Fan Zhongyan's 1050 clan trust fed every member a daily rice ration, and within a few years his son had to ask the emperor to let courts enforce it

Fan Zhongyan, a Song vice chancellor, bought more than ten qing of farmland in Wu and Changzhou counties of Suzhou and set it aside so its rent rice would feed and clothe every branch of his clan. His first ten rules date from 1050. Each person aged five or over drew one sheng of milled rice a day. Each drew one bolt of cloth for winter, half for children aged five to ten. A daughter's wedding drew 30 strings of cash and a second marriage 20; a son's wedding drew 20. Funerals were paid by rank. Each branch kept a ration book, drawn monthly, and any branch could make the manager repay misused grain. Fan died in 1052. His son Fan Chunren reported that within five to seven years members who broke the rules could not be stopped, because the local courts had no statute to act on. In 1064 the emperor ordered the Suzhou courts to hear such cases. Fan's sons added 28 rules, and a fifth-generation descendant added 12 in 1196 and had them carved in stone beside the family shrine. Lineage trusts spread across southern China; a 2025 study of southern Jiangsu counts 346 founded under the Qing^†. Article 3 of the PRC Agrarian Reform Law of 30 June 1950 requisitioned the rural land of ancestral halls.