Han Yuhai: "Yongzhen Innovation" opened the transformation of the governance system
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China's unification began with the Qin, and the question is: Qin and Sui were so rich and powerful, why were these two dynasties so short-lived? Han and Tang are not, what is the reason here? Why has China been repeatedly through wars and divisions since the Qin Dynasty?
The unity of the country must be based on the unification of finance and taxation, and only in this way can the unity of the administration be guaranteed; this is a problem directly faced by the "Yongzhen Reform" and the essence of this reform.
In 780, Yang Yan, the chancellor of the Tang Dynasty, proposed a reform of the two tax laws, which marked the first time China had a central financial budget. In the past, it was spent when money was needed, and the fiscal tax was a bottomless pit and a confused account, and after having a budget, it was possible to apportion the budget to various states and counties, and more importantly, it could restrain the tyranny of the feudal towns. For the common people, it is the two seasons of summer and autumn to collect taxes, which is called two taxes, "the tax of the residents, the autumn and summer two levies." Its rent and miscellaneous provinces are all unified in the degree of expenditure", and the financial budget is established, which raises the status of the degree of expenditure. Liu Yan, the transshipment envoy of the same dynasty as Yang Yan, implemented the salt law, implemented the state monopoly of salt, and only set up salt officials in Shanxi and Jianghuai, two places that produced salt, and was responsible for selling salt to the whole country, which in turn raised the status of salt officials and transfer envoys.
The core of the Tang Dynasty system, the "Three Provinces", namely Zhongshu, Menxia and Shangshu, was an aristocratic system similar to the "separation of powers", and the reforms of the Dezong era made the status of the three departments of Duzhi, Transshipment and Salt and Iron rise rapidly, which was to replace the original aristocratic system with the economic centralization of the state. In the Later Tang Dynasty, Li Siyuan formally established the "three divisions" system with Hubu, Duzhi and Salt and Iron as the core, and the Song Dynasty continued this system.
The replacement of "three provinces" by "three divisions" marks China's transformation from a country under the system of servitude to a country with a tax system and a budget system, which is a change of modern significance and a major change in China's traditional governance system.
The "Yongzhen Reform" occurred in the first year of Tang Shunzong's Yongzhen, that is, in 805 AD. The essence of this reform is to bring the financial and tax rights of the feudal towns to the central government, and to establish the above changes in the form of a system.
Tang Shunzong was a disabled emperor, and Shunzong lost his voice and could not decide things. State affairs are decided by Wang Shuwen and Wang Ling. These two people are Hanlin bachelors, and they are both doing household department and degree support. Around them formed a group of officials who thought about governance from the perspective of finance, commerce and industry, and Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi were also in the "Yongzhen Innovation" group. Liu Zongyuan worked in the imperial court as an inspector of imperial history, an official attendant, similar to the work of the Discipline Inspection Commission. Liu Yuxi did the work of salt and iron transport. These reformers believed that although Tang Shunzong was in poor health, had lost his voice, and could not manage the government, he was not confused and should support him.
After The abdication of Emperor Shunzong, Liu Zongyuan was exiled to Yongzhou and wrote the famous "Theory of Feudalism", in which he proposed that the reason for the collapse of the Qin Dynasty was "not in the government". The political system is good and a unified system, but the way of governance is wrong, and the diligent administration of Qin Shi Huang and officials alone cannot guarantee unity, and if the state does not have a financial budget and relies only on the system of forced labor, diligent administration will become "harsh government."
The financial supply of the han dynasty states and counties was the state, but the feudal princes had financial and military discretion, so only the feudal states in the Han Dynasty dared to rebel.
The problem of the Tang Dynasty was that there were soldiers in the fanzhen, and the state could not control the soldiers in the hands of the fanzhen. The officials of the Tang Dynasty prefectures and counties did not dare to rebel because he had no money or soldiers in his hands and lacked the capital to rebel. Therefore, Liu Zongyuan believes that the way to maintain unity is to return military power and financial power to the central authorities.
When we talk about the transformation of China's governance system, why should we start with the "Yongzhen Innovation"? For unity requires material conditions. This is a basic Marxist way of observing Chinese history. Marx preached in the Critique of Political Economy (Manuscript 1857-1858) that China has a different climate from Europe, compared with Europe, China is relatively dry, and the cultivation of Chinese land depends more on the construction of large-scale public water conservancy facilities, so China does not have the conditions for privatization of land. Large-scale construction of water conservancy infrastructure has become the most basic work of China's dynasties. In this process, a very important project was finally produced, that is, the Grand Canal. It is precisely such a public project that connects the south and the north of China. The basis for China's long-term unification is public works and public finance, which are the material conditions of historical transformation, and the so-called materialist interpretation is like this.
In addition to material conditions, institutional conditions and institutional guarantees are also needed. Why was China's political stability guaranteed after the Song Dynasty? This is because, after the "Yongzhen Reform" in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the three-province system of the separation of power between the nobility and the emperor gradually became the so-called three-division system governed by technical and civilian officials. The core tasks of national governance were budget (degrees), commerce (transshipment), and industry (salt and iron), rather than the etiquette, rhetoric, and scripture that the nobility was good at in the past. This is an important shift. This shift in the focus of work has enabled the establishment of a central financial system.
[Han Yuhai: Lecturer of Chang'an Avenue Reading Club, Vice President of Xi Jinping Institute of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Peking University]
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Note: Authorized to publish, this article has been selected and included in the "Chang'an Avenue Reading Club" theoretical learning platform (People's Daily, Guangming Daily, Beijing Daily, Xinhua Net, Central Video, the surging government client "Chang'an Avenue Reading Club" column synchronization), reprint must be unified to indicate the "Chang'an Avenue Reading Club" theoretical learning platform source and author.
Editor-in-charge: Cai Muzhen; Preliminary Review: Cheng Ziqian; Review: Li Yufan
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