Chapter 244: Fan Zhongyan

The battle of Haoshuichuan confirmed the correctness of Yuan Hao's only fierce opponent in his life, Fan Zhongyan, in leading his troops. When Fan Zhongyan rushed to www.biquge.info the front line with a fifty-two-year-old sick body, he did not agree with Han Qi's initiative, but persevered, and used a protracted war to consume the forces of Western Xia. In the three wars, only Fan Zhongyan did not have much loss in the station, and after the war, Fan Zhongyan repaired a letter and sent it to Yuan Hao to persuade Yuan Hao to surrender.

The letter was clearly useless, but Yuan Hao remembered Fan Zhongyan's demeanor of saluting first and then soldiering. When Fan Zhongyan died, Yuan Hao set up an altar on the border to worship, they belonged to the two warring sides, there were national feuds, no personal enmity, respect for opponents, and it was also a heroic virtue.

War makes heroes, but it also creates tyrants. Won Hao grew up in the killing and made a living from conquest, which distorted his character. His uncle Wei Mu Shanxi, who was an important minister left by his grandfather Li Jiqian, secretly usurped power and was discovered by Yuan Hao, Yuan Hao went on a killing spree, threw his uncle's family into the Yellow River and drowned, and poisoned his mother with his own hands. One of his concubines, who was also from his mother's family, was pregnant at the time, but Yuan Hao didn't even hesitate to take care of his own flesh and blood, and died on the spot.

Yuan Hao has all the characteristics of a tyrant, such as greedy for beautiful women, and like all nomads, party men are full of attachment to women in their bones. After Yuan Hao established the country, his queen was the Yeli clan, and the Yeli family was in power for a while, and soon someone falsely accused Yuan Hao that the queen's brother was going to rebel, and Yuan Hao was furious and killed his brother-in-law's whole family.

When the truth was revealed, Yuan Hao regretted it too much, and he rode a horse to find the survivor of the Yeli family and the widow of his brother-in-law. However, for Empress Yeli, Yuan Hao's introspection is the real beginning of the tragedy, and the Mizang clan is so young and beautiful, as soon as he sees it, he takes it for himself.

Since then, the Wuzang clan has enjoyed the treatment that the queen has never had, on the way to hunt, Yuan Hao took her; when giving birth to a child, Yuan Hao personally guarded and named the child forgiveness, but the beauty of the Wuzang clan still couldn't tie him. The crown prince born to the queen Ning Ling got married, and Yuan Hao went to preside over the wedding, who knew that Yuan Hao couldn't leave as soon as he saw the glamorous bride who didn't move. A wedding turned out to be a father snatching his son and wife, and the government and the opposition were in an uproar, but Yuan Hao ignored public opinion, abolished Queen Yeli, and did not move the clan as the new queen.

The shocking love became Yuan Hao's last madness, the prince Ning Ling's brother was humiliated, his uncle was killed, his mother was abolished, and his wife was taken away. At this time, the elder brother of the Muzang clan coveted the throne of his uncle for a long time and instigated the prince to rebel. One night, the prince broke into Yuan Hao's forbidden palace and cut off his father's nose with a knife, and the next morning, Yuan Hao ended his life due to excessive blood loss, and then the elder brother of the Wuzang clan killed the prince for the crime of killing the king.

In the winter of that year, at the head of the city of Xingqing Mansion in Western Xia, a woman climbed the stairs and went up, holding a one-year-old baby in her arms. The era of Yuan Hao finally ended in his own road of good beauties.

As early as the Song Taizong and Zhenzong periods, there were already some people who put forward the idea of changing the law, and during the Song Renzong period, Fan Zhongyan wrote to the imperial court and advocated reform. Two years later, when Fan Zhongyan was in charge of the academy in Yingtianfu, he made the same suggestion, but it was not adopted.

During the Qingli period, Song Renzong was forced by the situation to instruct Fan Zhongyan, the governor of the political affairs, and others to put forward the opinions of reform, Fan Zhongyan sent a letter to Renzong, pointing out that the situation at that time was internal and external difficulties, and it was impossible not to carry out reforms, and put forward ten reform proposals, including rectifying the rule of officials, cultivating talents, developing production, and strengthening armaments.

He believed that with virtuous officials, they would be able to do a good job in politics, so that the people would be at peace, would not invite trouble, and would ease social contradictions. In the same year, Renzong issued several edicts to implement the ideas of Fan Zhongyan and others, the so-called Qingli New Deal. However, the idea of changing the law violated the interests of some bureaucrats and landlords, and aroused strong opposition from conservatives at the beginning, and in just about a year, Fan Zhongyan and others were forced to resign one after another, and the reform was aborted.

Fan Zhongyan was a poor child when he was a child, he died of his father when he was two years old, and in order to live, his mother took him to remarry to the Zhu family. The Zhu family was also very poor, and there was no money for him to study, so he came to a monastery alone, and while doing odd jobs, he studied hard, often reading until late at night.

When he was sleepy, he washed his face with cold water, and the most difficult thing for him was the daily meal, not to mention the delicious food, and it was not easy to even eat enough. Every day he cooks a pot of porridge, and after waiting for the porridge to cold and solidify, he uses a knife to cut it into four pieces, two pieces in the morning and two in the evening, and eats the pickled vegetables into his stomach.

One day, a classmate came to visit Fan Zhongyan, this classmate is the son of an official eunuch, the family is very rich, he saw Fan Zhongyan's life is so hard, his heart is very moved, after returning home, he told his father about it, and the classmate's father asked someone to send Fan Zhongyan good food and food. A few days later, this classmate came again, and the strange thing was that the meal given to Fan Zhongyan was left there untouched, and it was already about to become moldy.

The classmate blamed Fan Zhongyan and said, "As the saying goes, a gentleman doesn't eat the food sent by the villain, do you look down on me?"

Fan Zhongyan hurriedly expressed his gratitude and said: "It's not that I don't appreciate Lord Lingzun's kindness, but I have become a habit of eating porridge every day, if I eat the good food you sent and enjoy it, I am afraid that I will not be able to eat gruel in the future." This classmate was deeply moved when he heard this, and admired Fan Zhongyan even more.

This is how Fan Zhongyan has been determined since he was a child, and he has studied hard. Relying on this spirit, he finally became a famous politician and writer in the Song Dynasty, and wrote the famous sentence "The worries of the world first, and the joy of the world after the world".

When Fan Zhongyan was nine years old, he heard that there was a Liquan Temple in Changshan, Shandong, and the elders in the temple were very knowledgeable, so he wanted to study there. Later, with his mother's consent, he finally came to Liquan Temple, but there were many monks in the temple and little porridge, and life was very difficult.

One night, Fan Zhongyan was reading under the moon, and the elder saw it, took out a piece of bread and quietly placed it on the stone table and left. He didn't even notice it, and when he got up, the bread was swept to the ground by his sleeve, and he bent down to pick it up and put it back in its place.

Although his stomach was screaming with hunger, he swallowed and resumed reading. Suddenly he heard a squeaky sound, and a mouse took the bread in its mouth and burrowed under a redbud tree. Fan Zhongyan became curious, he took a shovel to dig a mouse hole, and after digging the loess, he found a stone slab underneath.

What's going on, who put it here? Fan Zhongyan hurriedly covered the slate. He thought, "How can I be moved by gold and silver when I read my books?" and this had been hidden in his heart for decades.

One day, a monk approached Fan Zhongyan and told him that Liquan Temple had been destroyed in a fire, and that the elders had sent him to ask for help in rebuilding the temple. Thinking of the scene back then, Fan Zhongyan wrote a note and asked the monk to hand it to the elder. It reads: "One kiln of gold in Jingdong, one kiln of silver in Jingxi, half of it is for monasteries, and half is given to monks." ”

According to Fan Zhongyan's note, the elder found the pile of gold ingots from under the bauhinia tree and restored the temple, and since then, the monks of Liquan Temple have passed down the story of Fan Zhongyan not taking gold and giving away gold and silver from generation to generation.

Fan Zhongyan has four sons, influenced by his father, all of them are good at writing and painting, rich in talent, and are the envy of some wealthy families, and they all want to marry their daughters to his family. After Fan Zhongyan became a governor, there were many people who came to the door to propose marriage to the children.

One day, a man came to his house to propose marriage to his eldest son and wanted to marry his daughter to the Fan family, and that person thought that the prime minister's house must be very luxurious, and the food and clothing must be several times better than that of ordinary people. But when I entered the door, I saw that the furnishings of the house were very simple, there were no magnificent furniture, no silk and satin clothes, and I ate coarse tea and light rice, and wore homespun clothes.

But the man thought: "The Fan family must have a lot of savings if they eat and dress so frugally, and they will have a long future in the future, and they will be blessed to marry such a family." Besides, the children of the Fan family are all physically healthy and decent, and they will definitely be very successful in the future. Thinking of this, the person who proposed the marriage immediately promised to give his daughter to the Fan family.

Chunyou, the eldest son of the Fan family, was ready to get married, and the woman thought: "The Fan family has many brothers and a thick family background, so you should order decent clothes and furniture when you get married. ”

And Fan Zhongyan was drowned, and he repeatedly explained to his son: "Now that the country is in difficulty, and the people are also very poor, you can't buy expensive furniture and gorgeous clothes when you get married, you must be as diligent and thrifty as ordinary people." ”

Soon, Fan Zhongyan heard that his daughter-in-law didn't want expensive furniture or fancy clothes, but she wanted a mosquito net made of ayaluo. Fan Zhongyan heard this and said angrily: "My family has always been thrifty, and all the money is used to help the people, what kind of Ayaluo tent?"

Later, the woman proposed that since the Fan family refused to make such an account, our family would make it ourselves.

After Fan Zhongyan heard this, he still didn't follow. He said: "Diligence and thrift are my family style, and it is also the virtue of being a man. Even if she brought a silk tent to her house, I didn't allow her to hang it, so she couldn't mess with my family law. ”

When the daughter-in-law heard that Fan Zhongyan, who was the deputy prime minister, was so stingy in handling things, and was worried that she would live a nest life after passing the door, she couldn't help but hesitate a little, but soon there was something that deeply moved her.

Once, Fan Zhongyan sent his eldest son Chunyou to Suzhou to buy wheat, Chunyou loaded the wheat he bought onto the ship, transported it home, and walked to Danyang, where he met Fan Zhongyan's friend Shi Manqing who was in poverty and couldn't even eat. Fan Chunyou immediately rescued Shi Manqing with all the wheat and returned home empty-handed.

Then he told his father Fan Zhongyan what had happened, and his father was very satisfied with his son's generosity in helping the poor, and praised him repeatedly: "Do it right! Do it right!"