the Liang prince he served prior to Hou Jing's revolt. The Liang prince established a rival court, yet it was destroyed when Western Wei invaded from the north and captured Jiangling in January 555. At age twenty-four, Yan Zhitui had become an enslaved prisoner of war, carted off with 100,000 others to the Western Wei capital of Chang'an.

In 556, his family managed to escape Chang'an, and prepared to move east in hopes of returning to the Liang dynasty over