Background
It is not known when Zhu Qinming was born, but it is known that his family was from the Tang Dynasty capital Chang'an. His father Zhu Lin (祝綝) was himself a renowned scholar who wrote a number of works comparing the various interpretations of the Confucian classics. After one of Zhu Lin's students, Zhang Houyin (張後胤), became an important official, Zhang recommended Zhu Lin to serve as an official as well, but Zhu Lin was never promoted beyond the post of being a county magistrate.
Zhu Qinming was said to understood the Five Classics well in his youth, and also studied the histories and the philosophies of the other schools of thought. During the reign of Emperor Gaozong, after passing the imperial examinations, he served as a low level official at the legislative bureau of government (東臺, Dongtai). Sometime between Emperor Gaozong's Yongchun era (682-683) and the Tianshou era (690-692) (by which time Emperor Gaozong's wife Wu Zetian had declared herself "emperor" of a new Zhou Dynasty, interrupting Tang), he passed additional imperial examinations and became Zhuzuo Lang (著作郎), one of the officials in charge of chronicling the acts of the emperor. In 701, he started serving on staff of Wu Zetian's son and crown prince Li Xian, a former emperor, and also served as an imperial scholar. He had the duty of assisting Li Xian in his studies.
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