Du Jingjian

Who is Du Jingjian?

Du Jingjian was an official of the Chinese dynasty Tang Dynasty and Wu Zetian's Zhou Dynasty, twice serving as chancellor during Wu Zetian's reign.

It is not known when Du was born, but it is known that his family was from Ji Prefecture. He passed the imperial examination when he was young and eventually became an assistant imperial censor. At a later point, he was made a secretary in charge of military matters at Yi Prefecture. At that time, Fang Siye, the military advisor to the prefect of nearby Long Prefecture had just received an order of promotion to be the military advisor to the prefect of Yi Prefecture and had arrived at Yi Prefecture. However, paperwork of Fang's commission had not yet arrived at Yi Prefecture, yet he wanted to take his post immediately. He was also beginning to subject the military staff, whom he commanded, to physical punishments. Du, who was under his command, responded, "Although you, Lord, have been ordered to be this prefecture's military advisor, the prefectural government has not yet received orders of your commission. Why do you care about your salary for a few days and not want to wait for the imperial edict. Is it not that you are in too much of a hurry to be in command?" Fang became angry, but Du then continued: