The courtyard was dilapidated, its tiled house old and worn.
Books and scrolls lay piled throughout the room, making the already cramped space seem smaller still.
A middle-aged scholar was buried in this mountain of books, rapidly turning pages and muttering to himself. Now and then he stopped, took up his brush, and wrote notes or sketched diagrams on paper.
Sweat covered his forehead, and his eyes narrowed from their aching dryness, yet excitement flashed in his gaze.
His name was Dai Zhigao, originally from Shanyin. A scholar of genealogy records studies, he enjoyed some modest renown in Jingzhou City.
Genealogy records were documents recording a family's line of descent, including family genealogies, clan registers, official records, biographies, and similar materials.
The Northern and Southern Dynasties were an age of hereditary aristocratic clans. Whether pursuing office, arranging marriages, making friends, or conducting business, people first asked about one's clan and surname. The court used them as a basis for selecting officials; government offices used them to distinguish between people; others spoke of them with relish and aspired to their prestige; and the great houses regarded them as their glory. Thus, genealogy records studies gradually flourished into an independent scholarly discipline.
At the time, two major schools led the field. Foremost was the genealogical school of Hedong Jia, headed by Jia Yuan, a staff officer in the Duke of Situ's Office. The Jia family had passed down its learning for three generations, and none of their contemporaries could match the breadth and precision of their research.
Next came the genealogical school of the Langya Wang Clan, whose leading authority had been the late Chancellor Wang Jian. After Wang Jian's death, Wang Rong, Attendant to the Central Secretariat, was widely acknowledged as the foremost scholar of the Wang Clan school.
Both schools