The Golden-Threaded Robe

A grass tally stained red with cinnabar led to Du Zhongyang being sold into a pleasure house in Jinling. Renamed Du Qiuniang, she began her career as a songstress. She fell deeply in love with the great poet Bai Juyi, but was abducted into the residence of Li Qi, military commissioner of Zhenhai, and made his concubine, left to drift through life like a floating weed. A year later, Li Qi’s rebellion failed, and Du Qiuniang was taken into the palace. There she met the man who would love her most in her life: Emperor Xianzong of Tang, Li Chun. She was made the Consort of Autumn of the Great Tang and enjoyed his exclusive favor for thirteen years. And yet, when she woke from a dream in the dead of night, who was the person in her heart?

“Do not prize the gold-embroidered gown; prize the years of your youth. When flowers bloom, pluck them while you can; do not wait until the branches are bare.” This celebrated poem handed down under Du Qiuniang’s name influenced her fate time and again, and was closely tied to the many rises and falls in her life...