Exile was a standard professional risk for poets in dynastic China, who were almost always officials and administrators required to speak out on matters of public concern. Incurring the displeasure of the emperor or his court meant having to spend a period of years—conceivably the rest of one's lifetime—in a remote region of the empire, dealing with inhospitable climates, diseases, predators, and native peoples resistant to being converted to the Chinese way. How different poets responded to these challenges, as reflected in their verse and letters home, tells us a great deal about their personalities, and about the range of imaginative possibilities available to Chinese literati between the Tang and Qing dynasties, i.e., the 8th to 19th centuries.
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