ABSTRACT
During the transition from the Yuan (1260-1368) to Ming (1368-1644) dynasties, as Mongol forces fled their capital at Dadu, on the site of modem Beijing, and the new Chinese regime of Zhu Yuanzhang began to establish its control of the northern frontier, members of the Yang family who had been living in Xiaoxing prefecture, 1 beyond the Great Wall about 150 kilometers northeast of Beijing, migrated from this mountainous region to the North China Plain, settling in Baoding prefecture, in the village of Beihezhao in Rongcheng county, about 120 kilometers south of Beijing. According to Yang Jisheng's autobiography, the earliest identified ancestor was Yang Baiyuan, six generations before Jisheng. Yang characterized his family by saying, 'Over the generations the family engaged in plowing and reading. '2 This suggests that while agriculture was the family's principal livelihood, education was also an ongoing concern or ambition, though this may be merely a retrospective trope on Yang's part. There is no indication than any earlier member of the family ever sat for even the lowest level of the imperial examinations.
