1. Duanjun Painting Porridge
Fan Zhongyan lost his father when he was young. He moved to Changshan with his stepfather when he was four years old, and studied hard at Liquan Temple. Because his family was poor, he used two liters of millet to cook porridge. After the porridge solidified overnight, he cut it into four pieces with a knife. He ate two pieces in the morning and evening, and cut some pickles to go with it. ?
As an adult, Fan Zhongyan went to Yingtian Academy to study hard. In winter, when he was tired and sleepy from studying, he would wash his face with cold water. When he had nothing to eat, he would drink gruel to survive.
Fan Zhongyan never complained about the difficult life that ordinary people could not bear. After studying hard, Fan Zhongyan finally passed the imperial examination in the eighth year of Dazhong Xiangfu (1015), and became an official to participate in political affairs.
2. Taizhou Yanzhi
In the fifth year of Tianxi (1021), Fan Zhongyan was transferred to the supervisor of the Xixi salt warehouse in Taizhou, responsible for supervising the storage, transportation and resale of Huai salt. Xixi is close to the Yellow Sea. The old seawall built by Li Cheng in the Tang Dynasty was in disrepair and broke in many places. The sea tide poured in and the sea was filled with brine.
The fertile fields were flooded and the salt stoves were destroyed, causing great suffering to the people. So Fan Zhongyan wrote to Zhang Lun of Jianghuai Water Transport, bitterly expounding the pros and cons of sea dikes, and suggested building dikes along the coast and rebuilding weirs to defend the sea.
In the third year of Tiansheng (1024), Zhang Lun reported to the Ming Dynasty, and Renzong transferred Fan Zhongyan to be the magistrate of Xinghua County, fully responsible for the weir repair project. In August of the fourth year of Tiansheng (1026), his mother Xie died of illness. Fan Zhongyan resigned from office to mourn, and Zhang Lun presided over the completion of the project.
3. Implementation of the New Deal
In August of the third year of Qingli (1043), Fan Zhongyan responded to internal worries (a large bureaucracy but low administrative efficiency) and foreign aggression (Liao and Xixia threatened the north and northwest). (frontier)), Shangshu "Answers to the Imperial Edict on Ten Matters" proposed a ten-point reform program.
Advocated clarification of official administration, reform of imperial examinations, refurbishment of military equipment, reduction of corvee service, development of agricultural production, etc. The content involves various aspects and fields such as politics, economy, military, education, and imperial examinations.
In just a few months after the implementation of the New Deal, the political situation has taken on a completely new look: the bureaucracy has begun to be streamlined; in the imperial examinations, the assessment of practical argumentative essays has been highlighted, and personnel with special talents have been promoted; the country has also Schools were generally opened.
In the first month of the fifth year of Qingli (1045), the opposition led by Xia Song attacked the reformists as "cronies". Renzong released ministers such as Fan Zhongyan and Fu Bi, and the reform ended in failure. However, although the New Deal was only implemented for one year, it pioneered the reform trend in the Northern Song Dynasty and became the prelude to Wang Anshi's "Xining Reform".
4. Educate your children to help others in danger
Fan Zhongyan is very strict in managing his family. He teaches his children to be upright, cultivate their moral character, and do good deeds. Fan's family style is honest, frugal, and charitable. Once, Fan Zhongyan asked his second son Fan Chunren to transport wheat from Suzhou to Sichuan.
When Fan Chunren came back, he met his acquaintance Shi Manqing and learned that he had lost a relative and had no money to transport his coffin back home, so he gave him a boatload of wheat to help him return home. Fan Chunren returned home and did not dare to mention the matter.
Fan Zhongyan asked him if he had met any friends in Suzhou. Fan Chunren replied: "When passing through Danyang, I met Shi Manqing. He was trapped there because he had no money to transport the coffin back to his hometown due to the death of his family."
Fan Zhongyan immediately said: "Why don't you give him all the wheat on the boat?" Fan Chunren replied: "I have already given it to him." After hearing this, Fan Zhongyan was very happy with his son's actions. And praise him for what he did right.
5. Recruiting talents and appointing capable ones
Fan Zhongyan was particularly good at recognizing people. When Di Qing was still a junior officer, Fan Zhongyan valued him very much and taught him "Zuo Shi Chun Qiu" : "A general who does not know the past and present is a brave man."
Di Qing studied hard from then on and became proficient in the art of war. Later, he served as a military attache and served as a privy envoy, becoming a famous general of his generation. When Zhang Zai was a boy, he liked to talk about war, and he even wanted to make friends and take the land of Taoxi. When he was twenty-one years old, he paid a visit to Fan Zhongyan, who recognized his distant weapon at first sight.
As a general, he was really humbled by his talents, so he said to him: "Confucians have their own reputation and can teach well, so why bother with the army?" He advised him to read "The Doctrine of the Mean". Later, Zhang Zai studied Shi Lao all over the world, but found nothing but sought the Six Classics. Later, he became one of the Five Scholars of the Northern Song Dynasty, the founder of Neo-Confucianism and Guanxue in the Song and Ming Dynasties, and a great Confucian of his generation. ?
When Fu Bi was young, he was eager to learn and generous. Fan Zhongyan was surprised to see him and said: "Wang Zuo is very talented" and showed his articles to Wang Zeng and Yan Shu. Yan Shu married his daughter to Fu Bi.
After Song Renzong restored the system of subjects, Fan Zhongyan told Fu Bi: "You should enter the official career from the system of subjects" and recommended him as a man of extraordinary talents. Fu Bi entered the officialdom and became a famous prime minister. .
It is said that when Fan Zhongyan was appointed as the magistrate of Hangzhou, most of the civil and military officials in the city were recommended by him. Only Su Lin was not promoted because he was on patrol in other counties and was not in the city.
So Su Lin presented a poem to Fan Zhongyan, two of which were: "The first to get the moon is the tower near the water, and the flowers and trees in the sun are easy to turn into spring." Fan Zhongyan understood his mood and wrote a letter of recommendation for him. Later, Su Lin was promoted.