[4] He was probably a farmer as a young man before beginning his career as an official on the staffs of local princes of the Liu Song dynasty.

[2] Bao spent several years in Liu Jun's service and accompanied him on his campaign to retaliate against the Xianbei-ruled Northern Wei dynasty, which had invaded southern China in January 451.

[5] The nine-year-old Liu Zixu was forced to commit suicide, and all of his staff members, including the approximately 52-year-old Bao, were executed.

Eleven of Bao's poems are preserved in the early medieval anthology Selections of Refined Literature (Wen xuan 文選).

[1][7] It gives an account of the ruined capital, contrasted with its former grandiosity, in a nostalgic and longing fashion that is common in Liu Song-era poetry.