Background
Pei Du was born in 765, during the reign of Emperor Daizong. His family was from Hedong (河東, in modern Yuncheng, Shanxi) and traced its ancestry to a line of officials of Han Dynasty, Jin Dynasty (265-420), Former Yan, Later Qin, and Northern Wei, although Pei Du's direct ancestors was not listed with governmental offices for several generations until his grandfather Pei Youlin (裴有鄰), who served as a county magistrate, and his father Pei Xu (裴漵) served as a county secretary general.
In 789, during the reign of Emperor Daizong's son Emperor Dezong, Pei Du passed the imperial examinations and the special examination for grand speech. He later further passed special examinations for those who could properly criticize the government. He was thereafter made the sheriff of Heyin County (河陰, in modern Luoyang, Henan), and thereafter was made an imperial censor with the title Jiancha Yushi (監察御史). At one point, he submitted a secret petition that criticized those who were powerful due to their associations with Emperor Dezong, and thus was sent out of the capital Chang'an to serve as an administrator at the Henan Municipality (河南, i.e., the Luoyang region) government. He later became an imperial archiver (起居舍人, Qiju Sheren).
Read more about this topic: Pei Du
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“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.)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)