Yan Ziling was born in Yuyao in the Eastern Han Dynasty. He was famous when he was young.
Wang Mang asked him to be an official, and he hid himself. A few years later, Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu defeated Wang Mang and established the Eastern Han Dynasty. Wise and hungry, Guangwudi looked for Yan Ziling everywhere. When I found Yan, I was hiding somewhere in Qi (now Tonglu County, Zhejiang Province) for fishing. The emperor repeatedly invited Yan to come out of the mountain to serve the DPRK with a letter of invitation, but in the end he stayed in his hometown, and the fisherman benefited from it all his life.