Background
Yuan Zhen was born in 779, around the time of Emperor Dezong's ascension to the throne. He was a 10th-generation descendant of Tuoba Shiyijian, the grandfather of Northern Wei's founder Emperor Daowu, who was posthumously honored Emperor Zhaocheng after Northern Wei's founding. Yuan Zhen's male ancestor line was renamed Yuan, from Tuoba, when Emperor Xiaowen changed Xianbei names to Han names in 496. Subsequently ancestors of Yuan Zhen's served as officials of Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty. His grandfather Yuan Fei (元悱) served as a county secretary general, while his father Yuan Kuan (元寬) served as a low-level official at the ministry of justice, as well as secretary to an imperial prince.
Yuan Kuan died when Yuan Zhen was seven, and Yuan Zhen was raised by his mother Lady Zheng, who was considered an intelligent woman. As the household was poor, she did not send Yuan Zhen to school, but taught him to read and write herself. It was said that Yuan became capable of writing at age eight, and at age 14 passed the imperial examination for understanding two Confucian classics. At age 23, he was made a copyeditor at the archival bureau (秘書省, Mishu Sheng).
Read more about this topic: Yuan Zhen
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 didnt know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“In the true sense ones 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 (18691940)
“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 (18441900)