Among the older generation of Wei County, fang Guancheng, who talked about the southern barbarians, hated it to the bone. His crimes were widely circulated in the folk, and were collected in the "Weixian Folk Tales Volume" with Tian Yongxiang as the editor-in-chief and Xu Junfeng as the deputy editor. In the book "The First Volume", there are "Fang Guan cheng in Zhangjiakou", "Fang Guan Cheng under Weizhou", "Fang Guan Cheng into Beijing", "Four Characters Win the Championship", "After Fang Guan Cheng took office", "Phoenix Terrace and Fang Guan Cheng" and other legends related to Fang Guan Cheng in Wei County. In addition, there are many folk legends, all of which are vivid and humanized, and wonderful.
The synopsis of these stories and legends mainly tells that Fang Guancheng lived a depressed and impoverished life when he was young, wandered to Zhangjiakou to sell calligraphy and paintings for a living, wrote plaques in Wucheng Street, was humiliated by an old man who collected dung in Wei County, and then went to Weizhou to look for the old man to learn calligraphy. Later, when he passed the examination, he answered the Qianlong Emperor's questions like a stream, which was deeply appreciated by the Qianlong Emperor, and while the emperor was happy, he put forward a request to be the governor of Weizhou, and immediately got the approval.
After coming to Weizhou to take up his post, Fang Guancheng, who was narrow-minded and jealous of the furnace, did not feel the kindness of the people of WeiXian but instead took revenge and did many unpopular bad things, Fang Guancheng knew very well the saying of Feng Shui of Kanyu, he saw that the mountains and rivers of Ulju were beautiful, and they were beautiful and beautiful, and they were a treasure of feng shui, and wei Xiangshu and Li Zhouwang were high-ranking officials in the dynasty, and according to their celestial signs, there would be five buckets and three liters of sesame officials in the future, so he secretly used his heart and machine, starting from the sulfur and bad Ulzhou feng shui, first in the western joint camp forty miles of phoenix platform, built the Taishan Temple, and personally wrote a piece The plaque of "Big Dipper Taishan" hangs under the eaves of the mountain gate, and presses the head of the Phoenix in Weixian County with the pressure of Mount Tai, which means that the golden phoenix that spreads its wings and flies can never soar, so that the feng shui treasure land of Wei County will become a place where no talents are produced: at the same time, he will divert the Ding'an River in the south of Jijiazhuang in an attempt to cut off the dragon vein of Wei County; He also said that Fang Guancheng ordered people to dig three feet into the ground on the west street of the county town, and built eighteen toilets on the west side of the Drum Tower, and did everything in his power to retaliate against the people of Wei County. To this day, these absurd stories are still circulating in the folk of Wei County.
As folk tales and legends, we can't talk about it as real history, but just listen to it as a joke after dinner!
In fact, in history, Fang Guancheng, the governor directly subordinate to him, was a clean, diligent, pragmatic, and dedicated official of the Qing Dynasty, and he did many good things for the benefit of the country and the people in his lifetime. Fang Guancheng was a native of Tongcheng, Anhui Province, the Fang family was from the Tongcheng Wang clan, Fang Guancheng's ancestors had been officials in the past, because his grandfather and father were implicated in the "Nanshan Collection" text prison, they were exiled to Heilongjiang, Fang Guancheng and his brother Fang Guanshui were exempted from exile because of their young age, and sent to Jinling to qingliang Temple in Nanjing, and the two brothers had to visit their relatives outside the sai every year, traveling back and forth between the north and the south, and experiencing hardships. The family ups and downs of his youth and the long-term trek and travel did not make Fang Guancheng decadent and wither, but on the contrary, he tempered his will, and in the course of his travels, he knew the world's benefits and diseases, human customs, and facilities, laying the foundation for what he did in the future.
Fang Guancheng was not an official in the army, and his entry and promotion were closely related to Wang Fupeng of Pingjun. In the ninth year of Yongzheng (1731), on the recommendation of others, Fang Guan was accepted as an aide to the palace of Fu Peng, the king of Pingjun, and was quite appreciated. Later, he was quickly promoted, and later served as an envoy directly under the authorities and envoys. In the eleventh year of Qianlong (1746), he was the acting governor of Shandong, and later promoted to the inspector of Zhejiang. Shortly thereafter, Fang Guancheng was promoted to governor of Zhili for 20 years, with outstanding political achievements, especially in the management of rivers, and at the same time he attached great importance to agriculture, believing that "the foundation of raising the people should not be in farming" He asked the governor and the following officials to "be kind and thoughtful" to attach importance to agriculture and develop agriculture. He vigorously promoted the cultivation of cotton suitable for the local area according to the local rule, and personally drew a map of the imperial cotton, which was deeply appreciated by the Qianlong Emperor.
In the thirteenth year of Jiaqing (1808), the Jiaqing Emperor ordered the court to reprint this book, and Fang Guancheng promoted cotton cultivation, which not only solved the problem of people dressing to protect themselves from the cold, but also promoted the development of the cotton textile handicraft industry. Fang Guancheng also paid attention to the construction of farmland water conservancy and afforestation and greening the environment, and built many water conservancy projects. At the same time, he has made great achievements in disaster relief and warehousing.
As a feudal governor, he was good at knowing and employing people, and Fang Guancheng promoted more than 10 people during his tenure, such as Zhou Yuanli and Li Hu, who later became feudal officials. Fang Guancheng served as the governor of Zhili for nearly 20 years, and "the government is not big and small, and all of them are dedicated to going to it" was highly praised by the people of the time: "It is the virtue of the top, for the people of the lower, all seen in the song, the achievements, and the song of qifu does not fade-"Fang Guancheng was also relied on by the Qianlong Emperor, and in March of the fifteenth year of Qianlong (1750), he was rewarded with the title of prince shaobao, and in the first month of the twenty-eighth year of Qianlong (1763), he added the title of prince Taibao. In the first month of the thirtieth year of Qianlong (1765), the Qianlong Emperor toured the south, and gave poetry praise, and the political achievements of the other party Were fully affirmed.
In August of the thirty-third year of Qianlong (1768), Fang Guancheng died of illness at the age of 71. The Qianlong Emperor said in his imperial decree: "Fang Guancheng has been trained in the old age, and has been serving as the governor of the direct subordinate and managing the river affairs for twenty years, and he has served in his duties and is diligent, and Fang Ziyi has relied on any of them to hear of his death, and his heart is deeply cherished." The Qing court gave the title of "Ke Min", and qianlong entered the ancestral hall in the forty-second year (1777) and the ancestral hall of the people in the fifty-first year of Qianlong (1786).
Judging from Fang Guancheng's political experience, he had never served as a governor in Weizhou, let alone crossed the level to interfere in specific local affairs, and from the perspective of being an official, he would never do anything out of the ordinary, and the legend in Wei County was purely false.
I know very little about This diligent and hard-working official, who governs for the people, and enjoys a high reputation in history, is still shrouded in the shadow of folklore, and my positive understanding of him is only in a short article published by Comrade Jia Xiao in the "Zhangjiakou Daily" many years ago that I have a preliminary understanding of The other party' Guancheng.
In addition to xiuzhi, I read the first chapter of the 1995 edition of the "Weixian Zhi" "Miscellaneous Records", "Selected Documents". Perusing the article in March of the 22nd year of Qianlong's decision on the annexation of Wei County to Wei Prefecture, Fang knew that the move to withdraw the county and merge the prefecture was fang Guancheng's direct petition to the imperial court in the name of the viceroy directly subordinate to him, and after receiving the qianlong emperor's approval, the household department forwarded the withdrawal plan according to the imperial decree and implemented it. This major institutional adjustment changed from the twenty-second year of Qianlong (1757) to the second year of the Republic of China (1913) to change the prefecture to a county, and the establishment of Ulju continued for 156 years, laying the foundation for the administrative division (basic) of today's Ulju County.
From the perspective of history, Fang Guancheng's move to withdraw the county and merge the prefecture at that time was completely correct. At that time, Ulju and Ulxian were under the jurisdiction of Xuanhua Province, sharing a city, with street markets divided into east-west jurisdictions, not subordinate to each other, while the 350 village forts in the prefecture and 240 village forts in the county were staggered. Those who have a prefecture dwelling in a county and a county dweller who live in a prefecture because they are married to each other, and whoever encounters a lawsuit, the perpetrator is detained in two places at the same time, involving the cultivation of land and grain, and the sharing of two places.
All these drawbacks have caused great difficulties in the administration of the two places. Fang Guancheng also said from the historical evolution of the administrative division of Wei County: "In the past, because the prefecture was divided into two provinces, it was ordered by decree to change Ulju to direct subordination without being merged. As far as the present situation is concerned, it is proposed that the discretion should be made to simplify the rules. Fang Guancheng simply replaced the administrative division changes in Weizhou County during the Ming and Qing dynasties with the word "before", which actually caused the coexistence of prefectures and counties, which should be traced back to the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. In the fourth year of Ming Hongwu's reign (1371), Lingxian County was merged with Wei Prefecture (蔚州), which belonged to Datong Province, Shanxi, and still led the three counties of Guangling, Guangchang, and Lingqiu. In the seventh year of Hongwu (1374), Weizhou Wei was established in the territory, and at the same time, Ding'an County was abolished, and Weizhou Wei belonged to the Shanxi Xingdu Division, and in the fifth year of Ming Xuande (1430), Weizhou Wei was assigned to the newly formed Wanquan Prefecture Division (治府府) in Xuanhua. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Wei County still belonged to Datong Prefecture in Shanxi, kangxi thirty-two years (1693), the prefecture and county tongzhi Weizhou City, and divided into Datong Fu and Xuanhua Province, Yongzheng sixth year (1728) Yongzheng Emperor personally proposed to change Weizhou to Yihua Province, and this is the best time to merge Wei County into Weizhou, and "undivised" caused historical regrets, after 29 years, Qianlong Twenty-two Years (1757). This is a major institutional reform. In today's terms, it has eliminated the dualization of the leadership system, straightened out relations, improved work efficiency, saved administrative expenses, promoted economic and social development, benefited the country and the people, and had benefits without any harm
In looking at the specific plan for Fang Guan to withdraw the county and the prefecture, his work style of "handling things thoroughly" was fully reflected, and he did a lot of investigation and research in advance (whether there was no record of whether he came to the new private visit) after the merger, and the area, number of households, and population of the prefecture were calculated, believing that "the total number of two villages is less than 600, the number of households is less than 30,000, the affairs are not complicated, and the governance of one official is sufficient" once again emphatically points out that there are two officials in the prefecture and county in one city, and the villages under his management are again jagged and complicated. It is difficult to rectify, it is really redundant, and it should be requested to reduce the shortage of public grain, miscellaneous taxes, and military grain collected by Weizhou, the storage is collected and stored by Weizhou Changping Warehouse, and the Temple of Literature and various altar sacrifices are organized and implemented by Weizhou. Especially for the merger of schools, Fang Guancheng attaches great importance to it, he said: "Although the present Wei County is decided to be returned to Weizhou, the scholars are still the same. At the same time, he also stressed that "and the xuanju style is only two wei is prosperous" can not be used as a reason to reduce the quota of human learning, Fang Guancheng here fully affirmed the status of Ulju Wei County education in the prefectures and counties under the jurisdiction of Xuanhua Province, and let the Yuanzhou discipline be specifically responsible for the daily work of the township school after the merger, and did not envy the talent of Wei County as in the legend. In the plan for the withdrawal and merger, the most important thing for Fang Guancheng was to reduce redundant personnel and reduce administrative expenses; Fang Guancheng would transfer zhu shizhong of Zhixian County to the ministry of households and ask the household department to transfer Lu Longzhi County to the rear, teach Li Yanmei and Wang Shihong of Dianshi to reduce them back to their original hometowns to wait for their posts, and reduce the wei county's yanglian silver, funding silver, and dianshi yanglian silver for a total of 103125 yuan and 5 cents, and at the same time reduce the upper and lower levels to the public, and the rest of the county ya were all dismissed and sent home. Such personnel reform, which involves personal vital interests, will inevitably attract strong opposition from some people, etc., and I think this may be an important reason for smearing Fang Guancheng.
bibliography
((1)) Hebei Weixian Local History Compilation Committee "Weixian Zhi", China Three Gorges Publishing House, 1995 edition
(2) Zhang Shuxia edited "Biography of the Governor Directly Under the DirectLy Subordinate", published by China Literature and History Publishing House in 2000
(3) Tian Yongxiang's editor-in-chief and deputy editor-in-chief Xu Junfeng's "Weixian Folk Tales Volume 1" was printed by the three integrated offices of Weixian folk literature
November 20, 2020
(This article is selected from the 26th series of the "Selected Literature and History Materials of Wei County")
Liu Guoquan, male, born in May 1949, former chief of the Economic and Social Law Section of the Weixian CPPCC Committee. He is currently the executive editor of "Wei County Chronicle"