Speaking of Fan Zhongyan, his "Yueyang LouJi" is familiar, and the phrase "the world is worried before the world, and the world is happy and happy after the world" is a good sentence throughout the ages. This sentence shows that although Fan Zhongyan lives far away from the temple, he still has the heart of worrying about the country and the people.
Fan Zhongyan's "Record of Yueyang Lou" was written when he was released from Beijing after he presided over the failure of the New Deal of the Qing calendar. This new policy was the most important part of Fan Zhongyan's official career. Fan Zhongyan was a man of integrity, not afraid of power, and although he was full of talent, he could not tolerate the imperial court. Therefore, the time spent as an official in the capital was not long, but most of the time he was an official at the local level, which made Fan Zhongyan often contact the lowest level of the people. Seeing the hardships of the people, Fan Zhongyan raised the idea of reforming the Great Song.
Fan Zhongyun
In the Song Dynasty, there were many famous ministers who had many years of experience as local officials and knew that the people's lives were difficult, but they understood that the Great Song Dynasty had been suffering for a long time, including Su Shi and Sima Guang, but only a few people were determined to reform, such as Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi. Why did Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi think of changing the law to make the Great Song stronger?
1. Know the drawbacks of the Great Song and have a unique insight. Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi both had many years of experience as local officials, which made them deeply understand the operation system of the Song Dynasty, a huge dynasty, and also knew that the Song Dynasty existed in the problem of "redundant personnel, redundant soldiers, and redundant expenses". His long career as a local official has accumulated rich experience in governing for Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi, and has also formed their unique insights. Whether it is the Qingli New Deal presided over by Fan Zhongyan or Wang Anshi's change of law, it is a relatively complete reform plan formed after long-term thinking.
2. Strong sense of responsibility. Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi were very fond of the people when they were officials, and they saw that the people were living in hardship, but the landlord stage and the gentry stage were living a rotten life, and this gap between the rich and the poor caused many social problems, for example, Wang Anshi always had the thinking of "sending rich people to hide to save the poor". Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi both deeply felt their responsibilities and hoped to change this situation, so that the people would be rich and the Great Song would be rich and strong.
3. Have the ability and courage to innovate. There is no doubt that presiding over a change of law would certainly offend vested interests. Whether it is the Qingli New Deal or Wang Anshi's change of law, it will violate the interests of the old forces, and the deeper the reform, the greater the opposition, and it is certainly impossible to promote the change of law without boldness.
Statue of Wang Anshi
Although the Qingli New Deal and Wang Anshi's reform law ultimately failed, if we talk about the impact, the impact of Wang Anshi's change of law is far greater than that of the Qingli New Deal. Fan Zhongyan's ideal formation of the Reform Faction was only Han Qi, Fu Bi and a few others, and when these people were deposed and left Beijing, the Qingli New Deal was declared a failure. A few years later, although these figures of the Fa-rectification school were able to return to the dynasty, their ideals were no longer ideal. Wang Anshi's reform was supported by Emperor Shenzong of Song, who cultivated a group of reformer successors who shared his views, and even though he left the imperial court or even died, his reform was still implemented to varying degrees in the imperial court. Unfortunately, at that time, the change of law had already gone in the wrong direction and had become a tool of party struggle.
Wang Anshi also cultivated his son Wang Yun into a backbone figure in the transformation of the law. Wang Anshi is such a son, during his official period, he also took his son with him, and for a long time, Wang Yun also followed Wang Anshi's concept, supported the change of law, and even more radically changed the law. Once Wang Anshi and the theorist Cheng Hao talked about changing the law and were opposed by Han Qi and Fu Bi, Wang Yun actually said: "If Han Qi and Fu Bi's heads are cut off, the new law can be implemented." Wang Anshi was shocked when he heard this. Because of Wang Yun's radical thinking, he became lost in the process of following his father's change of law, and he was deeply involved in the internal struggle of the law change faction, for example, the contradiction between him and Lu Huiqing was very serious. In addition, Wang Yun also had some problems in his mental state. Later, Wang Yun died prematurely, which made Wang Anshi discouraged and had no intention of presiding over the change of law, so he asked himself to leave the court. Wang Anshi's departure also cast a shadow on the change at that time, and the change began to go in a different direction.
Unlike Wang Anshi, Fan Zhongyan raised his son to be a conservative. Fan Zhongyan had a total of 4 sons, and each of them made a difference, especially the second son, Fan Chunren, who was outstanding and once worshipped the prime minister. In fact, of Fan Zhongyan's four sons, only Fan Chunren was able to reach the height of participating in the change of law, but Fan Chunren was similar to Sima Guang in political opinions, a conservative, and resolutely opposed Wang Anshi's change of law. In July of the second year of Xi Ning (1069), shortly after Wang Anshi changed the law, Fan Chunren wrote to Emperor Shenzong of Song and attacked the change. After Emperor Zhezong of Song succeeded to the throne, the old party headed by Sima Guang returned to the dynasty one after another, and Fan Chunren also participated in the crackdown on the new party that implemented the reform.
Fan Chunren was born in the fifth year of Tiansheng (1027) and was only 17 years old when he celebrated the New Deal, and his ideas were not yet formed. Judging from Fan Zhongyan's education of his son, Fan Zhongyan obviously did not pass on his ideas of reforming the Great Song to his son. There may be several reasons for this:
Song Renzong
1. Fan Zhongyan was in a confused state after the failure of the New Deal.
A few years after the failure of the New Deal, Fu Bi, Han Qi, and other people who changed the law later returned to the dynasty one after another, but they did not continue to change the law, and Fu Bi and Han Qi even opposed Wang Anshi's change of law in their later years. The main reason for this is that Fu Bi, Han Qi, and others have different purposes from Fan Zhong's flooding method. When Fu Bi and Han Qi were only about 40 years old when they celebrated the New Deal, they were in their prime, and Song Renzong also had the intention of changing the law at that time. Thanks to the change of law, Fu Bi, Han Qi and others were able to ascend to the high position of Zaifu's minister at a young age and still young in seniority. A few years after the failure of the New Deal, Fu Bi and Han Qi returned to the dynasty again, and the two once again paid homage to each other, and their power was not comparable to that of the Celebration of the New Deal, but they became representatives of the old forces. If they change the law again, they will harm their own interests, so they will not change the law again, and even oppose Wang Anshi's change of law.
To put it simply, Fu Bi and Han Qi's participation in the New Deal of the Qing calendar is mostly for their own future, but Fan Zhongyan is to realize his ideals. Before celebrating the New Deal, Fan Zhongyan was twice demoted from Beijing to become a local official, when Fan Zhongyan was still young and thought he still had the opportunity to return to the dynasty to realize his dream. Fan Zhongyan was about 55 years old when the change failed, and when he left the imperial court, he must have understood that it would be difficult for him to return to the court in the future, and his ideals could no longer be realized. Fan Zhongyan was inevitably depressed, and he might even waver in the concept of changing the law, so how could he possibly pass on the idea of reform to his son?
2. Fan Zhongyan's love for his son makes him probably not want his son to follow his old path.
When presiding over the change of law, Fan Zhongyan was attacked by the courtiers of the DPRK and the Central Government on the grounds of forming a party, and the pressure was very great, and the road to changing the law was not smooth at all. Fan Zhongyan had suffered too much from changing the Fa, and naturally did not want his son to repeat the same mistakes and suffer these hardships again. In general, many parents do not necessarily want their children and grandchildren to have much merit, but they do want their children and grandchildren to be safe and secure, and this has been the case throughout the ages.
Unlike Fan Zhongyan, when Wang Anshi presided over the change of law, his son was almost 30 years old, and the idea of changing the law had matured, and he had already passed the entrance examination and served as an official.
Song Renzong and Fu Bi
3. Fan Zhongyan asked Fan Chunren to learn orthodox theoretical thought from Hu Yan, Sun Fu and others.
Hu Yu and Sun Fu were both Song Dynasty scholars, and they were both called Mr. Song Chusan together with Shi Jie. Fan Zhongyan's request for Fan Chunren to study with Hu Yu and Sun Fu shows that he wants Fan Chunren to receive a traditional Confucian education. It's just that this kind of Confucian education is too ritualistic, very conservative, and will imprison people's thoughts. Under the influence of this ideological education, the Song Dynasty also gave birth to two strange reformers, Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi, for more than 200 years.
It can be seen from this that Fan Zhongyan only let his son receive a traditional education, and did not pass on the idea of changing the law to his son. When Fan Chunren was an official, he was encountering Wang Anshi's change of law, and Wang Anshi's change of law was to pry the interests of the entire landlord stage and the gentry stage, causing the entire social turmoil. Fan Chunren himself was a member of the gentry class, and without Fan Zhongyan's mind and ambition, he could only oppose the change of law. Fan Chunren is well known in history, he is a good official, but not a reformer.