Zhang Yuanchao
Names: Zhang YuanchaoLao ZhangMaster ZhangUncle Zhang
First appears in Book 2: The Dark Forest, chapter 2 (Year 3, Crisis Era)
Appearances
What you know
Book 2: The Dark Forest
- Ch 2A newly retired Beijing chemical plant worker who never cared about world affairs but is now troubled that humanity will be gone in four hundred years.
- Ch 2Zhang Yuanchao is a poor man, angered at being excluded from escape and fearing his family line will be wiped out.
- Ch 2Zhang Yuanchao spent 400,000 yuan on the escape fund; Shi Xiaoming proved a scammer and is unreachable.
- Ch 2Zhang Yuanchao's daughter-in-law gives birth to a boy, which makes the financial loss momentarily insignificant to him.
- Ch 6Zhang Yuanchao died of illness at eighty and was cremated, his ashes placed in a public cemetery.
Connections
- friend ofYang Jinwenneighbors
- friend ofMiao Fuquanneighbors
- related toShi XiaomingShi sells him the escape fund
- enemy ofShi XiaomingShi Xiaoming scammed him
- family ofZhang Weimingson
- family ofZhang Yangrandson
Key moments
- Book 2 · Ch 2Three old men discuss bank panic and Escapism
Miao, Zhang and Yang discuss frozen accounts and a news report on Escapism and the failed socialized technology movement; Miao reveals the escape fund and says he will pay for his descendants.
- Book 2 · Ch 2Dinner quarrel over buying escape
Yang Jinwen, Miao Fuquan and Zhang Yuanchao argue about whether escape berths can be bought; Zhang slams the table and storms out, followed by Yang.
- Book 2 · Ch 2Shi Xiaoming sells escape fund
Shi persuades Zhang Yuanchao that escape ships will launch in about 120 years and the fund is a good investment.
- Book 2 · Ch 2Escapism outlawed
The UN passes Resolution 117 making Escapism illegal. Zhang Yuanchao learns that his 400,000 yuan escape fund purchase was a scam.
- Book 2 · Ch 5Rationing and cosmic burial talk
Rationing returns, and three old men watch the Tianti III test while discussing burial plans to avoid an alien-occupied Earth.
- Book 2 · Ch 6Passing of the Golden Age generation
Over the following decades, key figures retire, die or enter hibernation, and the Golden Age generation vanishes from living memory.