the stream the Yuhsi 愚溪, or Stupid River, and he lived what had to be the happiest years of his life on or near its banks. The site of his initial residence has since become a shrine, but this wasn’t the only place he lived. At some point Liu built a second, larger residence near the mouth of Stupid River on land now occupied by the town’s Number-Seven High School. Being right next to the ferry made it easier for his friends to visit and for him to visit them. Also, it was a relatively flat piece of land and provided more room for planting things. Liu planted hundreds of trees while he was in Yungchou, especially orange trees.
Although Liu lived the life of a retired gentleman, he was not the sort of person who slept late or went to bed early. He explored every nook and cranny in the area, and he received constant requests to compose inscriptions and drafts of memorials others hoped to submit at court. While he was in Yungchou, he maintained correspondence with hundreds of people. Liu still hoped to serve in some capacity, and he wrote countless appeals to others hoping they might help put an end to the disregard, if not enmity, the holders of power felt toward him.
Finally, in the first month of 815, Liu was recalled, along with Liu Yu-hsi and three other members of the original eight—two of whom had died, and one of whom had simply retired. Liu hurried back to Ch’ang-an and arrived less than six weeks later in the third week of the second month. He arrived full of hope. But the hope didn’t last long. The long shadow that had scuttled the careers of other members of the Liu family was still at work. Their return had been orchestrated by Wei Kuan-chih 韋貫之, one of the court’s two chancellors. But the court’s other chancellor was Wu Yuan-heng 武元衡, a great-grandson of the Liu-family nemesis, Empress Wu. Wu Yuan-heng bore the group of reformers a grudge, as they had rebuffed his attempts to join them. He should have been happy he didn’t! But when the chancellor heard someone recite “The Peach Blossoms of Hsuantu Temple” 玄都觀桃花 (see poem 114 in Poems of the Masters), which Liu Yu-hsi wrote shortly after his return, about visiting a Taoist temple and seeing all the peach trees planted since he was exiled, Wu (and others) interpreted the poem as critical of the government. Three weeks after they returned, the five surviving assistant magistrates were exiled again. This time they were elevated to posts as magistrates, but their new posts were even farther from the capital than before. In Liu’s case, his new assignment was to Liuchou 柳州, just north of Vietnam.
In the middle of the third month, Liu and his friend Liu Yu-hsi left Ch’ang-an once more. Six weeks later, they said goodbye halfway up the Hsiang in the town of Hengyang 衡陽. Liu Yu-hsi continued overland across the Nanling Mountains 南嶺山 to his new post in Kuangtung province, and Liu Tsung-yuan continued up the Hsiang, then through the Lingchu Canal 靈渠 to the Kuei River 桂江 (aka Li River 漓江) and down the Kuei to the Hsun 潯江, and finally up the Hsun and Liuchiang 柳江 Rivers to Liuchou. He arrived at the end of the sixth month, more than three months after setting out.
If Yungchou was a provincial backwater, Liuchou was barely a town. The prefecture, not the town but the prefecture, had a population of 7,000 compared to Yungchou’s 150,000. And those who spoke Chinese were few and far between. Life was very different. Child slavery was common, and during his tenure Liu personally redeemed over a thousand children who had been sold to pay off debts. He continued to write, producing some of his best work. But he finally had responsibilities, and he devoted himself to carrying them out. In this, he had the support of P’ei Hsing-li 裴行立, magistrate of Kueichou 桂州 and governor of the region that included Liuchou.
Liu made a deep impression on the people of Liuchou,