What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
When it comes to the Northern Song Dynasty, most people are impressed by nothing more than the really prosperous economy, the "encouragement bag" that was often beaten by barbarians, and the story of the dynasty and politics of celebrities.
Especially during the forty years of Song Renzong's reign, the economy was prosperous and the society was stable, and those "cattle people" who left their names in history were like leeks stubble after stubble. Ignoring the diplomatic "encouragement" atmosphere, the Great Song Dynasty closed the door of the country, and it was still a prosperous taiping and prosperous world. The Ming Dynasty Feng Menglong's novel "Ao Xiang Gong Drinks and Hates the Mid-Levels" calls Wang Anshi "Ao Xiang Gong", and also says that "since Gong Xiang Gong came to power, created a new law, hurt the wealth and the people, and fled from the hukou", believing that it was precisely because Wang Anshi changed the law that the original "good" Great Song suddenly began to decline.
Then, Wang Anshi, as the first person in the "controversy of the ages", under the circumstances at that time, did his change of law save the Great Song or destroy the Great Song? In fact, in the "prosperous era" of Song Renzong's reign, there were two "beautiful moments" of top courtiers, which can explain this problem very well.
First, the Northern Song Dynasty was prosperous on the surface, but in fact it was poor and weak
The first top famous minister was the author of "Yueyang LouJi", and also Fan Zhongyun, who said the famous sentence "Before the world is worried and worried, after the world is happy and happy".
Fan Zhongyan once provided disaster relief in Hangzhou, and as the head of the imperial court, instead of trying to find a way to provide disaster relief, he deliberately inflated the price of rice, greatly increased prices, and took out all the money of the Hangzhou government to "engage in special" various entertainment activities in the local area. In the face of this kind of behavior, the broad masses of the people cannot understand it, and they are all insulting him, scolding him for working hard and hurting the people and money, and scolding him for making the whole Hangzhou chicken and dog restless. However, it didn't take long for those people to be stunned: because Fan Zhongyun's series of actions did not cost the country a grain of rice, he was able to relieve the disaster.
In fact, from the perspective of today's economics, it is not difficult to understand that Fan Zhongyan's actions are to rely on consumption to stimulate domestic demand, increase employment through entertainment projects, and restore the economy of the Great Song Dynasty with work for relief. However, in the feudal society at that time, economics was not so developed, and it was difficult to understand that it was normal, but it was not easy for Fan Zhongyan to think of and do it.
Seeing this, you may be very confused, was not the Great Song Dynasty economically prosperous at that time, it is said that disaster relief money is enough, why go around such a big circle, engage in this set of so complicated?
But in fact, in the face of the disaster and famine situation at that time, even Fan Zhongyun, who was a high official of the imperial court and sitting in the rich Hangzhou, could not take out enough money from the imperial court to provide disaster relief. On the surface, the Great Song Dynasty had unlimited scenery, but in reality the country's political management was problematic - due to too many officials, too little work, long-term official corruption, and overstaffing, resulting in chaos and lack of policies, systems, and money and food.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, grain relief was the famous Changping warehouse system, in any powerful dynasty, the Changping warehouse system worked well, usually there were a large number of grain reserves, there was a famine disaster, the imperial court was not afraid at all. However, at this time, due to chaotic management, the system of regular liquidation has not been implemented normally to a large extent, and the usual grain storage work has not been done well. Moreover, even though the Song Dynasty explicitly prohibited the misappropriation of Changping warehouse money and grain, there were still serious misappropriations, which greatly affected the effective play of the function of Changping Warehouse.
As a result, the granaries of the Northern Song Dynasty have become empty shells over the years, which seem to be very powerful on the surface, but in fact they cannot withstand the test. Behind Fan Zhongyan's "wisdom disaster relief" is the increasingly serious food crisis of the Song Dynasty.
Compared with this food crisis, another famous Northern Song Dynasty minister, Bao Zheng, that is, the famous "Bao Qingtian" in the wild history, staged another "highlight moment".
Second, the expropriation was violent, and peasant uprisings were frequent
At that time, "Bao Qingtian" held the responsibility of the three envoys, in other words, the "accountant" of the Song Dynasty, responsible for the work of "managing money".
"Managing money" is methodical and orderly, and it is never ambiguous in the face of work. Since the country is facing a serious "three redundancy" problem, the state finance is becoming more and more stretched, Bao Zheng responsibly did a statistic, and then wrote an article. The general content of the article is to show that the number of officials in the dprk is really large, more than three times higher than 40 years ago, so that the government's expenditure on maintaining officials has also increased, nearly doubled, but at the same time: the fiscal revenue has also more than tripled compared with 40 years! Obviously, there is no income generation, and there are three times more officials to support, so where does this increased income come from?
Bao Zheng's original words gave the answer: "In the ancestors' lineage, the taxes lost were only paid in their true colors; since then, they have been used for a wide range of days, and what they have accepted and changed, and the rate of tyranny, day by day, how poor there is!" That is to say, the "superficial" prosperity of the Song Renzong era was mostly sustained by the wanton expropriation of the people.
So, is what Bao Zheng said "a one-sided word" or a word? Just look at the harsh taxes of the time. First of all, the Northern Song Dynasty's field endowment system followed the "two tax laws" of the middle Tang Dynasty, which levied land taxes, divided into summer and autumn twice a year; generally one bucket of grain was levied at a time, and in some areas three buckets per mu per year was taxed; this was a tax levied on farmers.
In addition, the Song Dynasty also inherited most of the miscellaneous taxes of the five dynasties at the end of the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the two taxes, there were also the Dingkou Tax and various miscellaneous taxes and additional taxes. Miscellaneous taxes are as numerous as cattle hair, including taxes on cowhide, salt, and koji (used for winemaking). Even after the death of the cattle in the cultivated land, the cattle skins were not allowed to be bought and sold privately, but instead asked to be handed over to the government, which only paid a small amount of money to comfort them. What is even more hateful is that agricultural tools that are as important as life for farmers are also taxed - agricultural tool taxes, which have been realized by successive enlightened monarchs, and have been reduced or exempted, while the Song Dynasty still needs to pay taxes, and it is levied according to specific circumstances.
The above is not enough. In view of cotton and grain production, the Great Song Dynasty also adopted the policy of "peace and buying" and "combining grain", which was initially requisitioned by the government and exchanged for money, and later gradually became rampant, and developed into "officials do not give money and take it in vain". Later, this item became a serious burden on taxpayers. In addition, there is also the head money, which was originally similar to a kind of "handling fee" of the official and civilian silver money cashier, but later changed its nature and became an additional tax for the peasants' talent taxation.
In addition to the strict taxes, the Northern Song Dynasty also used the "branch transfer" and "folding" of the previous dynasty to exploit the peasants, which was to force the northern peasants to pay grain to the border towns under the pretext of urgent military needs; the change was that the government ordered the peasants to pay the designated materials or cash under the pretext of need. In this way, corruption is more convenient and the heavy burden on the peasants is also heavier. On this basis, the existing system of "servitude" has also intensified, and all of them are borne by poor peasants. All of this adds up, and it can even be said that there is no "way for the poor peasants to live."
Therefore, in such a harsh living environment, the peasants at the bottom were the first to express their reluctance and rose up one after another. During the forty years of Song Renzong's reign, according to statistics, the peasant revolts in the Northern Song Dynasty reached more than forty times. If measures such as law reform were not taken to change the social status quo at that time, the Jiangshan of the Great Song Dynasty would have been buried in vain.
Third, Wang Anshi's transformation method failed? Non also
Since ancient times, the Ming emperors have relied on their strength to lightly servitude and reduce taxes, and only tyrants and emperors will levy tyranny and build a large number of civil engineering. However, Song Renzong was really eager to develop in the direction of Ming Jun, and in the face of such a current environment, it seems that the reform of the law has become an inevitable trend.
As mentioned above, the Song Dynasty was violent, the peasants were extremely burdened, and the national treasury was almost empty. According to historical records, after Song Shenzong ascended the throne, he asked the three envoys in charge of finance about "national use", and only then did he know that the national treasury actually had nothing, "a hundred years of accumulation, only empty books", and finally only a bunch of archival ledgers remained.
Therefore, in such a big environment, Wang Anshi bravely stood up and put forward a series of reform policies for changing the law, with the purpose of developing production and enriching the country and strengthening the army, and the policy of changing the law involves political, economic, military, social, and cultural aspects, which to a large extent changes the situation of poverty and weakness in the Northern Song Dynasty, and brings great results.
In the face of Wang Anshi's change of law, posterity has different opinions. Some people say that Wang Anshi's change of law is a failure, but I really dare not agree with this view.
Although during Wang Anshi's lifetime, there was a great deal of reactionary voice about his change of law, but after his death, the effect of the change of law was really displayed, and those who denied him in the past gradually understood Wang Anshi's painstaking efforts to reform and change the law, and recognized the results of his change of law. For example, at that time, there were Fan Bailu, a Zhongshu she, who strongly opposed Wang Anshi's changes, two generations of famous teachers and ministers, Lü Gongshu, and Su Shi, the most authoritative. In the later period, they even became supporters and admirers of the "Wang Anshi Transformation Method".
It is indispensable to say Su Shi. Also as one of the "Eight Greats of the Tang and Song Dynasties", it was precisely because Su Shi said a few words against Wang Anshi's change of law that he caused the "Wutai Poetry Case", and he was almost killed in his family, and it is reasonable to say that he should hate Wang Anshi's change of law more than anyone else. However, Su Shi said this: "At the beginning of the new law, I was obsessed with prejudice, and there were similarities and differences. Although this is angry, it belongs to the worried country, and what it says is wrong, and there is little truth. Now the holy virtues are new, the multitude is great, looking back at what is attached to the direction, and the sense of enlightenment is sparse. ”
This is because these people who were degraded because they opposed the change of law, after being demoted from the court to the people, have personally seen the results of the change of law and the enrichment of the country and the strengthening of the army. Not to mention the military strength of the Northern Song Dynasty's "full blood resurrection" during the reform period, and the results of the war against the Western Xia; just talk about the most basic economy, we can clearly see one or two.
According to historical records, in the first year of the Yuan Dynasty, that is, in 1086 AD, Bi Zhongyou, the minister of the Third Division, said in the "Letter of Sima Wen, the Attendant under the Door": "There are tens of millions of grains and grains received by all roads such as Changping, Immunization, Fangchang, and Hedu, and if all of them are collected by the Household Department for sufficient funds to be spent for twenty years", and "half of the total annual financial income of the Three Divisions is a surplus", from bi Zhongyou's report to Sima Guang, the then prime minister, we can see the remarkable results achieved in the reform of the law.
It is very ironic that a few years after the old party abolished Wang Anshi's new law, when Empress Gao, the mother of Emperor Shenzong, died, the Great Song Dynasty "became more and more impoverished, the peasants became poorer and poorer, and the merchants were not able to do it", and once again restored the state of poverty, and this process was less than six years.
As one of the "Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties", Wang Anshi's literary fame is well-known. As a political reformer, history deserves an important place for him. He also has indelible achievements and achievements in political reform. Although Wang Anshi is controversial, these real historical fragments bear witness to his undisputed, rich country and strong soldiers' painstaking efforts.