Du Jingjian

Du Jingjian (杜景儉) 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 (冀州, roughly modern Hengshui, Hebei). 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 (益州, roughly modern Chengdu). At that time, Fang Siye (房嗣業), the military advisor to the prefect of nearby Long Prefecture (隆州, roughly modern Nanchong, Sichuan) had just received an order of promotion to be the military advisor to the prefect of Yi Prefecture (considered a promotion since Yi Prefecture was larger and more important) 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:

You, Lord, are holding an order that is not an imperial edict. It has not yet been verified, and yet you want to be in control of the prefecture. Who can vouch for you? The disaster at Yang Prefecture [(揚州, roughly modern Yangzhou, Jiangsu)] happened in this manner as well.

Du then dismissed the staff from Fang's presence, and Fang, humiliated, stopped giving orders. Several days later, the imperial edict arrived, but instead of making Fang the military advisor for Yi Prefecture, made him the military advisor of Jing Prefecture (荊州, roughly modern Jingzhou, Hubei). The officials at Yi Prefecture made up a rhyme, "The secretary's argument had a connection to heaven; the military advisor of Yi Prefecture lost his thunder." (錄事意, 與天通, 益州司馬折威風, Lushi yi, yu tian tong, Yizhou sima zhe weifeng.)

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