Xi Chao's words brought Huan Wen to his senses, and delight showed on his face. "Wonderful! Jiabin truly is my Zhang Zifang. I have nothing to worry about now!" When understanding suddenly dawned and a difficult problem was resolved, Huan Wen liked to praise the person who had devised the plan as Zhang Liang, Zhang Zifang. Chen Caozhi had received such praise from him before.
Chen Caozhi smiled as well. "An excellent idea indeed. That title and standing are precisely what your heir needs now."
Eastern Jin nominally had twenty-three provinces, but actually controlled only twelve. Even Northern Qingzhou and Northern Xuzhou comprised only portions of the original provinces. The others were all so-called émigré provinces, with merely a provincial administrative office established around Jingkou or Jinling to govern émigrés from the province in question, but no actual territory under their jurisdiction. Wang Dao had established these offices years earlier to demonstrate that recovering their former homeland had not been forgotten and to settle displaced people. Provincial Governors were often held concurrently with other posts, and were established and abolished from time to time. The Gengxu Tuduan initiated by Huan Wen the previous year had abolished most of the émigré provinces and commanderies, retaining Si Province, Qingzhou, and Yan Province because their actual territories were sometimes recovered and sometimes lost again. Yet because these provinces could not truly be governed, their Provincial Governorships were all held concurrently by Provincial Governors of other provinces. Yu Xi, for example, was Provincial Governor of both Xuzhou and Yan Province. Of these three provinces, Si Province still had no Provincial Governor. Its territory lay around Luoyang. After Huan Wen recovered Luoyang during his second Northern Expedition, the court had issued an edict appointing Wang Huzhi Provincial Governor of Si Province. However, most of Si