01 The prosperous world is difficult to find, which is destined to be a chaotic world
In 1069 AD, Wang Anshi's transformation began in a state of opposition.
Only five years later, when there was a great drought and no rain for a long time, a small official, Zheng Xia, risked his life to hand it to Song Shenzong, a 28-year-old boy who wanted to change the law and make it stronger and benefit the people, and burst into tears. Immediately after that, Sima Guang also wrote "The Imperial Court Should Be Declared To Be Lost". At this point, Song Shenzong, the strongest supporter of this change of law, began to waver, and he began to wonder whether the new law he had been pushing against public opinion would lead people to a prosperous world or a chaotic world.
In 1074, Wang Anshi resigned for the first time.
In 1076, Wang Anshi resigned for the second time, and the new laws and regulations were repealed one after another.
In 1085, the 38-year-old Song Shenzong left forever with depression and regret, and with his unfulfilled dream of prosperity. It was also the year that Song Zhezong ascended the throne, and under the leadership of Empress Gao, Sima Guang, and others, the new law was almost completely abolished, and the conservative faction began a frenzied counterattack against the reformers. Since then, the balance of power between the two factions has been repeatedly tilted, and the fierceness of party struggle is even no less than that of the later middle and late Ming Dynasty. However, the result of the struggle was that the Northern Song Dynasty, which was already worried about internal and external troubles, was even more devastated, and waited in a painful struggle to crush its last straw, all of which ran counter to the blueprint for the prosperity planned by Song Shenzong at the beginning of his reign.
The world opened the Tai, the eight parties came to the dynasty, everyone had their own recognition of the prosperous world, the rule of Wenjing in the early Han Dynasty, the rule of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty, and the prosperous era of the Manchu Qing Kangqian, these were realized, and the visible prosperity naturally had many people to comment on. However, today I would like to talk to you about a king and his unfinished prosperity.
02 This emperor is not easy to do
In 960, Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, launched chen qiao to mutiny against Zhou Li song, saying that it was the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, which was actually a place in the Central Plains based on the Later Zhou Dynasty, and there were southern Tang, Later Shu, and Southern Han dynasties in the south, and the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun in the north were held dead in the hands of the Liao. Compared with the previous emperors who founded the country, Zhao Kuangyin's top-down way of building a country without bloodshed and sacrifice is quite unique, or a miracle, but it is precisely because there was no bloodshed in the early stage that it left a huge hidden danger for the Northern Song Dynasty. Later, after Emperor Taizong and Zhenzong's tossing, not only did Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures not take back, but suffered a lot of defeats, and finally signed the Alliance of Liaoyuan, giving the Liao state a large amount of gold and silver, cloth, and tea every year, which was a complete label of "weak Song" for this nascent regime.
(Northern Song Dynasty Emperor Relationship Diagram)
As for Emperor Renzong, he was a good emperor who was rarely confused, and there was no war in the Northern Song Dynasty for several decades, and his rare confusion did allow him to live a peaceful life for decades, but many problems began to accumulate during this period, and were not exposed until the emperor took the throne later. Among them, the Western Xia was established during the Renzong period, and later it turned out that the trauma that really tormented the Northern Song Dynasty for most of the period was not the Liao but this Western Xia, and the so-called "looking northwest, shooting the wolf" said that it was the Western Xia. All of these are external troubles that Song Shenzong needs to face.
When Song Taizu founded the country, he laid down three rules for future generations, one of the core of which was not to kill readers, thus laying the lofty status of the Northern Song Dynasty's civil and cultural officials and making an immortal contribution to the economic and cultural prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty. However, looking farther away, this national policy of emphasizing literature and suppressing military force has also brought about many negative effects; on the one hand, it has caused the ranks of civilian officials to be bloated; on the other hand, it has also developed a system of banning military forces in order to suppress military force, and it has also created a system of prohibition of military affairs, which not only caused a serious surplus of troops, but also had low combat effectiveness, and the Northern Song Dynasty had to spend a lot of gold and silver on such a huge contingent of civil and military officials every year. Redundant officials, redundant officials, redundant soldiers, under the three redundancies, the Northern Song Dynasty's financial income could not make ends meet every year. Inefficiencies, fiscal deficits, heavy taxes, all of these are internal concerns.
(Variation content diagram)
03 There is no real empathy
The throne passed to the Divine Sect, and the imperial machine seemed to rust, replaced by a confused emperor, or passively slacking off, or continuing to live in a mixed life, leaving the problem to the next successor. But Emperor Shenzong was not such a person, this young man in his early 20s wanted to work hard, although he did not dare to compete with Yao Shun, but he also vowed to return the people to a peaceful and prosperous world. Thus there was the scene mentioned above, in the second year of Xi Ning (1069), Wang Anshi was appointed as the governor of the government, and with the support of Emperor Shenzong, he began to implement the change of law.
As for the ending, everyone knows that the Shenzong wholeheartedly believes that the change of law is moving closer to the peaceful and prosperous world to which he aspires, and the result is not only the tragic failure of the change of law, but also the balance of party struggle is completely out of balance, and after that, the change of law faction and the conservative faction are tilting against each other and fighting for each other, they have long forgotten the original intention of establishing a life for the people, and everything is based on the principle of overthrowing the other party.
"Displaced Persons"
In the spring of 1074, after a long drought and no rain, the capital city of Kaifeng was full of displaced people, crops failed, taxes were heavy, and a "Map of Displaced People" was the most true portrayal of the miserable situation of the low-level people at that time. Of course, there is the fault of the new law, but the conservative faction attributes this to Wang Anshi's change of law, and the receiver uses it as a chip to bring down the change of law, and there seems to be no practical way to relieve disasters. Wang Anshi's performance was also disappointing, and in the face of the tragic situation that was full of mourning, he used the saying that "disasters are always common" to confuse and pass the pass, thinking about how to deal with the impeachment of political opponents, rather than how to correct the mistakes that occurred in changing the law and improving the fact that people's livelihood was disturbed.
Displaced Person Chart
Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty
Perhaps in the face of a large number of displaced people who have been displaced and sold their children and wives, only the tears of Song Shenzong are real, and as for the law-changing faction and the conservative faction, they are more concerned about the political game behind them.
Xianggong and Sima Niu
The former refers to Wang Anshi and the latter refers to Sima Guang, who are the leaders of the Law-Changing Sect and the Conservative Sect, respectively, and as for these two nicknames, they were given by the people of the time according to their personalities, which is really deserved.
Do not fear the floating clouds to cover your eyes, and you are at the highest level. Wang Anshi is determined to carry out the change of law to the end, and he firmly believes that his policies are correct, and he is confident that he stands at the highest level. But the truth is that many of his reforms are problematic, but he does not listen to the advice of others. Whether it was Su Dongpo's opinion, Sima Guang's opinion, or Han Qi's opinion, as long as it was contrary to his own views, he was finally belittled.
(Wang Anshitu)
When Wang Anshi was in power, Sima Guang closed his door and did not come out after opposing the invalidity of the change of law, and devoted himself to the study of history books. In 1085, Emperor Shenzong died and Emperor Zhezong succeeded to the throne, and Sima Guang, with the support of Empress Gao, began to abolish the new law and liquidate the reform school. At the beginning, it was still based on the starting point of correcting the errors of the new law, but in the future, whether it was correct or not, it was abolished, and everything advocated by the new law must be opposed. Even Su Dongpo of his own camp was denigrated for his correct opinion.
(Sima Guangtu)
The practices of these two leaders basically represent the practices of the law-changing faction and the conservative faction, and later the two factions took turns to take power and liquidate each other, and the people in the imperial court were superfluous, fewer and fewer people were doing practical things, and more and more party struggles were engaged.
Whoops, I don't know if I know what I know under the fountain of the Divine Sect, how would I feel? "Establish a heart for heaven and earth, establish a destiny for the people, continue to learn from the saints, and open up peace for all the worlds", I don't know if those scholars and doctors who are happy in the party struggle will be ashamed of their own bold words?
04 The situation creates heroes, and heroes are difficult to create the situation
It is a pity that this emperor who was bent on changing the law and trying to become stronger and create a prosperous world did not realize his blueprint for a prosperous world in the end, but instead fell into the insult of "Song Ming died in Huizong, and actually died in the party struggle during the Shenzong period". The original intention of the change of law was to pursue prosperity, but the end was to lead the Northern Song Dynasty to the whirlpool of chaos.
At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, it was still possible to achieve a prosperous era of wenjing, and Song Shenzong, who was filial in nature, was careful and humble, did not rule the palace, did not travel fortunately, tried to rule with great skill, and finally failed to create a prosperous world. Compared with those emperors who indulged in flowers and wine, did not distinguish between right and wrong, alienated loyal subjects, and closed their ways of speech, it is difficult to say that Song Shenzong was not a good king. Regarding this vigorous movement to change the law and make it stronger, the historian said that "the emperor is not enlightened in the end, since the evil is advancing day by day, the people's hearts are drifting away, and the disaster is on the day", the author feels that this is actually quite unfair to Song Shenzong.
(Song Shenzong Figure)
The so-called situation creates heroes, and it is difficult for individuals to achieve the situation by themselves in the historical environment. In the end, it failed to bring a better life to the people, the reason is not whether it should change the law, in fact, no matter how to do it, there will be different opinions and voices, the purpose of the debate should be to adopt the correct opinion, seek common ground while reserving differences between kings and subjects, and strive to make one place, rather than endless internal friction, which is the correct way to open the prosperous world.
[I am a simple view of history, focus on Song history, welcome to pay attention to]