Niu Xianke - Background

Background

Niu Xianke was born in 675, during the reign of Emperor Gaozong. He was from Jing Prefecture (涇州, roughly modern Pingliang, Gansu). His family traced its ancestry to the Han Dynasty military official Niu Han (牛邯), whose descendants later settled in the region that became Jing Prefecture, and clearly was not prominent in political circles, as, unlike most other chancellors of the time, there were no records of any other ancestors of his serving as officials. All that were recorded about his great-grandfather Niu Tong (牛通), grandfather Niu Hui (牛會), and father Niu Yi (牛意) were their names.

Niu Xianke himself initially served as a minor bureaucrat at his home county of Chungu (鶉觚, in modern Pingliang), and he was respected by the county magistrate Fu Wenjing (傅文靜). Fu later became in charge of farming/military outposts in the Longyou (隴右, modern eastern Gansu) region, and he engaged Niu to be part of the endeavor. For Niu's contributions in military matters, he was eventually promoted to be the military advisor to the prefect of Tao Prefecture (洮州, roughly modern Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu).