Fan Zhongyan and the Qingli Reforms

Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), courtesy name Xiwen, from Wuxian, Suzhou, was a noted Northern Song statesman, writer and thinker. His family was poor in his youth, and he studied hard, living on cold porridge. After passing the jinshi examination he served as an upright official who spoke frankly and was demoted several times for criticizing government. During the Song–Xia war he held the northwest, strengthened its defenses and kept Western Xia from attacking lightly. By mid-Northern Song the bureaucracy was bloated, with too many officials and a large army of low fighting strength, finances were strained and social tensions grew, known as “poverty and weakness”. In 1043 Emperor Renzong appointed Fan Zhongyan Participant in Governance, and he led reforms with Fu Bi, Han Qi and others. Fan submitted “Ten Proposals in Reply to the Imperial Edict”, calling for clear promotion and demotion, curbs on favoritism, stricter examinations, careful choice of local heads, equal public land, support for agriculture and sericulture, military readiness and lighter corvée. The core was cleaner officialdom: strict evaluation of officials, limits on sons of officials gaining posts by hereditary privilege, examination reform and schools. The reforms touched the interests of senior officials and nobles and met fierce opposition, and opponents slandered Fan and others as a “faction”. In 1045 Fan and others were pushed out of court, and the reforms failed after only just over a year. Though they failed, the Qingli Reforms began the reform tradition of Northern Song and prefigured Wang Anshi's later reforms. In “Yueyang Tower Record” Fan wrote the famous line “To worry before the world worries, to rejoice after the world has rejoiced”, a model of the scholar-official spirit.