Song Gexing

Chapter 192 New Year Name
Bao Zheng's eldest son died at the age of 20, and he had just been married for a year. Fortunately, he left behind a posthumous son, Bao Wenfu.

According to original history, Bao Wenfu would die when he was five years old. It was Zhao Fang who saved him. This fact made Bao Zheng extremely grateful.

Bao Zheng's daughter-in-law Cui is a perfect representative of ancient women. The open-minded Bao Zheng did not want his daughter-in-law to remain a widow and persuaded her to remarry several times.

But Ms. Cui was determined not to marry, because she wanted to serve her parents-in-law instead of her husband. The helpless Bao Zheng had no choice but to stop persuading her, but he never gave up the idea.

After all, not everyone can find a good daughter-in-law. He was treated as a daughter, but after the court granted her a title, she could not remarry according to the rules, but Zhao Fang gave her an exception.

In a blink of an eye, the year-end holiday is coming. The holidays for officials in the Northern Song Dynasty can make most countries in later generations angry. Who has 120 days of holidays a year?

Spring Festival, cold food, and winter solstice each have 7 days off.

There are three days off each on the Summer Solstice, Laba Festival, Lantern Festival, Hungry Ghost Festival, Xiayuan Festival, and the emperor’s birthday.

There is a day off for each of the Beginning of Spring, Beginning of Summer, Beginning of Autumn, Beginning of Winter, Spring Equinox, Autumnal Equinox, Spring Society, Autumn Society, Sanfu, Qixi Festival, March [-]rd, Dragon Boat Festival and Double Ninth Festival.

There is also a three-day holiday every month, and even an irregular bathing day. No wonder those who are familiar with history books are willing to travel back to the Song Dynasty to become an official. It's so cool.

The salary is high, there are many holidays, and you can legally drink and treat girls with public funds. Although Zhao Fang's previous reforms reduced most of the ministerial funds, they still did not cancel them all.

But this year is about to go on holiday, and everyone is not as relaxed as in previous years. The new era name has been uncertain. The court has debated it many times, but there is still no final decision.

Among the more than a dozen reign titles, the ministers finally got stuck on the last two, one was Zhiping proposed by Fu Bi, and the other was Xining proposed by Zhao Fang himself.

In fact, these two are the reign names after Renzong in history. Zhiping is the reign name of Song Yingzong, and Xining is the reign name of his son Shenzong.

Perhaps due to inertia, Fu Bi still chose the reign title after Yingzong succeeded Renzong, but Zhao Fang thought it was unlucky, but could not tell others why.

He had no choice but to go into battle personally and gave the reign name of Xining. Of course, it also had a hidden meaning, because Shenzong Xining almost destroyed Xixia by taking action.

This reign name indicates the great martial arts of the Song Dynasty, but the ministers don't know it now.

Fu Bi has a stable character and likes stability, so he strongly advocates using Zhiping, but Han Qi is straight-tempered, so this time he supports Zhao Fang's Xining.

This is caused by the different meanings of the two era names. Although the word "Ning" means peace, it is dynamic. There must be means to stabilize the four directions before peace can be achieved.

As a result, the two friends got into a fight, and neither one could convince the other. They remained in a stalemate, and it was about to have a holiday for the New Year.

Han Qi and Fu Bi are hailed by historians as the twin stars of the Northern Song Dynasty. Their deaths also marked the beginning of the decline of the Northern Song Dynasty.

What is very interesting is that both of them had visions from the sky before their deaths. The night before Han Qi's death, a star fell outside his residence, alarming the entire Xiangzhou.

Ten days before Fu Bi's death, the same meteorite fell from the sky, and it also fell near his residence. Therefore, the unofficial history of Song Dynasty said that these two were the stars in the sky who came down to earth to support the Emperor of Song Dynasty.

Also, the two brothers were no longer good friends in the Yingzong Dynasty. From being sweet besties to rolling their eyes, it was because of the difference in their personalities that they had different political opinions.

Fu Bi is steady but nagging, while Han Qi is impatient and likes to act vigorously and resolutely, so he often gets into arguments over major issues.

Today, the two of them were at odds again. Over Zhiping or Xining, the two sides argued with each other to no avail. Zhao Fang finally got impatient.

"Since that's the case, both are good, and you can't decide which one to use, so let's draw lots and let Prime Minister Fan choose. That's okay, right?" As soon as the words fell, the two looked at Zhao Fang at the same time, and said in unison: "Your Majesty is ridiculous! (There is no reason to draw lots)."

Fu Bi's words were polite, but Han Qi was like Kou Zhun reborn. Zhao Fang was so angry that he shouted: "This won't work, and that won't work either, so what do you think we should do?"

When Fan Zhongyan saw that the father-in-law and son-in-law were about to quarrel, he quickly came out and said to Xini: "How about the ministers choose in court, and the one with the most supporters will be selected."

Zhao Fang thought for a while, nodded and said, "Okay, then let's go ahead."

"Tingtui?"

Everyone was at a loss, and soon understood what it meant. The imperial recommendation system from the Ming Dynasty came to the court of the Song Dynasty for the first time.

In the end, Fu Bi lost. He snorted unhappily and stopped objecting. In fact, it was no wonder. After all, it was Zhao Fang who proposed the title of Xining.

What the emperor mentioned personally was no worse than Zhi Ping, so naturally more people supported it.

Zhao Fang was happy now and said with a smile: "Don't be angry, Mr. Fu, we are going to have a good year again this year. The pleats Xue Qing wore yesterday will make you rich in tens of millions of taels of silver this year."

Xue Xiang is indeed a master of financial management. In just one month, he sorted out all the account books and made targeted adjustments. Many bad debts were recovered.

After hearing this, everyone became happy. After all, if you have more money, you will get more rewards. Han Qi bumped Fu Bi with his shoulder and grinned.

Fu Bi gave him a roll of his eyes and quietly stretched out his leg to step on him. Zhao Fang couldn't catch Zhao Fang's eyes with their little moves, and he couldn't help laughing.

"Right, one more thing."

Zhao Fang got serious and looked around the ministers before continuing: "Next year I plan to send someone to be the governor of the river. We have made great achievements in water control in the past few years, but we must also send someone to inspect and solve problems on the spot if they are found."

"Governor? Your Majesty means to inspect the governor. Is this a temporary assignment or will it become a regular rule?"

The word "governor" was not invented by the Ming Dynasty, but appeared in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. However, it is not an official position like the Ming Dynasty. I hope you know what it means, but the meaning is actually the same.

Tuoba Tao, Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty, issued an edict to "inspect the six towns to prevent bandits."

Later, Emperor Xuanwu appointed his attendant Yang Bo as governor to provide relief. In the Tang Dynasty, governors began to be established. This was not a permanent position, and this position rarely appeared.

When the Song Dynasty inherited the Tang system, governors were also appointed, and they were removed after completing the work. However, this was the first time that governors were specifically set up for rivers.

The Song Dynasty attached great importance to water conservancy construction, but there was no river governor's office like the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Instead, there were five government offices in succession, but the level was not high.

The earliest system inherited from the Tang Dynasty was to establish the Department of Water Resources, which was subordinate to the Ministry of Works. However, the Ministry of Works itself was a department under the Political Affairs Hall, so how high could the Department of Water Department be?

Moreover, in the Song Dynasty, the person in charge of the civil construction of the city was the Sanshisi, because the money was in the hands of the Sanshisi, and there was a construction project under the Sanshisi who was responsible for these.

This resulted in the Water Department in the Song Dynasty becoming ineffective. It was not until Yuanfeng's restructuring that the Water Department took over the right to take charge of water conservancy, but the highest allocation could only be from a doctor of the sixth grade.

(End of this chapter)