Background
Yang Yan was born in 727, during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong. His family was from Fengxiang (鳳翔, in modern Baoji, Shaanxi) and claimed ancestry through officials of the Warring States Period state Han), Qin Dynasty, Han Dynasty, and Sui Dynasty, although the lineage was not completely traceable. His great-grandfather Yang Dabao (楊大寶) served as a county magistrate during the reign of Tang Dynasty's founder Emperor Gaozu and was killed when resisting a rival contender for the throne, Liu Wuzhou the Dingyang Khan, and therefore was posthumously honored. His grandfather Yang Zhe (楊哲) was known for his filial piety. His father Yang Bo (楊播) was known for having passed the imperial examinations but then declined official offices to support his parents, an act for which he was honored by both Emperor Xuanzong and Emperor Xuanzong's son Emperor Suzong.
Read more about this topic: Yang Yan
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)