The first sentence of the essay is where Li Bai's hometown is, and the controversy has never stopped for many years.

"History of Shang 'an Prefecture's Peichang" said: "Bai Benjia Jinling, surnamed you, suffered from Qu Mengxun and rushed to offer Qin. Because of the official residence, there are fewer Han Changjiang. "

When it comes to Li Bai's hometown, no one does not think that it is Jiangyou, Sichuan. Li Bai International Cultural Festival is held there every year, and the brand of tourism culture is played. Li Bai is everywhere in that city. Now, the view that Li Bai's hometown is Jiangyou seems to have been widely accepted at home and abroad. The entries about Li Bai in the new edition of Concise Encyclopedia Britannica and Encyclopedia of China clearly state that Li Bai is a "Jiangyou person in Sichuan". The new textbook "History of China" also says: "Li Bai, with white words, is a celebrity" (namely Jiangyou, Sichuan).

According to Zhao Yahui's blog, an article in People's Daily on August 10, 2002 revealed an important detail, saying that Jiangyou accidentally received an inscription from Deng Xiaoping's daughter, with only four words: "Li Bai's hometown". He also said that before Deng Xiaoping wrote these words, he had a conversation with Guo Moruo. The first half of this story is absolutely true, because the monument carved by these four words stands in Jiangyou; In the second half, I wrote these words only after talking with Guo Chang. Whether and when I talked about them can't be confirmed, because Guo died several years ago. In my opinion, the inscription of leaders is an advocacy and respect for historical and cultural sites and a nod to mainstream views, but it does not necessarily have the ultimate academic ruling power, especially in the face of complex historical mysteries. For example, there is such a situation now. It is not surprising that one leader mentioned "the hometown of Huang Xi" here, while another leader mentioned "the old capital of Huang Xi" there. But in any case, Xiaoping's inscription is true, which greatly increases the authority that Li Bai's hometown belongs to Jiangyou. Everything shows that Li Bai's hometown, Jiangyou, Sichuan, is ironclad, and no one seems to have any doubts.

However, unexpected things happened. In August last year, Hubei Anlu broadcasted a propaganda film entitled "Li Bai's hometown, the hometown of ginkgo biloba, welcome to Hubei Anlu" on CCTV International Channel. Immediately, posts such as "Jiangyou suffered the crisis of" Li Bai's hometown "and CCTV 4 was an accomplice" came out, and Jiangyou netizens began to seriously denounce the "infringement" behavior of Hubei Anlu on the Internet. Immediately, jiangyou city Municipal Party Committee and Anlu Municipal Government also intervened in this matter, fighting for "infringement" respectively. At that time, everyone thought that Hubei Anlu was afraid of bad luck and would be pushed to the dock, but the result was unexpected. On September 15, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce sent a reply to the Hubei Provincial Administration for Industry and Commerce: "As the long-term residence of Li Bai, it is reasonable to call Anlu the hometown of Li Bai. This is a normal description and explanation of objective facts and belongs to the fair use behavior stipulated in Article 49 of the Regulations on the Implementation of the Trademark Law. " Yes, "wine hides land, and ten years waste." Li Bai got married and had children in Anlu, which was once a base for him to travel around the world. It seems that Anlu should be publicized. However, this contradiction intensified, and later Jiangyou gained the upper hand.

I have nothing to say about this lawsuit. In my opinion, the use of the word "hometown" revealed by this incident is full of ambiguity and ambiguity, and it also exposes another important hidden fact that has been concealed for a long time, that is, where is Li Bai's real hometown? Besides Jiangyou and Anlu, is there any place more reasonable to call Li Bai's hometown? On this issue, have we used the strong words of modern people and neglected the statements and basic historical materials of the ancients? The dispute between Jiang and An is like everyone fighting for a treasure, especially the two people who are most likely to win it. In fact, they all ignore the opinions and feelings of the real owner of the treasure.

Here, the crux of the problem is, what is hometown? Does it refer to a person's birthplace, his long-term residence, or his native place, ancestral home or hometown? Which one should I choose?

Not long ago, an article in Shanghai Chewing Word magazine, which has always been serious, pointed out that the word "hometown" is often misused in local propaganda, and some places often call it a celebrity's "hometown" on the grounds that a celebrity has lived in the local area to attract tourists. In fact, "hometown" refers to a person's hometown, hometown, birth and the place where his ancestors lived. If his grandparents don't live here, he can't be called "hometown" no matter how long he lives. The article also gives an example that Chiang Kai-shek once lived in Taiwan Province Province for a long time, but who would call Taiwan Province Province "Chiang Kai-shek's hometown"? Jiang's hometown is Xikou, Fenghua, Zhejiang. "Permanent residence" is not necessarily "hometown", and "birthplace" is not necessarily "hometown". For example, a pregnant woman from other places gave birth while traveling in Shanghai. Is Shanghai the "hometown" of this child? He also said that the place where he lived for a long time should be called "the old place", so-called revisiting the old place; The house where he lived for a long time should be called "former residence", the so-called former residence; But "hometown", "former residence" and "hometown" are not a concept at all And so on.

I understand the painstaking efforts of the article Chewing Words, but I still can't solve the problem of the attribution of Li Bai's hometown. If the "birthplace", "place of permanent residence" and "place of ancestral residence" are all in the same place, it is certainly not a problem; What if it is inconsistent? For example, Li Bai's birthplace is generally considered to be broken leaves in Central Asia, which is inconsistent with his ancestral home in Longxi, so which is his hometown? Jiangyou, Sichuan, whose ancestral home is Longxi, has lived for a long time, which is the hometown?

Jiang Yan's "Biefu" says: "Seeing Qiao Mu's hometown, we must bid farewell to Beiliang forever." This may be the earliest appearance of the word hometown. In fact, it is now impossible to give the "hometown" an impeccable attribute. Hometown is a conventional concept. It is not difficult to acquire knowledge if you don't go into a dead end. It is the pursuit and affirmation of "root". A person, especially an ancient person, has the most say in the identification of his hometown-although this word is not necessarily used, it can only be the most say. Li Bai's true and unique "hometown" affirmed by history books for countless times can only belong to Longxi (now Qin 'an County, Tianshui County, Gansu Province, Qin belongs to Longxi County, and Han belongs to Tianshui County).

We should see that we are looking for Li Bai's hometown, and in fact Li Bai is also looking for his hometown; If these two pursuits overlap, naturally there is nothing to say; If there are two hometowns, which one should we decide? It's like a person saying who his parents are, and we don't believe him, so we have to identify his parents separately. Now, we may think that Li Bai's hometown is Jiangyou, Sichuan; But for Li Bai, there is no doubt that his hometown is Ji Cheng in west Gansu. This is what he repeatedly emphasized, and his tone is firm and unambiguous. When we determine Li Bai's hometown, do we agree with Li Bai's own identity in history, or do we abandon Li Bai, disobey him and stick to what we think is Jiangyou in Sichuan? Should we respect Li Bai's personal opinion in determining his hometown? If Li Bai clearly confirms his ancestral home, we simply refuse to recognize it, turn a blind eye and turn a deaf ear for the reasons of modern people's understanding, interests and self-righteousness. Is this right?

Let's see what Li Bai himself said. Three of Li Bai's poems clearly state his family background. "Hanshu Jingzhou" said: "Bailongxi is clothed in cloth and lives in Chu and Han." "A Gift to Zhang Xiang and Two Gifts" says: "Longxi people, whose ancestral home is Gansu, first came from the Han side. Merit covers heaven and earth, and fame flies to Qingyun. I didn't wait hard, it was quite embarrassing. " "History of Shang 'an Prefecture's Peichang" said: "Bai Benjia Jinling, surnamed you, suffered from Qu Mengxun and rushed to offer Qin. Because of the official residence, there are fewer Han Changjiang. " In the latter article, "My Jinling" and "My Longxi" seem to be contradictory. In fact, the "Jinling" here refers to the "Jiankang County" in Xiliang, which is the area around Lanzhou, Gansu today. According to historical data, the Book of Jin, Zhao and legends, it is recorded as follows: "Zhao is afraid of the sun rising, and his words are lofty. In the fourth year of Longan (400 years), he was served by many heroes, so he took up the map and became Liang Gong, and settled in Dunhuang and Jiuquan for thousands of miles. His son, Li Xin, succeeded Li Li and attacked Meng Xun, a giant canal, and was defeated. The younger brother succeeded, the canal broke Dunhuang, and the country died. " This is the "poor households" incident that happened in the first year of Jingping, Song Shaodi (423). "My own Jinling" has been clarified for the research community. In a word, Li Bai believes that Longxi is a disciplined person, which is clear enough. Li Bai also likes to call himself a "Huang Xi native". The so-called "thirty years of studying Taoism, starting from Huang Xi people". The porch is like a dream, and Yun Song is a blind date. ""The breeze in the north window is small, and I call myself Emperor Xi. " "Emperor Xi" is Fuxi, and is honored by historians as the head of "Huang San". According to legend, Fuxi was born in Longxi and became a discipline.

Let's take a look at what the recognized authoritative literature says. Li's Preface to the Collection of Caotang, Li's Preface to the Collection of Li Hanlin, and Li's Tombstone, an academician left by Tang Zuo, are all words left by people during Li Bai's lifetime or shortly after his death, and the historical materials are extremely valuable, which proves that what Li Bai said before his death is "a native of Longxi", that is, a person who grew up in Longxi, is true and reliable. Li's preface to the collection of thatched cottage says: "Li Bai, whose word is Taibai, is from Longxi, the grandson of Liang Wang IX. It's remarkable to be re-elected to your group. In the middle period, he was not guilty, lived in exile, and changed his name. " Hao Wei's Preface to the Collection of Li Hanlin said: "The White Book is in Longxi, which is a form, because the home is encouraging. It is beautiful when you are born. " Fifty years after Li Bai's death, Fan Lun's son wrote: "The public name is white, and the words are too white." Its name is Longxi. It is difficult for families without children to find genealogy. Gong's granddaughter rummaged through the box and found that Gong's dead son Boqin had dozens of lines in his hand, and the paper was missing, so it was impossible to prepare it in detail. In fact, Liang's nine generations of grandchildren are also. How difficult it was in the last years of Sui Dynasty. One room was smashed into pieces, scattered and scattered, and the surname was changed. Therefore, since the country has come, it is compiled in the genus. At the beginning of the dragon, I sneaked back to Guanghan because overseas Chinese came from the county seat.

Alas, in November of the first year of Baoying in Tang Daizong (762), Li Bai was seriously ill. Before he died, he gave his manuscript to his uncle Li Editor, who had just been appointed as the county magistrate of dangtu county. Later, Li compiled his poems into ten volumes of Caotang Collection and made a preface to it. This is the famous preface to the collection of thatched cottage. In the preface, Yang Bing said that he was "pressed for time and urgently needed by the public. There are thousands of drafts, but you can't fix them. Jane was put on the pillow as a preface. The sentence "Jane on the pillow" is so sad! I want to ask, what does the sentence "Li Bai, whose word is too white, was born in Longxi" mean? Isn't it enough to explain where Li Bai's hometown is?

Whether to respect Li Bai's personal opinions is a prominent issue in Li Bai's research. Li Bai and Du Fu, written by Guo Moruo during the Cultural Revolution, was influenced by the supercilious fashion at that time and constantly accused Li Bai of "looking at people with snobbery", "as if Li Bai himself or his ancestors had fabricated it to raise his family background". Now many researchers prove that Li Bai is not lying. There are still many unresolved questions about Li Bai's family history, such as where Li Bai was born and whether he was born in Jiangyou Violet. For example, is Li Bai from Li Guang, or are there several generations of Li Ling's grandchildren? For example, Li Bai went to Sichuan at the age of five. Where did he go to Sichuan? From broken leaves to Jiangyou Tianshui Qin 'an is the only place to pass as the Silk Road. At that time, the geographical conditions for the establishment of Longxi were no worse than Jiangyou. Why didn't Li Ke, who fled, stay in his hometown? Who can be sure that Li Ke and Li Bai have never stayed in Qin 'an? At the top of the pagoda of Nanguo Temple in Tianshui, there was a small stone tablet engraved with Li Bai's five-character poem: "From then on, the wind and dust are far away, the mountains are high and the moonlight is cold." The East Spring is crystal clear and the West Tower is towering into the sky. The Buddha lamp is always on, and the incense in the meditation room is half burning. There are three or five old monks, and Cooper is a thousand years old. " This poem is not included in any collection of poems. Has Li Bai been to Tianshui? Also, the textual research of Li Bai's Drunk Herman Book is true, so where did he learn Tibetan? In any case, Li Bai is consistent as a scholar in Longxi.

In fact, the conclusion is clear. Li Bai's hometown is in Qin 'an, Gansu. As for Jiangyou in Sichuan, as many scholars have pointed out, it can only be Li Bai's second hometown.