Background
Lu Jingchu was born in 665, during the reign of Emperor Gaozong. His father Lu Yuanfang would eventually serve as chancellor twice during the reign of Emperor Gaozong's wife Wu Zetian. It was said that in his youth, Lu Jingchu was both capable and modest, and after he passed the imperial examinations, was made an officer at Yang Prefecture (揚州, roughly modern Yangzhou, Jiangsu). After his term was complete, he was set to be promoted. At that time, both Ji Xu and his father Lu Yuanfang were deputy ministers of civil service affairs in charge of selecting officials. Ji selected Lu Jingchu to be the sheriff of Luoyang County -- not formally a particularly highly placed post but in actuality a highly regarded one, as Luoyang was the capital at the time -- and Lu Yuanfang, out of modesty, initially tried to decline on Lu Jingchu's behalf. Ji responded, "It is fair to select officials who are capable. Lu Jingchu is capable and elegant, and common people cannot compare to him. I am not recommending him out of the fact that he is the son of a deputy minister of civil service affairs." Ji went ahead with the recommendation, and Lu Jingchu was made the sheriff of Luoyang County. Lu Jingchu later served as an imperial censor, and then Zhongshu Shilang (中書侍郎), the deputy head of the legislative bureau of government (中書省, Zhongshu Sheng).
Read more about this topic: Lu Xiangxian
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“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)
“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)
“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.)