Background
It is not known when Yao Silian was born, other than that it was during Chen Dynasty. His father Yao Cha was the minister of civil service affairs during Chen, and after Chen's destruction by rival Sui Dynasty in 589, Yao Cha moved his family from Wuxing (吳興, in modern Huzhou, Zhejiang) to the Sui capital Daxing (Chang'an), successively serving as an advisor to Emperor Wen of Sui's crown prince Yang Yong and the secretary general of the archival bureau (秘書省, Mishu Sheng), carrying the title of Duke of Beijiang. During Yao Cha's life, he had begun to write the histories of Chen and its predecessor Liang Dynasty, but was unable to complete it before his death.
Yao Silian studied the Book of Han under his father when he was young. It was said that he had few desires other than to study. Prior to Chen's destruction, he served as the secretary to Chen Zhuang (陳莊) the Prince of Kuaiji, a son of Chen's last emperor Chen Shubao.
Read more about this topic: Yao Silian
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“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.)
“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)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)