The year he was born was also the year in which the Tang dynasty's military expansionism began to reach its limits, with major military defeats both versus the Abbasid Caliphate in Central Asia in the Battle of Talas and versus the Kingdom of Nanzhao in Southeast Asia, (near modern Xiaguan, by Erhai Lake).
Shortly after Meng Jiao's birth, towards the end of 755, An Lushan launched a rebellion against the central government of Tang.
Meng Jiao spent many years as a recluse and a poet in Southern China, associating himself with the Zen Buddhist poet-monks of the region.
[3] Eventually, at forty years of age, his wandering ways lead to his settling in the area of the major metropolis of Luoyang, as an impoverished and unemployed poet.
[4] At the time of Meng Jiao's moving there, despite the period of disturbance, Luoyang was still one of the world's most populous and cosmopolitan cities, and a central nexus of social and cultural life in Tang China.
In Luoyang, Meng Jiao found inclusion in a poetic circle including Han Yu, Jia Dao, Zhang Ji, and Li He.
[5] It has been said that as a result of an unwillingness to write even the first stage of the examination system, Meng Jiao was doomed to a life of poverty and adversity.
[6] At the urging of his mother (according to Han Yu) Meng eventually did pass the jinshi examination, but not until the age of forty six sui (Zhenyuan 12).
Fan Ju-lin in T'ang Teng K'o Chi states that Meng was 46 when he passed the Chin-shih, in the 12th year of the Chen Yuan period (796).
He was ultimately appointed to an entry-level position in the imperial bureaucracy; however, as noted by Ou-yang Hsiu in the Hsin T'ang Shu (SPTK.
po-na edition): " At the age of fifty he passed the chin-shih examination and was appointed to the position of Wei at Li Yang.
In the Prefecture there was the T'ou Lai Chin Lake….. [and] there was place where the trees grew densely offering cover and shade.
A rough translation is: "On the cyclic day Chi-hai of the eighth month in the ninth year of the Yuan-ho period of the T'ang Dynasty, Master Chen Yao, Meng by surname died.
His father, T'ing-fen married a woman of the P'ei family and was selected for appointment of Wei (an entry level official position) at K'un Shan.
Two years after leaving his position as Wei, the former Minister Cheng, who was the Governor of Ho-nan, memorialized that Meng be made officer in charge of transportation.
He was made the provisional officer in charge of land and water transportation.. Cheng Yu-ch'ing personally paid his respects to Chiao's mother inside the door.
Five years after she died, Cheng, who was then the Governor of Hsing-yuan, memorialized that Meng be appointed an advisor with the title Ta Li Ping-shih.
He wrote a mocking poem: With Su Tung-p'o's critique in mind one has to question his assessment when reading the following poem ( one of a set of ten) grouped under the common title "Sorrow in the Gorges": Prior to the 1975 publication of Stephen Owen's The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yü by Yale University Press, there had been no studies of Meng Jiao in English.