Xu Jingzong - During Sui Dynasty

During Sui Dynasty

Xu Jingzong was born in 592, during the reign of Emperor Wen of Sui. His ancestors had served as officials of the Southern Dynasties during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period for generations and claimed to be originally from Gaoyang Commandery (高陽, roughly modern Baoding) before moving south of the Yangtze River in light of Jin Dynasty's loss of the north. Xu Jingzong's father Xu Shanxin (許善心) was serving as an emissary of Chen Shubao, the last emperor of Chen Dynasty, to Emperor Wen, whose Sui Dynasty then ruled the north, in 589, when Sui destroyed Chen to end the Southern and Northern Dynasties period and reunify China. Emperor Wen was impressed with Xu Shanxin's profound sadness (rather than abject submission) at the fall of his state, and made him an official in his own administration.

Xu Jingzong himself was said to be knowledgeable of literature in his youth, and, after passing the imperial examination, was made a scribe at Huaiyang Commandery (淮陽, roughly modern Zhoukou, Henan). He was soon made a low level official in the imperial administration of Emperor Wen's son Emperor Yang. In 618, with virtually the entire Sui state engulfed by agrarian rebellions against Emperor Yang's rule, Xu Shanxin and Xu Jingzong were at Jiangdu (江都, in modern Yangzhou, Jiangsu) with Emperor Yang and his other officials, when Emperor Yang was killed in a coup led by the general Yuwen Huaji. Yuwen was initially planning to spare Xu Shanxin, but after Xu Shanxin publicly refused to submit to him by dancing in his presence (then considered a sign of thanksgiving and submission), Yuwen executed him. Xu Jingzong submitted to Yuwen (by dancing) and was spared. His exact travels after Emperor Yang's death were not clear, although it is known that he later served the rebel ruler Li Mi the Duke of Wei as a secretary (along with the future Tang chancellor Wei Zheng), before eventually becoming a subject of Tang Dynasty, which emerged victorious from the civil wars near and after the end of Sui. (Sui's last emperor, Emperor Yang's grandson Yang Tong, posthumously honored Xu Shanxin by posthumously creating him the Duke of Gaoyang — a title that Xu Jingzong would eventually receive from Tang.)