During his later years, Du Fu drifted through the Hunan region, primarily traveling by water between Yuezhou(Yueyang), Tanzhou(Changsha), and Hengzhou(Hengyang). The more than 100 poems he composed during this period are collectively known as his “Hunan Exile Poems”. In these works, Du Fu, whether consciously or unconsciously, depicted a rich tapestry of water imagery, represented by elements such as Dongting Lake, Qingcao Lake, and the Xiang River. In these poems, he meticulously portrayed water imagery through dimensions like flow velocity, color, surface area, and temperature, while also integrating it with other natural images such as stars, the moon, wind, clouds, flowers, and wild geese. This technique created a dynamic and evocative poetic atmosphere, enriching the descriptive methods of water imagery in classical Chinese poetry. Du Fu’s Hunan Exile Poems not only artistically reconstruct the natural landscapes of Dongting Lake, Qingcao Lake, and the Xiang River as they existed during the Tang Dynasty but also employ water imagery to reflect his rootless and precarious living conditions, his complex and increasingly somber state of mind in his later years, and, to some extent, to the gradual decline of the Tang Empire in the aftermath of the An Lushan Rebellion.