Wang Anshi's family was poor, his father died when he was 19 years old, and there were several younger siblings below, and he took on the burden of family life prematurely.
As a result, his personality is lonely, he is not good at communicating with people, and he is arbitrary and arbitrary. Of course, this cannot all be blamed on him, it is all caused by the burden of life.
He was young and talented, and when he was 17 years old, he entered Beijing with his father and became acquainted with Zeng Gong, who recommended his text to his teacher Ouyang Xiu, and was greatly appreciated by Ouyang Xiu.
At the age of 21, he was admitted to the fourth place in the Jinshi, and was really a teenager who was awarded the grass-roots petty officer of the Huainan Jiedu Judge.
New to the workplace
When he first entered the workplace, Wang Anshi still retained his habit of studying hard, studying at night until most of the night, unable to get up in bed in the morning, and not freshening up after getting up, so he rushed to work.
His boss, Han Qi, saw that Wang Anshi was not dressed neatly in the morning, and said that young people should pay attention to nightlife. In fact, Han Qi did not understand the situation and thought that Wang Anshi was fooling around outside, but Wang Anshi neither explained nor corrected.
As a result, Han Qi thought that he was stubborn, unkind, self-sufficient, and unable to communicate.
Fortunately, Wang Anshi's work ability was still very outstanding, and Ouyang Xiu recommended him to enter Beijing as a counselor, and Wang Anshi repeatedly shirked it, which embarrassed Ouyang Xiu.
In fact, his family is burdened, the cost of living in the capital is too high, and his little salary cannot support the family's expenses in the capital, but he does not explain it to people, so that Ouyang Xiu thinks that he is not close to people.
Entered Beijing as an official
Later, when he entered Beijing as an official, in addition to work is to study, he did not interact and talk with his colleagues, and even he did not participate in the basic human feelings, and in the eyes of outsiders, he was lonely and arrogant, which laid the foundation for his later changes.
The literary leader Ouyang Xiu invited Wang Anshi to his home for dinner, and Wang Anshi said that he had no time to read and study, which embarrassed Ouyang Xiu.
The emperor summoned the ministers to go fishing leisurely, and everyone was playing, only Wang Anshi was intently reading a book on the side, and when he was a little hungry, he picked up the things on the table and ate them.
Later, when everyone asked him to go to dinner, he said that I had already eaten and was not hungry at all.
The crowd felt strange and asked him what he had eaten.
Wang Anshi said, I ate what was on the table.
The crowd laughed and said that it was fishing bait, and it was not possible to find that the bait was gone, it turned out to be eaten by you.
From here, we can see how hard Wang Anshi studied hard, but for a reformer, this is indeed a fatal shortcoming.
Change the law to be strong
Wang Anshi advocated changing the law and trying to increase state revenue, while Ouyang Xiu, Su Shi and others also advocated economy, and the purpose of both sides was actually the same, but the methods were different.
However, Wang Anshi did not communicate with these people, did not pull these people into his own camp, and did not engage in the united front to change the law together.
In the end, these people all stood against him, turning from friends to political enemies.
The nickname given to Wang Anshi by the people was Xianggong Xianggong
The "Green Seedling Law" implemented in Wang Anshi's reform law is that when the green and yellow are not received, the government provides small loans to the people, and after the people harvest a good harvest, they will return the money and profits to the government.
However, in the actual implementation, the following governments ignored the three seven twenty-one and forced the people to take out loans, resulting in widespread resentment among the people.
Su Shi used this incident to criticize Wang Anshi, and Wang Anshi was furious and demoted Su Shi to Hangzhou as a general judge, and the two went against each other from then on.
In the change of law, Wang Anshi did not communicate and consult, which caused him to go farther and farther away with his old bosses Han Qi, Ouyang Xiu and others, others did not understand him, and he did not tell others, making his reform difficult.
Wang Anshi's change of law would have been a good thing, but he was one-size-fits-all and eager to achieve success, and he not only collected taxes from the upper levels, but also collected taxes from the lower people, so that no one from above and below supported him.
He imposed his theory of a strong country on the people of the whole country, leading others to think that he was eager for success and profit, and he thought that the people of the world were not patriotic.
In the final analysis, Wang Anshi is essentially a scholar, his reform is only a theory on paper, and he does not understand the actual situation of the world.
Eclipsed
So much so that the people of the world did not support him, let alone the conservative figures of the imperial court, such as Ouyang Xiu and Sima Guang?
Eventually, after the death of Emperor Shenzong, Sima Guang came to power, and Wang Anshi's new law was all abolished.
Wang Anshi is both a literary scholar who has been delayed by politics and a politician who has been delayed by literature.
After Wang Anshi, the Northern Song Dynasty no longer had the opportunity to turn over.