Xiong Xiu was born in 1441 in Daozhou (modern-day Dao county, Hunan).
Entering service with the imperial examination in 1466, he was first appointed as inspector of the tea trade in Sichuan, where he was renowned for rejecting gifts from locals.
He was also placed in charge of clearing up the registration rolls of military households in the border area, and found that court eunuchs had inflated the number of soldiers, in order to divert their allowances for the eunuchs' own use.
[1] During the reign of the Zhengde Emperor, Xiong was appointed Viceroy of Liangguang, where he suppressed a rebellion of the Zhuang in He County.
He then fell afoul of the eunuch Liu Jin, whom he had offended in the earlier military rolls incident; he was stripped of his official posts and severely fined, which left his household destitute.