The Song Dynasty in everyone's impression is a very wealthy dynasty, Zhang Zeduan's Map of the Qingming River, clearly outlines a prosperous capital Tokyo (now Kaifeng), coupled with the Northern Song Dynasty, the national population has reached the level of 100 million people, the social commodity economy is developed, basically the highest tide of China's feudal society.
Such a rich Northern Song Dynasty, its national strength is not strong?
In fact, it is really not strong, the early wars with the Liao and Western Xia, it can be said that most of them ended in defeat, the result is to lose money, the competition with the Jin State in the later period was too thorough, the whole game was finished, and so on, which was a small local court of the Southern Song Dynasty, which can be said to be a more humiliating history.
No matter how strong the military generals are, in the end they can't play the civilian subjects, this is the common disease of the entire Song Dynasty, the strongman politics of the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui and Tang Dynasties is gone, there is no past moderation to make it worried, but the country has a phenomenon of being rich but not strong, during this period the state is absolutely in control of the military machine, most of the military will be on the sidelines, "the literati die, the warriors die in battle", is the basis for the country's strength, the high-level civil officials of the Song Dynasty from the beginning of the dynasty, there are many traitors, and the great traitors are like loyalties, when a loyal minister is only loyal to the imperial power and not to the country, it is a traitor. Is the warrior a death fighter? In popular literature, when yang jiajian or Yue Fei and other military generals are talked about, they are all very positive death battles, but why are their achievements so low in the end? The most important thing is the discord between the upper and lower levels, many people say that it is related to the Song Dynasty's devotion to the country, Taizu is also a military general, make a yellow robe and complete the gorgeous transformation, but he and his future monarchs, really afraid of history repeating itself, so there are many restrictions on the military generals, which is the main reason why it is not strong.
The background and content of Wang Anshi's transformation method
There must be a reason for the change, and the most important reason for this change is: the intensification of social contradictions and the accumulation of poverty and weakness.
Was the Northern Song Dynasty poor? It is not poor, social wealth is still sufficient, and the reason for saying that it is poor is the same as the previous one, which is formed by the uneven distribution of social wealth.
The content of the change law: the Green Shoot Law, the Farmland Water Conservancy Law, the Exemption Law, the Fangtian Average Tax Law, the Baojia Law, the Municipal Easy Law, the EqualIzation Law, etc., and the Pengshu Change Law is almost the same, it has changed too much, if you use a seriously ill patient to describe, it is to carry out all-round organ surgery on him, for such a weak patient, it can be said that the probability of him dying of the operation itself is far greater than the disease itself, the same reason the Northern Song Dynasty is not necessarily due to poverty and weakness, but to the internal reform.
Are these variations good or bad? Logically, they are both good in the ideal and bad in reality. If we want to summarize the change, I think it has two purposes: one is to increase the state's income and reduce the burden on the bottom, and the other is to strengthen the army.
Analysis of variations
Isn't that bad? Surely it's good, and the reason it's bad is that it's impossible to achieve, like the GREEN SHOOTs Law, where the government wants to be the protagonist of usury, and what is the government? It is an organization composed of many officials, and it is also composed of individuals, who do not have their own selfish desires in the implementation of policies? If the interest rate is very low, the loan to which people has become a right of their fish and meat people, in the past there were contradictions between the two sides of the private lenders, and there was a government mediation, and now the two sides of the contradiction have changed, but the mediator is missing.
The law of exemption from military service, which seems fair, has become a policy of increasing the burden on the people at the bottom, and the big landlords and the rich people, in the past, will not participate in the servitude, go to the poor themselves, and now they will not pay money to the state, for the rich and in the past there is no difference, it may pay less, for the poor may be more bitter, there is no money in itself, now exempt from military service still have to pay money, is not it more difficult.
Fangtian average tax law, it sounds very much like a comprehensive FCS, taken from the people, the most feared thing is that it is not used for the people, if the two are connected, it is indeed right to do what is right, but most of the final result is the opposite, some people collect this tax, they do not want to return it to the people, or the process of returning, the middle layer of exploitation, into their profit tools.
The above three kinds of laws are the most important part of the change of law, the water conservancy law, I think this thing itself should be done by the state, the city easy law and the equal loss method, I think they are good laws, the later reflection on the change of law, it is a pity to abolish them, the other laws, itself, there is no right or wrong, but to build on the first three laws can be smoothly and reasonably implemented, can be well implemented, "rich countries and strong soldiers", always first built on the basis of rich countries.
Another chance to succeed
Wang Anshi's change of law, I think, is that history gives it another chance, it will also fail and end, because it is anti-human, social contradictions are produced by the uneven distribution of wealth, there are only two ways to solve, one is to make a big cake, in the process to let the poor get more, one for the absolute fairness of distribution, this means is more intense, every time the dynasty changes, it is an absolutely fair distribution of the wealth of the past.
The most important thing about its variation itself is to distribute the cake, rather than increasing the cake, or it is difficult to increase the cake in the short term. Since it is distribution, there will be some people who gain and some people lose, the ideal of the change itself is that the country has more income, the rich have more points, the poor have less or no, but the ideal is very full of reality and very bone, the reason why the rich are rich, it must be more doorways, someone in the family holds the government's distribution power, the government collects taxes, always have to spend, I can pay more when I pay, but when I spend, I want to take more, and eventually become the poor spend all the expenses, this is the paradox of the change, it is impossible to solve the distribution problem gently.
In short, there is only one factor for the success of reform, that is, to make the cake bigger, and in the process of making it bigger, as far as possible, let the poor take more or all of it, as large as the country is small to the enterprise, no, a company general manager takes 10 million wages, and the workers only have 1,000 yuan wages, I think it is not far from defeat.