The Exile at Dengzhou: The Night He Wrote the Words That Would Define a Civilization

The air in the study of the Huazhou Academy—in what is now Dengzhou, Henan Province—was thick with the scent of ink, old paper, and the faint, bitter smell of failure. It was the autumn of AD 1046, and a man of fifty-seven sat alone at his desk, staring at a letter from an old friend. His name was Fan Zhongyan, and he had been exiled for the third time.

He had spent his life fighting. He had fought poverty as a child, hunger as a student, and the enemies of reform as a statesman. He had led armies against the Western Xia, built seawalls against the ocean, and drafted a reform program that would have reshaped the Song dynasty. But the Qingli Reforms—his great attempt to cleanse the bureaucracy and strengthen the empire—had collapsed in a storm of factional politics and conservative backlash. Now, he was a provincial official in a small city, far from the capital, far from power.

The letter was from his friend Teng Zijing, the magistrate of Yueyang, who had just rebuilt the famous Yueyang Tower on the shores of Dongting Lake. Teng asked Fan Zhongyan to write an essay commemorating the occasion. It was a simple request, but Fan Zhongyan understood its deeper meaning. Teng, like him, was an exile—a talented official who had been slandered and cast out. The tower was not just a building; it was a monument to resilience, a statement that even in exile, a man of principle could still build something beautiful.

Fan Zhongyan picked up his brush. He had never seen the Yueyang Tower. He did not need to. He had seen enough of the world—its mountains and rivers, its storms and calms, its heights of glory and depths of despair. He wrote of the lake’s vastness, of the emotions it stirred in the hearts of banished officials. And then, at the end, he wrote the words that would echo through a thousand years of Chinese history:

“先天下之忧而忧，后天下之乐而乐” (“Be first in worrying about the world‘s troubles, and last in enjoying its pleasures.”)

It was not a political slogan. It was a confession of faith—a statement of what it meant to be a Confucian gentleman, a junzi, in a world that had rejected him. He had given everything to the empire, and the empire had cast him aside. And yet, he could not stop caring. He could not stop worrying. The troubles of the world were his troubles, whether he was in the palace or in exile.

What drives a man—abandoned, slandered, and defeated—to still put the world before himself? The answer lies not in the academy at Dengzhou, but in the hunger of a childhood spent in the margins of society.

The Son of the Widow: Forged in Hunger and Determination

The Blood of a Fallen House

Fan Zhongyan was born on October 1, AD 989, in Wuxian County, Suzhou (present-day Jiangsu Province), into a family of officials that had seen better days. His ancestors included Fan Lubing, a chancellor of the Tang dynasty, but by the time Fan Zhongyan was born, the family‘s fortunes had faded. His father, Fan Yong, was a minor official who died when Fan Zhongyan was just two years old [citation:1][citation:12].

His mother, Lady Xie, was left destitute. In a society where a widow without a powerful family had few options, she remarried a man named Zhu Wenhan, an official from Shandong. Fan Zhongyan was raised in the Zhu household, under a different name. He did not learn the truth of his origins until he was in his twenties, when he discovered that his stepbrothers were using their wealth and connections while he was treated as an outsider [citation:7].

It was a discovery that changed everything. He left the Zhu household, moved to a Buddhist temple, and began a life of self-imposed poverty and relentless study.

The Making of a Scholar

The story of Fan Zhongyan‘s education is one of the most famous in Chinese history. The phrase “断齑画粥”—“cutting the pickled vegetables and dividing the congee”—entered the language because of him. Each night, he would cook a pot of rice porridge. By morning, it had solidified. He would cut it into four pieces—two for breakfast, two for dinner—and eat them with a few scraps of pickled vegetables [citation:7].

He studied in the醴泉寺 (Li Quan Temple) in Shandong, reportedly shutting himself in a cave to read without distraction. He studied through the night, keeping himself awake with cold water. By the time he sat for the imperial examination in AD 1015, at the age of twenty-seven, he had mastered the Confucian classics, the histories, and the art of statecraft [citation:7].

He passed. He was now a jinshi—a doctor of the highest degree—and his path to power was open.

The Three Relationships That Defined Fan Zhongyan

The Wife Who Shared His Poverty: Lady Li

Fan Zhongyan married Lady Li, a woman of simple background who shared his commitment to austerity and public service. She was his companion through the years of exile and hardship, raising their children in circumstances that were often difficult. The History of Song notes that Fan Zhongyan’s family lived frugally—“his wife and children had just enough to wear and eat”—because he gave so much of his income to charity [citation:1].

The Friend Who Was His Mirror: Teng Zijing

Teng Zijing was Fan Zhongyan‘s closest friend and the man for whom he wrote the Record of Yueyang Tower. They had passed the examinations together, served in the military together against the Western Xia, and been exiled together in the factional struggles of the Qingli era. When Teng was slandered and sent to Yueyang, he rebuilt the tower not as a monument to his own glory, but as a place of reflection. Fan Zhongyan’s essay was a gift to a friend who understood exactly what it meant to be “first in worrying about the world‘s troubles” [citation:10][citation:13].

The Rival Who Was Also a Gentleman: Lü Yijian

Lü Yijian was the most powerful man in the Song court during Fan Zhongyan’s early career. He was a conservative, a defender of the established order, and the man who had Fan Zhongyan exiled three times. But he was not a villain. The History of Song records that when Fan Zhongyan was exiled, Lü Yijian “thought it was a pity” and later, when the Western Xia crisis demanded talent, it was Lü Yijian who recommended Fan Zhongyan for military command. The two men were political enemies, but they were also, in a strange way, collaborators in the governance of the empire. The later controversy over whether they “reconciled with joy and worked together for the realm”—a claim in Ouyang Xiu‘s epitaph that Fan’s own son refused to accept—reveals the complexity of Song political culture: even enemies could recognize each other‘s virtue [citation:11].

The Turning Point: The Debate over the “Hundred Officials Chart”

In AD 1036, at the age of forty-seven, Fan Zhongyan made the decision that defined his political career. He submitted a document to the emperor—the “Hundred Officials Chart” (Bai Guan Tu)—that criticized the prime minister, Lü Yijian, for nepotism and corruption. He argued that the promotion of officials should be based on merit, not on personal connections. It was a direct assault on the most powerful man in the empire.

The result was predictable. Fan Zhongyan was exiled to Raozhou (present-day Poyang County, Jiangxi Province). But the exile made him a hero. The scholars and officials who had been frustrated by the court‘s corruption rallied to his cause. The “朋党” (faction) that the conservatives accused him of forming was, in reality, a network of like-minded men who believed that the empire could be reformed [citation:5][citation:15].

When the Western Xia invaded in AD 1040, the emperor was forced to recall him. Fan Zhongyan was appointed deputy military commissioner of Shaanxi, and he proved to be as capable a general as he was an administrator. He adopted a strategy of “clearing the fields and strengthening the walls”—avoiding pitched battles and wearing down the enemy through attrition. He also pursued a policy of national concord, negotiating a peace treaty with the Western Xia that ended the war [citation:12].

The Qingli Reforms: The Architecture of a Dying Hope

The Ten-Point Program

In AD 1043, with the Western Xia crisis resolved and the emperor ready to address the empire‘s internal problems, Fan Zhongyan was appointed canzhizhengshi—Vice Grand Counsellor—the highest executive office in the Song government. He was fifty-four years old. He had spent his entire life preparing for this moment.

Within months, he submitted the “Answer to the Imperial Edict on the Ten Matters” (答手诏条陈十事), the blueprint for the Qingli Reforms. The ten points were [citation:1][citation:2][citation:8]:

1. 明黜陟 (Clarify Dismissals and Promotions): Reform the evaluation system for officials, promoting the capable and dismissing the incompetent.
2. 抑侥幸 (Restrain Favoritism): Limit the privileges of high officials to secure positions for their sons and relatives.
3. 精贡举 (Refine the Examinations): Reform the civil service examinations to emphasize practical statecraft over literary elegance.
4. 择官长 (Select Officials Wisely): Appoint capable prefects and magistrates through careful selection.
5. 均公田 (Equalize Official Lands): Distribute the “official lands” (rent-free estates granted to officials) more equitably.
6. 厚农桑 (Promote Agriculture): Encourage agricultural production through state support for irrigation and farming.
7. 修武备 (Strengthen Military Preparedness): Establish a militia system to supplement the standing army and reduce costs.
8. 减徭役 (Reduce Corvée): Lighten the burden of forced labor on the peasantry.
9. 覃恩信 (Extend Grace and Trust): Ensure that the emperor’s edicts and amnesties were actually implemented at the local level.
10. 重命令 (Respect Orders): Ensure that laws and commands were enforced uniformly and not subject to arbitrary change.

The core of the program was the reform of the bureaucracy. The Song state was bloated, inefficient, and corrupt. The examination system, originally designed to select the best minds, had been corrupted by favoritism and by the tendency of examiners to favor literary style over substance. The result was an officialdom that was “many but useless,” a drain on the treasury and a burden on the people.

The Implementation: The “Culling of Officials”

Fan Zhongyan did not simply draft reforms; he implemented them with remarkable speed. He dispatched teams of inspectors—ancha shi—to the provinces to evaluate the performance of local officials. Those found to be incompetent, corrupt, or simply too old to serve effectively were dismissed.

The scene of Fan Zhongyan reviewing the roster of officials became legendary. He would look at each name, and if the man was unworthy, he would strike it out with his brush. His colleague, the conservative official Fu Bi, watched him do this one day and remarked: “You are striking out a whole family with one stroke of your brush. Do you know how much sorrow you are causing?”

Fan Zhongyan replied: “How much sorrow would a whole family suffer if I left an unworthy official in place, and he oppressed the people of a whole district?” [citation:7]

It was a ruthless logic—the logic of a man who believed that the suffering of the many outweighed the discomfort of the few. But it was also a logic that created enemies. Every official dismissed had a family, a network of connections, and a grievance. The conservative faction, led by men like Xia Song and Wang Gongchen, seized on the resentment and began to organize.

The Classic Scene: The Debate on Factions

In AD 1044, Emperor Renzong asked Fan Zhongyan directly about the “朋党” (faction) problem. The conservatives had been accusing Fan Zhongyan and his allies—Ouyang Xiu, Han Qi, Fu Bi, and others—of forming a “clique” that was undermining the emperor‘s authority.

Fan Zhongyan’s answer, recorded in the History of Song and in his collected works, was one of the most remarkable political statements of the Song dynasty:

“Things of the same kind gather together; things of different kinds separate. Since ancient times, when virtuous and wicked men have been in court, they have each formed their own groups. It cannot be prohibited. The only question is whether the emperor can distinguish the true from the false.” [citation:5]

It was a stunning admission. Fan Zhongyan was not denying that he had allies. He was arguing that factions were inevitable and even necessary. In a court divided between those who wanted reform and those who wanted to preserve the status quo, the only way to achieve anything was to organize. The emperor, he said, should not try to suppress factions; he should judge them—distinguishing the “faction of the virtuous” from the “faction of the wicked.”

It was a radical idea, and it terrified the conservatives. If factions were legitimate, then the emperor could not simply dismiss them as conspiracies. He would have to choose between them. And that choice would have consequences.

The Man Behind the Reforms: The Outsider Who Could Not Be Tamed

Fan Zhongyan was, in many ways, an outsider in the Song court. He had risen from poverty, not from the great aristocratic families that dominated the bureaucracy. He had a reputation for stubbornness, for refusing to compromise, for speaking his mind regardless of the consequences. His enemies called him “arrogant” and “difficult.” His friends called him “incorruptible.”

The History of Song records his personal austerity: “Although he was later honored, he did not eat meat unless there were guests. His wife and children had just enough to wear and eat. But he was fond of giving. He established a charitable estate in his hometown to support his clan.” [citation:1]

He was a man who lived his ideals. He believed that a Confucian gentleman should put the welfare of the people before his own comfort. He believed that the state existed to serve the people, not the other way around. And he believed that the only way to save the Song dynasty was to reform it from within.

He failed. The Qingli Reforms lasted barely a year. The conservative faction, led by the embittered officials who had been dismissed, launched a campaign of slander and intrigue. They accused Fan Zhongyan and his allies of forming a “treasonous faction.” They spread rumors that Fan Zhongyan was plotting to seize power. The emperor, who had never been fully committed to reform, began to waver.

In AD 1045, Fan Zhongyan was dismissed from office and exiled to Binzhou (present-day Bin County, Shaanxi). The Qingli Reforms were dismantled. Within a year, most of the reform edicts were repealed.

The Eternal Outsider: Death, Legacy, and the Global Stage

The Final Years: The Scholar in Exile

Fan Zhongyan spent his final years in a series of provincial posts—Dengzhou, Hangzhou, Qingzhou—where he continued to practice what he had preached. He built schools, repaired irrigation systems, and administered justice fairly. He wrote poetry and essays, including the Record of Yueyang Tower that would make him immortal. He did not complain about his exile. He did not seek revenge against his enemies. He simply continued to serve, in whatever capacity he could.

He died on June 19, AD 1052, at the age of sixty-four. His last words, according to the History of Song, were: “I have not done enough.” [citation:1]

The emperor, hearing of his death, was said to have grieved. He granted him the posthumous title “Wenzheng”—“Cultured and Upright”—one of the highest honors a scholar-official could receive. The people of the frontier regions where he had served—the soldiers, the farmers, the merchants—mourned him as they would a father. The History of Song records that “when he died, people everywhere sighed. The people of Bin and Qing and the Qiang tribes all painted his image and established shrines to him. When he died, several hundred Qiang chiefs wept as if for a father, and fasted for three days before leaving.” [citation:1]

The Chinese Gene: The Legacy of the Outsider

Fan Zhongyan’s legacy is one of the most profound in Chinese history. He is remembered not as a successful reformer—his reforms failed—but as a moral exemplar, a man who showed what a Confucian gentleman should be.

First, the ideal of “先忧后乐.” The phrase from the Record of Yueyang Tower became one of the most quoted lines in Chinese history. It defined the ideal of the scholar-official: a man who serves the state not for personal gain, but out of a sense of responsibility for the welfare of the people. Every subsequent generation of Chinese officials was measured against this standard. The phrase is still taught in Chinese schools today, and it has been cited by leaders as a model of public service [citation:7][citation:10].

Second, the model of the “incorruptible official.” Fan Zhongyan’s personal austerity, his refusal to use his position for personal gain, and his willingness to sacrifice his career for his principles made him the archetype of the qingguan—the “honest official.” His example inspired countless later officials, from Bao Zheng in the Song dynasty to Hai Rui in the Ming, who saw in Fan Zhongyan a model of integrity in a corrupt world.

Third, the ideal of education for all. Fan Zhongyan believed that education was the foundation of good governance. He founded schools wherever he went—including the famous Suzhou Prefectural School and the Huazhou Academy in Dengzhou—and he argued that talented men should be able to rise regardless of their birth. His educational philosophy helped to create the culture of learning that would define the Song dynasty and produce some of the greatest minds in Chinese history [citation:12][citation:13].

Fan Zhongyan and the World: A Global Perspective

Fan Zhongyan lived in the same century as the Great Schism of 1054, which split Christianity into the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Norman Conquest of England (1066). While Fan Zhongyan was fighting for reform in the Song court, Europe was undergoing its own transformations—the Gregorian Reform, the rise of the medieval university, and the beginning of the commercial revolution.

The comparison is revealing. Fan Zhongyan‘s reforms were an attempt to rationalize an empire—to make the bureaucracy more efficient, the examinations more meritocratic, and the state more responsive to the needs of the people. It was a project that anticipated, by centuries, the administrative reforms of early modern Europe. But Fan Zhongyan had no institutional church to support his reforms, no independent source of authority beyond the emperor‘s favor. When the emperor withdrew his support, the reforms died.

The American historian James T.C. Liu, in his study of the Song reform era, argued that Fan Zhongyan and his allies represented a “new type” of scholar-official: men who had risen through the examinations, who identified with the empire rather than with their local aristocratic families, and who believed that the state could be an instrument of moral transformation [citation:2]. It was a vision that would not be fully realized in China until the twentieth century.

The Man Behind the Myth

The historical Fan Zhongyan is difficult to recover. The History of Song, our primary source, was written by officials who admired him but who also had their own political agendas. The image that emerges is a blend of history and hagiography: the poor boy who studied by the light of a firefly, the general who pacified the frontier, the reformer who tried to cleanse the bureaucracy, the exile who wrote the most famous line in Chinese literature.

But behind the myth was a man of extraordinary determination and profound integrity. He was not a saint. He could be stubborn, uncompromising, and politically naive. He made enemies easily and trusted too much in the power of moral persuasion. But he was also a man who lived his ideals—who gave his salary to charity, who built schools and seawalls, who served the people whether he was in power or in exile.

He died in AD 1052, a lonely old man in a provincial town, his reforms in ruins, his enemies triumphant. But the words he wrote in Dengzhou—“Be first in worrying about the world’s troubles, and last in enjoying its pleasures”—outlived him by a thousand years. They became the conscience of a civilization, a reminder that the purpose of power is service, and that the measure of a man is not what he gains, but what he gives.

---

For the reader who wishes to explore further: the primary source for Fan Zhongyan‘s life is his biography in the History of Song (Song Shi). His collected works, including the Record of Yueyang Tower and the Answer to the Imperial Edict on the Ten Matters, are available in the Collected Works of Fan Wenzheng (Fan Wenzheng Gong Ji). For modern scholarship, see James T.C. Liu, Reform in Sung China: Wang An-shih (1021–1086) and His New Policies (Harvard University Press, 1959), and the essay by Yu Jinghui, “Today How Should We View Wang Anshi‘s Reforms?” (Historical Review, 2022).