Fan Zhongyan passed away. People mourned him in grief, but before long, aside from his true friends who still mentioned him unconsciously, unable to adjust to a world without Fan Zhongyan, everyone else had already stopped feeling much. Life and work went on as usual.
The one who succeeded Fan Zhongyan was Wen Yanbo, who had been traveling outside the capital.
He was a formidable man, chiefly because he knew how to stay alive. Zhao Zhen had now reached the late stage of his reign, and the achievements he had already gained left him thoroughly satisfied. Since Fan Zhongyan was gone, he no longer wished to keep stirring things up. Now, he only wanted to wait peacefully for death. Calling back the steady and conservative Wen Yanbo was therefore a good choice.
Perhaps he would not achieve anything particularly remarkable, but he could keep the great ship of the Song Dynasty moving forward smoothly. Though it had plenty of holes, Wen Yanbo was capable of patching them up so it would not take on too much water.
Wang Yan naturally remained tucked away in the Directorate of Education, constantly adjusting the nation's educational system.
Over the past few years, the civil academies, military academies, and Hundred Crafts Institute had more or less been established, though they still required continual repairs and improvements. Across the Song Dynasty, even the poorest county-level administrative unit had at least one elementary academy able to accommodate a thousand students.
This made no distinction between Han and Hu. Even on the grasslands, Wang Yan had ordered local officials to find sites and build schools.
In fact, building academies on the grasslands was an excellent idea. The grasslands were inhabited by nomads, and Wang Yan had yet to carry out a more detailed division of the region