Lú Tóng 盧仝 (?–835, hào Yùchuānzǐ 玉川子), a Fànyáng 范陽 native (Lǐngběi Yān-region by ancestral origin), lived in seclusion at Shàoshì shān (Sōngshān region) and later at Luòyáng. Did not pass the jìnshì. He was a close associate of Hán Yù 韓愈 (who wrote the celebrated Jì Lú Tóng poem) and of Mèng Jiāo 孟郊. His verse style — visionary, syntactically wrenched, Buddhist-Daoist saturated — placed him closer to Lǐ Hè 李賀’s guǐcái register than to Hán Yù’s gǔwén mainstream.
Lú’s two most-influential individual works:
- The Yuè shí shī 月蝕詩 (Chángqìng 4 = 824) — a 235-line cosmological-political gē on the lunar eclipse, read as figuration of eunuch consumption of imperial authority.
- The Qī wǎn chá gē 七碗茶歌 (“Seven Cups of Tea Song,” properly the Zǒu bǐ xiè Mèng Jiànyì jì xīn chá 走筆謝孟諫議寄新茶) — the canonical chá poem of Chinese letters, founding the cháshī tradition; recited in Chinese-tea-ceremony practice and inscribed on countless tea-related decorative objects.
Lú died inadvertently in the Gānlù zhī biàn 甘露之變 (the 835 court eunuch coup) — having been visiting Wáng Yá 王涯’s residence when Wáng was killed; Lú was rounded up with the household and executed. The political accident gave him a martyr’s status in late-Táng / Sòng critical reception.
Principal work in the corpus: Yùchuānzǐ shī jí KR4c0092 in 2 juǎn (SBCK). CBDB id 33847 gives ?–835.