Bai Juyi and His Lishui Connection

Bai Jikang and Lishui

Bai Jikang was Bai Juyi's uncle (literally his father's cousin). Bai Juyi wrote his epitaph, "Epitaph for the Late Magistrate of Lishui, Mr. Bai of Taiyuan" (Bai shi changqing ji, juan 70). It records that Bai Jikang held office as subprefect of Huazhou's Xiaqui, assistant of Huaizhou's Henei, magistrate of Xuzhou's Pengcheng, magistrate of Jiangzhou's Xunyang and magistrate of Suzhou's Hongxian, and finally magistrate of Lishui in Xuanzhou, dying "in the official residence"; it also says that "from his subprefectship at Xiaqui to his magistracy at Lishui he was known to his superiors for integrity and for bringing relief, and was praised among his colleagues", and that he was "fraternal to his brothers and kind to his nephews".

The kinship term varies by source: media reports and encyclopaedias usually say "uncle", specialised compilations say "father's cousin (a more distant uncle)", and the gazetteer text of the epitaph says "uncle". This entry keeps both, without choosing.

The district government's "District Overview" page lists "the Tang poet Bai Jikang, the Song poet Zhou Bangyan and the Qing man of letters Yuan Mei" among former magistrates of Lishui.

The epitaph as carried in juan 8 of the Kangxi gazetteer

juan 8 of the Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer ("Literature") also carries Bai Juyi's "Epitaph for Lord Bai" (headed "Grand Tutor", for the same Bai Jikang). Elsewhere this entry quotes the text from juan 70 of the Bai shi changqing ji; the two are two redactions — two vessels — of one and the same epitaph, differing in small ways and each fuller in places. Both are kept here, neither set aside for the other.

The gazetteer text adds four things. First, the lineage. Its opening differs from the Changqing ji text:

康熙志本：公諱季康，太原人。

《白氏長慶集》本：公諱季康，字某，太原人。

Translated: the Kangxi text has "Duke Ji Kang, a man of Taiyuan", while the Changqing ji text inserts the placeholder courtesy name, "styled so-and-so". It then names his great-grandfather Shitong, governor of Lizhou; his grandfather Zhishan, an imperial physician; and his father Lin, registrar of Yangzhou. The last agrees with the notable-officials biography ("his father Lin was registrar of Yangzhou"), and the two corroborate each other.

Second, the four magistracies. It lists Xiaqui in Huazhou (constable), Henei in Huaizhou (assistant), Pengcheng in Xuzhou (magistrate), Xunyang in Jiangzhou (magistrate), Hongxian in Suzhou (magistrate) and Lishui in Xuanzhou (magistrate), with Lishui last. Four of these — Pengcheng, Xunyang, Hongxian and Lishui — are "ling" (magistracies), and Lishui is the last of them; the biography's "he had already been a magistrate four times" is thereby given its four posts and their order.

Third, his household and burial. His first wife, née Xue, bore two sons, one constable of Yuqian in Hangzhou and one constable of Suian in Muzhou, and a daughter, Jianxu, who took vows before marriage. His second wife, née Jing of Gaoyang, bore a son and two daughters who both died young; the son was Minzhong, a presented scholar, who had held a judgeship in the Court of Judicial Review and served as secretary in three prefectural offices. The epitaph says he "died in the official residence" and was buried back at Xiaqui; his second wife died in the seventh year of Taihe (833) and was jointly interred with him the following year.

Fourth, the inscription itself. It opens:

繄我叔父，溧水府君。治本於家，政施於民。

Translated: Alas, my uncle, the Lord of Lishui: he ordered his household as the root and spread his government among the people.

It closes with the lines:

訓著趨庭，善彰卜鄰。故其嗣子，休有令聞。

four-character rhymed lines throughout.

One difference of address also separates the two texts from the biography: the biography calls Juyi Jikang's "congzi" (nephew), whereas the inscription has Jikang's son Minzhong, at the burial, "entrust the stone to his cousin Juyi"; the two terms differ, and are set side by side without adjudication.

Bai Juyi joins him and sits the examination

According to a compilation by Fangzhi Jiangsu (the official Pengpai account of the Jiangsu Provincial Local Records Compilation Committee), Bai Juyi's father Bai Jigeng died in 794 in office at Xiangyang; after the mourning period Bai Juyi went to join his uncle Bai Jikang, then magistrate of Lishui. In 798 Bai Jikang had him sit the county examination at Lishui; in autumn 799 he sat the prefectural examination at Xuanzhou, was recommended by Cui Yan, the governor, and in the first month of 800 entered the capital as a Xuanzhou candidate and passed with the fourth place in the imperial examination.

The same article itself notes that Bai Juyi's collected works record nothing of this Lishui journey, and that his sitting the examination there is inferred from the rule that a Xuanzhou candidate could only be examined at Lishui (citing Wang Shiyi's Life of Bai Juyi, 1983). His presence in Lishui is therefore an inference, of a different evidential order from the contemporary epitaph used here.

A report by Jiangsu International Online in 2021 adds that the name of Tongji Street in Lishui was taken from the epitaph. This is a modern inference; the epitaph names no street, and the entry marks it as such.

Bai Jikang honoured as city god of Lishui

juan 3 of the Kangxi edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, under "County", records:

唐时故址即今城隍庙也。元和间改县为白侯庙，而遂为城隍。

Translated: The Tang site is today's City God Temple. In the Yuanhe period the county office was renamed the temple of Lord Bai, and so became the city god's temple.

juan 9 of the same gazetteer, in Pan Ye's "Record of Repairing the Confucian School and its Roads" of 1489, adds:

唐溧水令白公有德及民，殁而奏于朝，移县治于旧治西若干步，即旧治而庙共祀之，今城隍庙是已。

Translated: The Tang magistrate of Lishui, Lord Bai, benefited the people by his virtue; after his death it was reported to court, the county seat was moved a few paces west of the old office, and a temple was raised on the old site to sacrifice to him — this is today's City God Temple.

The "Miscellaneous Records" of the Guangxu edition quotes the epitaph Bai Juyi wrote for Bai Jikang and gives the sequence: in 837 a subordinate official built an earthen altar and a thatched shrine in the county garden to Lord Bai; in 844, after incense was burned there, the matter was reported and "by imperial order the county office was converted into a temple and the seat moved to a wine workshop west of the street". The "Lord Bai" of the gazetteers is Bai Jikang, confirmed by the epitaph and the two gazetteers.

The Kangxi reading ("in the Yuanhe period") and the Guangxu reading (shrine in 837, temple in 844) differ in date and are set side by side, without a choice.

Uncertainties

First, no gazetteer, including the epitaph, gives the years in which Bai Jikang took up or left the Lishui post, nor his year of death; the year 798 belongs to the compilation's account of Bai Juyi's visit and examination, not to a gazetteer record.

Second, whether Bai Juyi himself ever went to Lishui has no direct evidence; the accounts infer it from his status as a Xuanzhou candidate, and this entry marks it as an inference.

Third, the date of the city-god cult is given as the Yuanhe period in the Kangxi edition and as 837/844 in the Guangxu edition; both are set out.

Fourth, the derivation of the street name "Tongji" from the epitaph is a modern inference; the epitaph names no street.