Du Xian - Background

Background

It is not known when Du Xian was born. His family was from Pu Prefecture (濮州, roughly modern Heze, Shandong) and claimed its ancestry from the Qin Dynasty general Du He (杜赫), and traced itself to a line of officials during Northern Wei, Northern Qi, Sui Dynasty, and Tang Dynasty. It was said that the clan's members were on such good terms that it did not divide for five generations down to Du Xian. Both Du Xian's grandfather Du Yikuan (杜義寬) and father Du Chengzhi (杜承志) were low level officials.

Du Zhicheng died early in the reign of Wu Zetian. Du Xian, in his youth at that time, was said to be respectful and careful, and was particularly filially pious toward his stepmother and caring toward his half-brother Du Yu (杜昱). After he passed the imperial examinations, he became a military officer at Wu Prefecture (婺州, roughly modern Jinhua, Zhejiang). When his term of office was complete, his subordinates, as a farewell gift, gave him 10,000 sheets of paper -- then a highly valuable commodity. He only accepted 100 and returned the rest. The witnesses commented, "In the past, there had been honest officials who only received gifts of a single large coin. This is similar." He later served as the sheriff of Zheng County (鄭縣, in modern Weinan, Shaanxi), and was again known for his honesty. At that time, the official Yang Fu (楊孚) was serving as the military advisor to the prefect of Hua Prefecture (華州, roughly modern Weinan), which Zheng County belonged to, and was impressed with Du. Later, while Yang was serving as a judge at the supreme court (大理寺, Dali Si), Du was accused of an offense. Yang commented, "If even this sheriff could be accused of a crime, how can we encourage officials to be clean and honest?" He informed this to his superiors and had Du made a Dali Pingshi (大理評事) -- a judicial clerk.