ABSTRACT
When Yang Jisheng set out from Beijing for his exile posting on the far western frontier of the Ming Empire he was following a path taken by many earlier officials who had found themselves on the losing side in policy conflicts. China's history is filled with examples of outspoken scholars who suffered banishment to remote borderlands as punishment for their actions. The image of the righteous official sent off into exile had been central to the literati identity at least since the Han dynasty, when the memory of Qu Yuan, a member of the royal family of the state of Chu who was banished to the far south because of court intrigues, was valorized in poetry. In the Tang and Song dynasties exile to the far southern frontier had been part of the career experience of major literary and political figures like Han Yu, Li Bo, or Su Shi, who wrote poems and essays commemorating their exiles which became part of the literary heritage.
