In 1097, aged sixty-two, Su Shi was sent from Huizhou to Changhua Commandery, in present-day Danzhou. The National Reading Network identifies the later Dongpo Academy as one of the important sites connected with his residence there. A Learning Times article hosted by Qinfeng describes the hardship he faced and reproduces his own list: no meat, no medicine, no settled home, no friends, no winter charcoal and no cool spring in summer. The details make exile tangible, while the next step in the story turns toward a different concern: the absence of students in a local schoolhouse.
From the journal
A Hall Built After an Empty Schoolhouse
After seeing an old schoolhouse without students, Su Shi joined local companions in building Zaijiu Hall as a place for teaching and conversation.
In the same city · Danzhou ↗An exiled scholar arrives in Changhua
A schoolhouse with no one inside
The Learning Times account says Su Shi visited an old schoolhouse and found it empty. It interprets the scene as drawing his attention to educational conditions in Danzhou. The empty schoolhouse made the lack of local learning visible to Su Shi. The hall he later proposed with Zhang Zhong and Li Ziyun was a separate project at Li’s pond-side home, built for teaching and conversation.
A pond-side home becomes a meeting place
In 1098, Su Shi and Zhang Zhong visited Li Ziyun. The article describes Li’s house as facing a large pond, with trees and water around it and a small collection of books. The group proposed raising money to build a hall there. Su Shi agreed and gave the new place the name Zaijiu Hall, drawn from an allusion about bringing wine while asking about written characters. The scene links education to a host’s home and a group decision: local resources, a public-minded military official, a scholar and friends pooling effort around a room for conversation and teaching.
Students arrive; the name changes centuries later
The Learning Times article names students who travelled to learn from Su Shi, including Jiang Tangzuo from Qiongzhou and local readers such as Li Ziyun’s brothers, Fu Lin and Wang Xiao. The National Reading Network says the hall was renamed Dongpo Academy in 1548. These details join a short period of teaching to a much longer history of commemoration. The sources describe the hall’s origin and later name, but they do not imply that the present complex preserves the exact domestic setting of 1098 unchanged. What persists in the record is the idea of a place created for learning and literary exchange.