Fan Zhongyan
Boat Races in a Famine
When what you are doing looks wrong and the results are not in, show your arithmetic
Shen Kuo, Brush Talks from Dream Brook, juan 11; History of Song, biography of Fan Zhongyan
What you are doing looks indefensible, and a superior already wants an answer. How did Fan Zhongyan reply when charged with frivolity in Hangzhou?
What actually happened?
In 1050 a great famine struck the Wu region and the dead lay along the roads. Fan, in charge in Zhejiang, handed out grain and hired labour. The people of Hangzhou loved boat races and Buddhist rites, so he let them race, feasted on the lake himself, and urged the temples to build while wages were low; the government built too, hiring a thousand a day. An inspector charged him with neglecting famine relief and with frivolity. Fan answered item by item: the feasts and the building were a way of getting money to people who had none. That year only Hangzhou saw no one forced to leave.
Absurd on its face, but the sums were done
Feasting and building in a famine looks the least defensible thing to do. His sum was different: with wages low, if officials and temples hired more, money would pass from those who had it to those who had nothing. Tens of thousands depended on that work for a day's food.
You schedule the refit in the off-season: the crew has work and the price is below the peak rate.
Charged, lay the method out
The inspector said he was neglecting the famine. Fan did not argue about his own character or complain that no one understood. He answered by writing out, item by item, what each thing was for. Once the sums are on paper, whoever objects must bring a different set.
Asked what a spend was for, you paste the model in, which does more than half an hour of explaining.
The same man had opposed building
He was no friend of building as such. Years earlier he had objected when the court wanted to build the Taiyi Palace and a monastery, saying it drained the people's property. What differs between the two cases is where the money comes from and where it goes: one drains, one circulates.
Two projects both labelled "investment": in one you make suppliers pay up front, in the other you pay people to work, and the ledgers run opposite ways.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: what you are doing looks out of line, someone above you wants an account, and the results are not in.
Ask first: can I write out, line by line, what each step is for? Once I have, do I still want to do it?
Where it goes wrong: treating this as "do it first and explain later". He acted within the one prefecture he ran and could say what each item was for; an action you cannot account for is not one to shelter behind his name.
Lines to keep
Looking wrong is not being wrong, but you have to prove it.
Put the sums on the page. Whoever objects must bring another set.
The test is where the money comes from and where it goes.
Same situation, other people are asking
Do I push, or do I take the no?They turned my proposal down. Do I bring it back, and with what?Their reason changes every time and the answer never does.The no came back. I can't tell what shape it was.They said no to my plan · all 10 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.