Life
Yan Zhitui's father died when he was only nine years old. Without a father figure to guide or support him, Zhitui was raised largely by the efforts of his elder brother. In his teenage years, Zhitui served as a lowly court attendant in the southern capital at Jiankang. Yet when he was eighteen years old the infamous military general Hou Jing came to power in southern China in a rebellion against the Liang Dynasty. Zhitui and a royal prince narrowly escaped execution once they were made prisoners of Hou Jing.
In the year 552 Yan Zhitui fled to Jiangling in what is today modern Hubei, accompanying the Liang prince who he served prior to Hou Jing's revolt. This Liang prince established a rival court, yet it was destroyed when Western Wei invaded from the north and captured Jiangling in the year 554. At age twenty-four, Yan Zhitui now had become an enslaved prisoner of war, carted off with 100,000 others to the Western Wei capital of Chang'an.
In 556 his family managed to escape Chang'an, and prepared to move east in hopes of returning to the Liang Dynasty over southern China. However, the Chen Dynasty had since overthrown the Liang Dynasty in the south with the ascension of Emperor Wu of Chen. Much like his grandfather who had refused to serve Liang once it usurped control from the Southern Qi state, Yan Zhitui decided not to serve the new Chen regime. Instead, Yan Zhitui was accepted in several court positions serving the Northern Qi Dynasty in northeastern China. Yet fate would have it that Yan would be forced to move again, this time after the Northern Zhou defeated the Northern Qi in the year 577, supplanting it as the ruling dynasty over northern China. At age forty-six, Yan Zhitui moved back to Chang'an where he had once spent time in captivity. For the next several years he was not appointed to any governmental posts, and suffered for a brief time in a state of poverty. When the Sui Dynasty headed by Emperor Wen of Sui usurped control in the north from the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Yan Zhitui was once again given recognition and appointed to several scholarly and ministerial posts.
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