Also in the Shang tuning mode 商調 and from the Mei’an handbook 梅庵琴譜, this piece, Autumn Evening Moorings 秋江夜泊, is a tonal painting depicting Su Dongpo’s 蘇東坡 (1037–1101) poem of the Red Cliffs 前赤壁賦. The site was where he thought the famous battle took place in the winter of AD 208–209.
It was autumn of the year 1082, on the sixteenth day of the seventh month, when Su Dongpo took an excursion by boat with some guests. Under the full moon, while rocking in the gentle breeze and riding the fine ripples, the company drank and composed poetry. After a night of literary revelry, the small boat party ended with the dawning eastern sky.