Vicissitudels of the Political and Social Status of Yan Clan of Langya in the Southern Dynasties of the Eastern Jin Dynasty

Yan Clan,the unimportant family in the Wei-Jin Dynasties had a great impact on academic and cultural circles,but less impact on politics.However,at medieval times when political and social lives took great changes,especially at the turn of Eastern and Western Jin Dynasties and Song,Yan Clan in Langya took an active part in political events under the special circustances.Yan Han attached himself to Sima Yue and Sima Rui Group in Eastern and Western Jin Dyansies,whose political influence helped his clan smoothly emigrate to the south of Yangtze River and meanwhile lifted his family's political and social status;Yan Yanzhi's struggle for political status at the turn of Jin and Song Dynasties ended up the pure politics built upon the outstanding and expressed scholars' eager for political participation when the politics of the imperal power restored;the brothers Yan Jun and Yan Shibo were confronted with the situation where the imperial tyranny of the Eastern Dyansties increasingly intensified,and their honors and disgraces depended on the emperor's will to a great extent.The vicissitudes of the political life and status of the members of Yan Clan in Langya was the miniature of the fall and rise of the political struggle between the scholarly families and the emperors since the Southern Dynasties of Eastern Jin.