Lü Meng
Lü Meng was from Fupo County (富陂縣), Runan Commandery (汝南郡), which is located southeast of present-day Funan County, Anhui. His family migrated to the south of the Yangtze River when Lü Meng was young. Lü Meng lived with his brother-in-law, Deng Dang (鄧當), who served as a military officer under Sun Ce. When he was 14 or 15, he secretly followed Deng Dang to the battles against the Shanyue tribes. Deng Dang was shocked to see his teenage brother-in-law in battle, so he scolded Lü Meng and warned him to stop. Lü Meng refused to listen so Deng Dang told Lü Meng's mother about this. When she wanted to punish him, Lü Meng said: "It is difficult to survive in poverty. If we can prove ourselves through hard work, then wealth will come eventually. How can we catch the tiger cub if we don't enter the tiger's den?" Lü Meng's mother sighed and let him have his way.
Zhang Jing (Ming dynasty)
A native of Houguan county (侯官縣; present-day Fuzhou) of Fujian province, Zhang Jing was noted as a man of tall stature. He took the imperial examinations and received the "jinshi" degree in 1517 under the name Cai Jing, a name which he retained for close to twenty years since. He first served in the government bureaucracy as a magistrate in the city of Jiaxing in Zhejiang province, a position he held from 1521 to 1525, and from there went into the capital Beijing as a supervising secretary (給事中). There he found favour from the Jiajing Emperor, and successively rose to the positions of vice minister of the Court of the Imperial Stud (太僕寺少卿), right vice minister of the Court of Judicial Review (大理寺右少卿), right vice censor-in-chief (右副都御史), and the grand coordinator of Shandong (山東巡撫). After two years in this last appointment, he was promoted to be the supreme commander of Guangdong and Guangxi in 1537, with the rank of a vice minister of war (兵部侍郎).