Early Life
Guo Ziyi was born into a family of a middle-class civil servant in Hua Prefecture (華州, present-day Hua County in Shaanxi).
In 735, or thereabouts, while still a common soldier, Guo Ziyi, was saved from a court martial by the poet Li Bo, who intervened on his behalf with the local commander.
Unlike other members of his family, Guo Ziyi entered political life through a martial test (a test for military officers) instead of a literary test (for civil servants). In 749 AD, he passed a martial test and became an officer in the border regions of the Tang Empire and quickly rose through the ranks to become a Jiedushi (regional military governor).
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