Great Zhou Empire: Kill Zhao Kuangyin at the beginning

Chapter 572 Fan Zhongyan (Special thanks to book friend Zhuo Kan Fengyun for his 2 monthly tickets!)

After a thorough selection, Chai Zongxun selected 300 beauties that caught his eye from among the more than 2,000 Indian beauties, headed by Ajiman, to enter the harem as concubines.

The rest were awarded to more than seventy princes who had established their own fiefdoms with twenty each, to three younger brothers of the emperor with ten each, and to more than three hundred important civil and military officials in the court with one to two each.

In May of the 59th year of Kaixi, locusts and drought broke out in the Jiangnan, Huanghuai, Hebei, and Guanzhong areas of the Great Zhou Empire, resulting in large-scale crop failures.

The prefectures and cities in the disaster-stricken areas immediately submitted memorials to the imperial court and opened "charity granaries" to sell grain to the people at the original price.

On the morning of May 12, the emperor and his ministers discussed this matter.

The Prime Minister and Minister of Personnel Ding Wei came out and said:
“Your Majesty, this time a locust plague broke out in our country. In just a few days, the situation changed from a small swarm of locusts to a widespread locust plague. The people’s farmland was almost completely wiped out and the disaster was severe.

All the provincial capitals where locust plagues occurred have opened "charity granaries" to sell rice to the people at a fair price, but because most of them are large and densely populated provinces, the demand is huge.

It is estimated that in the event of a complete failure of summer and autumn crops, the grain reserves in the "charity granaries" of the affected provinces and cities can only last until the end of this year at most.

I am afraid that there will be famine when the summer grain harvest comes next year, and the court needs to make plans early."

Today, the Great Zhou has a large population, and its industry and commerce are thriving, so there is a huge population that needs to buy food.

The states affected by the locust plagues are all populous, with at least 1 million people affected. Although the local state government's "charity granaries" have abundant grain reserves, it is already difficult to supply food for so many people from May to December.

The Deputy Minister and Minister of Revenue Li Di came out of the class and said:

"Your Majesty, the locust plague has come down from heaven. I am afraid that this minister is incompetent and has not managed the Ministry of Finance well, which has led to the wrath of heaven.

I hereby resign from the positions of Vice Minister and Minister of Revenue."

Chai Zongxun smiled and said:
"The law of yin and yang is the law of nature. It is impossible for every year to be a good year with good weather and good harvests. How can you blame it on me, my dear minister?

Natural disasters are not scary. Throughout history, it is always man-made disasters that cause the most harm to countless people!
As long as the court responds appropriately, it will be able to properly handle the disaster and ensure the safety of people’s lives and property.”

Chai Zongxun pondered for a moment and said:
“Since there will be a shortage of food in the disaster-stricken areas, the first step of the imperial court’s plan is to requisition food from the “charity granaries” in other states across the country to support the disaster-stricken areas.

In the second step, the imperial court purchased large quantities of grain from rice-producing areas such as Annan and Angkor to replenish the stocks in the "charity granaries" in these places to prevent further disasters in the coming year.

As for solving the locust plague, I have a solution that you can try."

All the ministers in the Chuigong Hall listened attentively.

Chai Zongxun said:

"Nowadays, the people of our Great Zhou are generally prosperous, and there are many farmers in the countryside who raise chickens, ducks and geese.

As the saying goes, "One thing conquers another", the law of nature is mutual promotion and mutual restraint. Ducks eat locusts very quickly and quickly. The court can collect hundreds of thousands of ducks from various prefectures and transport them to the areas where the locust plague has occurred to clear out the locusts!"

All the civil and military officials were skeptical, but they did not dare to question the emperor's decision and agreed immediately.

Three days later, the imperial envoys headed by Minister of Works Feng Zheng set out for the locust-stricken areas and mobilized local governments to purchase ducks from people's homes at market prices. When the number was sufficient, they would transport them to locust-concentrated areas to kill the ducks.

When people from all over the country heard that the court had sent an imperial envoy specifically to kill the locusts, they had high hopes for him. However, they were surprised to see that the imperial envoy simply ordered people to buy a large number of ducks from farmers. They did not know why and were greatly disappointed.

Fortunately, local governments opened "charity granaries" to sell grain at a fair price, and the people of the Great Zhou, who had long been wealthy, had considerable assets. Even if the whole family bought food for a few years, money would not be a problem.

At the beginning of June in the 59th year of Kaixi, the imperial examination list was released, and for the first time, more than 10,000 Jinshi candidates in the four categories of "civil, military, commercial and industrial" were admitted.

In this imperial examination, two people attracted Chai Zongxun's attention: Di Qing and Fan Zhongyan.

Di Qing is the eldest grandson of Emperor Chai Zongxun, the son of Princess Chai Wodan and her husband Di Pu. He was born in the 37th year of Kaixi and is 22 years old this year.

Since Di Qing was granted by Emperor Chai Zongxun to study in the Imperial Palace School at the age of six, he received careful instruction from famous teachers in four subjects, and his favorite subject was the military subject.

With the careful instruction of famous generals of the empire such as Huyan Zan, Zhang Ning, and Gao Hua, Di Qing's martial arts and military tactics improved rapidly, and at a young age he was already better than his predecessors.

In this year's imperial examination, Di Qing won the first place in both martial arts and military tactics, and was named the top martial arts champion.

Chai Zongxun was overjoyed when he received the news. In order to prevent the examiners from easing Di Qing off because he was the emperor's eldest grandson, he personally summoned the examiners at all levels to ask for details.

Chai Zongxun was relieved when he saw that all the examiners were confident that Di Qing was a man of real talent and knowledge.

As for Fan Zhongyan, his courtesy name was Xiwen, he was from Wu County, Suzhou, and his ancestral home was Binzhou.

Fan Zhongyan's ancestor was Fan Lubing, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, his family moved south and served in Wu Yue. His father was Fan Yong, the secretary of the Wuning Army.

Fan Zhongyan was born in the 30th year of Kaixi (989) in the official residence of the secretary of Xuzhou Jiedushi. His mother was Xie, the wife of Fan Yong.

Fan Yong died of illness while in office. Fan Zhongyan was only one year old at that time.

Fan Yong was an honest official with no savings. After his sudden death, his family was poor and helpless. His wife Xie remarried Zhu Wenhan, a native of Changshan County, Zibo Prefecture, who worked in Wu County, for the sake of livelihood. Fan Zhongyan therefore changed his surname to Zhu Shuo.

Zhu Wenhan had been transferred many times, and Fan Zhongyan also followed his stepfather to many places when he was young. He was studious and lived frugally since he was young.

In the 52nd year of Kaixi (1011), Fan Zhongyan was humiliated by his two half brothers about his family background when he advised them not to be extravagant. He then learned that he was not Zhu Wenhan's biological son. He was deeply saddened and bid farewell to his mother and traveled to Jinling to study under the great Confucian scholar Qi Tongwen.

While studying in Jinling, Fan Zhongyan studied hard day and night. He lived a simple life, eating only pickles and millet porridge.

There is an allusion to the story of cutting vegetables into pieces and drawing porridge on them.

Fan Zhongyan once studied hard in Liquan Temple. He lived a hard life. He cooked porridge with two liters of millet every day. After the porridge solidified, he cut it into four parts and ate two pieces in the morning and evening. He also cut dozens of pickled vegetables to go with the porridge. He studied hard like this for three years.

A friend of Fan Zhongyan's stepfather once presented him with delicious food, but Fan Zhongyan refused it on the grounds that "it is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality."

Sometimes when I feel sleepy after studying late at night, I wash my face with cold water to wake myself up.

Fan Zhongyan had lofty ambitions. When he was studying hard, he often motivated himself with the words "worry about the world before you worry about yourself, and be happy about the world after you are happy about yourself."

In this year's imperial examination, Fan Zhongyan's test paper was ranked among the best by the examiners. After reading it, Chai Zongxun was moved by the patriotism and concern for the people expressed in Fan Zhongyan's answer, and he approved him as the top scorer in the liberal arts.

On the afternoon of June 12, Chai Zongxun summoned the top scorers in military and civil examinations, Di Qing and Fan Zhongyan, to Yanfu Hall respectively.

The first person to meet the emperor was Di Qing, the eldest grandson of the emperor and the son of the eldest princess.

After the greetings, Chai Zongxun ordered Di Qing to sit.

Chai Zongxun laughed and said:

"Qing'er really lived up to my expectations. She is the person I had hoped for!"

(End of this chapter)