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Chapter Twelve
Yan Ching Mao
Brief History of the Yan clan and Memorial Tablet of the Yan Patriarchs, kept in
the Chen Mei Ancestral Hall, Tu Shan, Shih Ku hamlet
The Coming of the Yan Family to Fu Chien Province.
T transit station, thronged with
he registration of Families was
refugees waiting to join the wagon
introduced to China by the
emperor of the Tang dynasty
resettled in the new villages that
(619-907), a practice dating back trains, under armed escort, and
nearly One thousand Five hundred awaited to receive them in either Fu
years old. The census was designed Chien Province or Kuang Tung
to serve three purposes to witness:- Province.
the enrolment of voluntary labour
towards the maintenance of local Among the group of migrants
public works; was forefather Yan Ching Mao of the
the collection of its share of the Yan clan and a 42nd direct
annual harvest to fill the granary descendant of First Ancestor Yan
of the State Treasury and, lastly, Hui, who was stationed in Wen Chou
the conscription of militiamen for at that time.
service along the Great Wall. Three of his sons distinguished
themselves in either military or civil
A change came about during service by holding key positions in
the last days of the Sung Dynasty Hang Chou, Che Chiang Province
(960-1279), when the Chin southern Lu Chou, An Hwei Province
tribesmen of ethnic Korean stock and, Chao Chou, Kuang Tung
breached its northeast border. The Province respectively.
government, in distress was Yan Chiao Hsien, the third
compelled to hand over the keeping son of Yan Ching Mao, accompanied
of the Family Register to the village his father all the way on his long
headmen and clan elders. journey to Fu Chou, Fu Chien
Province. At this dispersal point for
The country was in turmoil the refugees into the interior, Yan
and the displaced Chinese Ching Mao exercised his commission
population from the north fled from in the civil service and busied himself
the advancing armies, abandoned with the duty of a magistrate in this
their traditional homeland, crossed county.
the banks of the Yangtze Chiang and
headed for the safety of Wen Chou in
Che Chiang Province. This was the
