Song Shenzong and Wang Anshi died one after another, and the new laws they implemented were almost all of them unsurprisingly abolished, and this unsuccessful change of law triggered the most serious partisan strife during the Northern Song Dynasty.
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With the death of Song Shenzong, the new law implemented by him and Wang Anshi came to an end, but the fierce party struggle triggered by this vigorous change of law has just begun, that is, the political struggle between the new party that supports the change of law and the old party that opposes the change of law.
In fact, there have been party struggles before, and during Fan Zhongyan's implementation of the New Deal of celebrating the calendar, there was a party struggle between the so-called gentleman's party and the villain party, but the relative impact was not very large. The old and new party struggles after Emperor Shenzong of Song were fierce, wide-ranging, and long-lasting, and continued until the time of Emperor Huizong of Song.
In 1085, Emperor Zhezong of Song, who succeeded to the throne, was only 10 years old and was presided over by his grandmother, Empress Dowager Gao. This tall old lady is not an ordinary person, her great-grandfather is the famous general Gao Qiong in the early Song Dynasty, and her great-grandfather is the great general Cao Bin.
Old Lady Gao has always opposed Wang Anshi's change of law, but she has not had the opportunity to speak. Now that she was in power, she immediately promoted Sima Guang to the center of power in the imperial court.
Sima Guang was a remarkable figure at that time, he was a child prodigy when he was a child, he began to read at the age of 6, he could recite and explain "Zuo Shi Chunqiu" at the age of 7, and he also made such a shocking feat as "smashing the cylinder to save friends". Growing up, he has always been an honor student, a typical "child of other people's families", and has been appreciated by many ministers and celebrities.
At the age of 20, he entered the official field in the examination, and he followed the then prime minister Pang Yuan, who rose quickly and gained a good reputation.
Pang Shu is the great traitorous minister Pang Taishi in the commentary novel, of course, in history he is not a bad person at all, but a very capable and respected prime minister, who has a green eye for the famous generals Di Qing and Sima Guang, and strives to promote.
Sima Guang and Wang Anshi had a good relationship, and the two people admired each other's knowledge and conduct, but their political views were completely different. Sima Guang was a traditional and conservative Confucian intellectual, deeply rooted in the view that the ancestral law was immutable, and opposed all of Wang Anshi's ideas and policies on changing the law.
To what extent his ideas are stubborn and old,We say one thing.
Song Renzong had no sons, and the successor Song Yingzong was the son of his royal brother, and Sima Guang asked Song Yingzong to call Song Renzong his father according to the feudal patriarchal law, and he could only call his own father uncle. In fact, although it was a feudal imperial society, everyone was not willing to call this zhen'er at all, but Sima Guangfei insisted on this, and the whole Song Yingzong was quite depressed, and this matter was later resolved.
When Wang Anshi changed the law, Sima Guang held an attitude of comprehensive opposition, of course, he was not arrogant, the new law itself had drawbacks, and there were various problems in the implementation. But Emperor Shenzong of Song supported Wang Anshi, and conservative factions like Sima Guang were relegated to the localities.
In fact, there are also such reasons for the failure of Wang Anshi's change of law, and many of these conservative factions who have been relegated to the localities are the implementers of the new law in the localities, and the results can be imagined.
Sima Guang was reviled to Luoyang and became an idle official, staying for 15 years, during which time he completed the chronicle of historiography, "Zizhi Tongjian", adding a glorious treasure to Chinese historiography.
Sima Guang, who returned to the imperial court, was appointed vice chancellor, specifically responsible for repealing the new law. In this way, the people of the old party have returned to the Central Committee one after another, and the people of the new party have certainly tried their best to uphold the new law, and the struggle between the two sides is still quite fierce due to differences in political views.
In fact, for Wang Anshi's new law, the old party members are not completely negative, and some new laws with good implementation effects are still recommended to be retained. However, the old-fashioned Sima Guang regarded the new law as poison and insisted on abolishing it as well, and even during the Song Shenzong period, the territory of the Hehuang region opened up by Wang Shao Kaibian was returned to the Western Xia by Sima Guang on the grounds of destroying peace with the Western Xia, which was too speechless.
In 1086 AD, Wang Anshi witnessed his ideals vanished and died depressed, and it was also this year that Sima Guang also died, but the party struggle did not stop.
Originally, at this time, the supporters of the old law had returned to the imperial court to take power, and the new party had already survived and could not become a climate, but the old party began to split, splitting into three factions, called "Luo Party", "Shu Party" and "Shuo Party", named after the leader's place of origin. The leader of the Luo Party, Cheng Yi, was a famous Confucian, who was from Luoyang; su Shi, the leader of the Shu Party, the first talent of the Two Song Dynasties, was a native of Sichuan; liu Zhi, the leader of the Shuo Party, was a native of Hebei, and politically he was the heir of Sima Guang's mantle.
The attitude and political views of these three parties on the new law are different, and now that the new party has no ability to resist, they will pinch themselves, accuse and criticize each other all day long, and salivate continuously, and finally some people will not be accustomed to it.
After the restoration of the old party, they spared no effort to attack the new party, and after the old party bit the dog between the dogs, they ignored one person, that is, the puppet emperor Song Zhezong. He was small, only 10 years old when he ascended the throne, and most of the power was in the hands of his grandmother, but don't forget, he will grow up.
In 1093, Empress Gao died and Song Zhezong took the throne, at this time he was 18 years old.
The little emperor had actually been quite dissatisfied with the old lady, and he was very depressed. In fact, he did not have a real understanding and understanding of the new law and the old law, but he was quite disgusted with these old party ministers who only knew how to look at the old lady's face and regarded himself as a legitimate emperor, and now that he was pro-government, the spring of the new parties had come again, and the new parties who had been kicked out of the imperial court had made a comeback, and as a result they had pushed the party struggle to a new height.
These new party members who have returned to the center of power have a very much posture of returning to their hometowns, and the party struggle has completely become tainted, and it has become simple and rude and unruly, and they even demand that the dead Sima Guang be opened and violently killed, and they are even more rude to the living, and dismissal, demeaning, and exile are commonplace. Fortunately, Song Zhezong adhered to his ancestral precepts, did not kill the ministers, and did not get guilty of words, so he did not kill the old party members.
Looking back at the party struggle in the Song Dynasty, it was originally the struggle between Fan Zhongyan, Han Qi, and Ouyang Xiu, the so-called Gentleman's Party, and the Villain Party that opposed the Qingli New Deal, but at that time, Song Renzong was firstly due to personality reasons, and secondly, it was also to seek a balance of power, and the party struggle was still limited to political views and power struggles; in the Song Shenzong period, Sima Guang and Wang Anshi, the leaders of the new party and the old party, although they had different political views, they were still able to cultivate themselves and have moral character, and the party struggle did not develop to the point of personal persecution. But by the time of Emperor Zhezong of Song, both the new and the old party had begun to advocate exterminating and physically eliminating political enemies.
This trend is very frightening, and has developed from a struggle with different governing concepts and political views to a struggle between right and wrong, which sets an extremely bad example for the subsequent political struggle, and leads to the extremely cruel means of party struggle in later dynasties, and has reached the point where it ignores the interests of the state and the nation and is desperate to seize power and reverses black and white.
The highest power level of the Northern Song Dynasty during this period was so entertaining that it did not notice that the external environment had undergone earth-shaking changes, which was the same as the later end of the Ming Dynasty, and the result was inevitably sliding into the abyss and towards extinction.
Well, friends, we will talk about the content of this issue here.
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