Have the world in mind
When he was a teenager, Wang Anshi was already very conscious, and his mantra was probably "Yanque An knows the ambition of the hoof".
The story also starts from that year's scientific expedition, which unanimously identified Wang Anshi as the first, and when the emperor made the final decision, there was a small episode. In Wang Anshi's answer, an allusion called "children and friends" is used, taken from a sentence that his uncle Zhou Gong said to King Zhou Cheng, meaning: You child, in the future, you will mingle with the ministers and live in harmony like friends.
But Wang Anshi was only twenty-two years old at the time, and educating the emperor who was older than himself in such an old tone made Song Renzong very unhappy. Therefore, Wang Anshi's ranking was canceled, and the second and third places belonged to serving cadres participating in the scientific examination, and according to the regulations, they could not be taken as champions, so the first place and the fourth place were reversed.
Ordinary people may have difficulty losing the title of champion with infinite scenery, but Wang Anshi's reaction is that I never thought that I had won the championship exam.
The so-called imperial examination, in his eyes, is just a small ladder to achieve his ideals in life, and it does not matter how many he ranks first, because his goals are much larger than these:
At this time, the young man was conceited, and his spirit competed with the sun for glory.
Since his youth, he has been determined to be a person who competes with the sun and the moon, and to become a powerful minister like Yao Shunyu in the era, and a ranking in the imperial examination, what a small thing!
The so-called big things are not small.
Later, when he was an official in the capital, Ouyang Xiu, a senior in the literary circle, wrote poems because he appreciated his talent: to the effect that his literary style could be compared with Li Bai and Han Yue, he was already old, and I am afraid that no one in the literary world could compete with Wang Anshi in the future. Ouyang Xiu's words were quite a bit to pass the baton of the Chinese altar alliance master to Wang Anshi, which can be said to be a high reputation and recognition.
As a result, Wang Anshi did not buy it, thinking that Ouyang Xiu did not understand his ambition, and replied to the poem in two sentences:
If it can peek at Mencius in the future, how dare it look at Han Gong for life?
It means that one day I can reach the height of Mencius, I will be satisfied, how dare I compare with Han Yue?
Of course, this is the opposite, the real meaning is that Ouyang Xiu underestimated him, and his goal in life was not to be a literary scholar like Han Yu, but to be a saint like Mencius who influenced the ages.
Of course, a little crazy, but strong ability and crazy capital.
Base grinding
Since Wang Anshi has such extraordinary life ambitions, after stepping into the officialdom, he must be very motivated.
In fact, the result is just the opposite, the first half of Wang Anshi's life is actually famous for not loving promotion.
After entering the ranks, he was first arranged to serve as an official in Yangzhou, and after the expiration of his term of office, he could be selected to serve in the central government through examinations. The closer you can get to the center and the emperor, the farther the future is. Unexpectedly, Wang Anshi voluntarily gave up the qualification for this selection.
Since then, he has been rooted in the grassroots, and after leaving Yangzhou, he successively went to other places to do county orders, working for five years, and then changed places to do general judgments after the expiration of the term. In view of his outstanding political achievements, during this period, high-ranking central officials repeatedly recommended him to the imperial court to serve in the capital, but Wang Anshi refused one by one. But the more Wang Anshi resigned, the more the imperial court remembered him.
The imperial court simply forced him to come and directly issued an edict, allowing Wang Anshi to go to Jixian Academy to work as a school manager (equivalent to a senior researcher of the Royal Library), not only exempting him from the exam, but also making an exception to raise his official rank and enjoy a higher salary. But Wang Anshi actually resigned four times and resolutely refused. The reasons given are as follows:
The grandmother of the courtier was old, the ancestor was not buried, the younger brother and sister should be married, the family was poor, and it was difficult to live in Jingshi.
No wonder, it turned out to be a high level of consumption in the imperial capital.
The imperial court looked at it, since this is the case, then give you a beautiful difference with high fortune and oil: Judge of the Pastoral Division, you can always come now.
Really unable to resign, Wang Anshi reluctantly took office.
During his two years as a judge of the herd priest, he submitted more than a dozen applications to the imperial court for local posts. In a letter to Prime Minister Fumihikohiro, he explained it this way:
The reason why I want to go to a place is because only in this way can I give full play to what I have learned in my life, practice and test it in concrete matters, and can I really do something for the people. On the contrary, working in the capital, drinking tea and reading newspapers and brushing headlines every day is really unbearable!
Only at the local level can we better understand the situation of the people and formulate practical policies; Only by serving as the local leader can we have enough decision-making power to break through conventions, boldly innovate, and lay a solid foundation for doing great things in the future.
When he was making the county order, Wang Anshi tried to implement public grain lending. The specific method is to lend the grain stored by the government to the peasant households when the green and yellow are not available and the peasant households have a difficult life, and pay interest to repay the grain after harvesting in the autumn.
It not only solves the problem of food and clothing for farmers, but also renews the old grain of the public households, and by the way, it can also generate income for the government. This is the prototype of the Young Seedlings Method in the later formal transformation of the law, and has achieved good pilot results at the local level. Through continuous in-depth visits and investigations and innovative exploration, Wang Anshi at that time was already thinking of the world and full of confidence in the future to change the law and power, and the famous "Ascending the Flying Peak" was written during this period.
Don't be afraid of floating clouds to cover your eyes, just because you are at the top.
After being transferred to the imperial court, Wang Anshi also seized every opportunity to practice his innovative ideas. He opposed the government's monopoly on tea trading, and advocated that tea merchants and tea people should be allowed to sell by themselves, and the state could collect a tea tax. In this way, tea sales have been completely marketized, the quality of tea has improved, the income of the people and the country has also increased, and the policy has been praised with rave reviews.
The death of the law
A series of events greatly encouraged Wang Anshi, so he struck while the iron was hot, sent a letter of ten thousand words to Renzong, comprehensively and systematically presented his observations and investigations in the local government for more than ten years, and vigorously stated his own reform ideas, warning the emperor not to carry out reform again, and regretting it only when the Great Song Dynasty was terminally ill, it would be too late! But before the Great Song Dynasty became terminally ill, the old and elderly Renzong went west first, and the newly ascended Yingzong, who worked for less than four years, also followed Renzong, leaving the mess of the empire to the young Song Shenzong.
On the third day of Shenzong's accession to the throne, he read the state financial report, which contained eight shocking words: a hundred years of accumulation, only empty books.
In this way, the emperor was young and determined, the heavy minister and the old king had a plan, and the two monarchs hit it off, and a vigorous movement to change the law began.
At the beginning of the change of law, Wang Anshi specially wrote a poem, the writing is light and clear, joyful, and the new year is a metaphor for the new law, full of joy and expectation of removing the old cloth and making a new one.
In the sound of firecrackers, the spring breeze sent warmth into Tu Su.
Thousands of doors and thousands of households, always exchange new peaches for old charms.
For this moment, Wang Anshi has accumulated more than twenty years of strength.
Rich country and strong army, in one fell swoop, let's work hard!
There is no doubt that the original intention of changing the law is good, and the pilot at the grassroots level has also achieved good results. But when it comes to the implementation of the whole country, there are many drawbacks. In order to pursue political achievements, local governments made compulsory apportionments, corrupt officials raised interest rates to extract oil from them, paid interest without grain, and only collected money, which exceeded the level of economic development of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The law also caused panic among ordinary people to think that they would be sent to fight, and many strong men self-mutilated themselves to avoid education, and there were endless incidents of escape.
As a result, the court was divided into two opposing factions, and the two sides engaged in fierce debates and struggles on the content of the law change, which opened the prelude to the "old and new party struggle" in the Northern Song Dynasty. Officials kept jumping out to impeach Wang Anshi for "being a traitor like loyalty, and bringing calamity to the country and the people."
Not only scolded on the way to and from work, ran to Wang Anshi's office to scold, and even pointed at Wang Anshi after scolding in the court: Am I right, is this the case?
What is really amazing is that a certain counselor actually pointed to the imperial throne and said to Song Shenzong: "If the emperor does not listen to what Wei Chen said, I see that you will not be able to sit in this seat for a long time!" ”
The words were long and gone, leaving only the stunned Emperor Shenzong and the disdained minister of the guards.
In this way, the wave of opposition to Wang Anshi in the court is intensifying, and it is impossible to prevent it. From Sima Guang and Ouyang Xiu who were the elders and heavy ministers to Su Shi and Su Zhi, who were rising stars, and even Wang Anshi's own brother, they all resolutely stood on the opposite side of changing the law.
In the face of such strong resistance, can Wang Anshi hold it?
Then I have to say Wang Anshi's character, known as "Awkward Xianggong", he is such a stubborn and stubborn person who will never compromise when he sets principles. So what he recognized, absolutely 10,000 cows can't be pulled back.
With super assertiveness and determination, Wang Anshi forged ahead in the midst of surging opposition and firmly promoted the cause of innovation. Not only was it uncompromising, but it also shouted the innovative slogan that resounded the deafening:
Heaven changes are not enough to fear, ancestors are not enough to law, and people's words are not enough!
In his view, severe diseases must be treated vigorously, and if they want to do great things, they must not stick to the rules and fear the words of heaven. In order to carry out the reform of the law, it is necessary to fight with an iron face and an iron fist.
But in the Great Dynasty, Wang Anshi did not have 100% decision-making power after all. There is also a Song Shenzong on it. Objectively speaking, Shenzong did give Wang Anshi enough trust and the greatest possible support. But standing in the position of the Divine Sect, he could not be as decisive as Wang Anshi.
Because in the feudal dynasty, the will of heaven could not be violated, and the lack of fear of heavenly change seemed to be a little unreasonable in the eyes of Shenzong, when the world was in a great drought and rain had not fallen for ten months in most parts of the country, and Song Shenzong was anxious.
At the same time, a painting called "The Picture of the Displaced People" was presented to the imperial court, and the young emperor was deeply shocked by the scene in the painting:
I saw groups of displaced victims, all of whom were dressed like dishes and undressed, crowding the streets of Jingshi. Some even cut down trees with chains on their feet to earn money to repay the government's seedling loans...
Along with the painting, there is also a note. It said that the severe drought made the people destitute, many people relied on grass roots and bark to feed themselves, and some people sold their children and daughters, cut mulberries and demolished houses. Under such circumstances, the government is still chasing taxes! The picture shows only the scene outside the gate of the imperial city, and under the feet of the Son of Heaven, it is already like this, and the tragic situation thousands of miles away is even more unimaginable!
Reading the pictures and texts, Shenzong burst into tears: Since he ascended the throne, he has worked hard to govern, never slack, and the reform and change of the law is obviously for a rich country and a strong army, why did he end up in such a situation...
That night, Shenzong brought the scroll into the palace, and the empress and empress dowager saw it, and they also cried that Wang Anshi had mistaken the country.
The next day, Emperor Shenzong ordered the implementation of the new law to be stopped, and Wang Anshi returned home.
What is very dramatic is that as soon as the edict was issued, the Kaifeng area fell from heaven on the same day, and the crowd rejoiced.
However, the mood of the many law changers is difficult to fly: years of achievement, wasted, alas! It hurts!
Later, although Wang Anshi recovered, after this battle, the trust relationship between the monarchs and the courtiers had inevitably cracked. Under this long-term personal attack and high-pressure work of changing the law, he finally felt tired.
Various problems also began to appear within the Law Change faction: in order to compete for fame and fortune, fighting among each other, Wang Anshi's disciple Lu Huiqing monopolized power, and even tried to frame Wang Anshi in various ways.
The house leak suffered from overnight rain, during which his eldest son Wang Yun died of illness... The exhausted Wang Anshi no longer wanted to stay in the imperial court for long, and within two years, at the age of fifty-seven, he resigned again as prime minister.
Later evaluation
After returning to the countryside, life is very low-key, no different from ordinary people.
Away from court disputes, he began to concentrate on literary creation, such as the famous "Plum Blossom" at this time:
There were several plums in the corner, and Ling Han opened it alone.
It is not snow that comes from afar, for there is a dark incense.
That plum blossom that Ling Han alone is Wang Anshi's best message for his own character.
Eight years after Wang Anshi's resignation, Shenzong, who was only thirty-seven years old, died, Sima Guang returned as a phase, and the new law was abolished, and Wang Anshi, who was deeply shocked, died the following year and followed Shenzong.
Wang Anshi was not only controversial during his lifetime, but also praised and dismissed after his death.
Since the Southern Song Dynasty, in the mainstream discourse of Shi Dafu, it has always been a crusade: for example, the emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhao Zhi, directly dumped the crime of the Northern Song Dynasty to Wang Anshi, believing that the great chaos in the world was all due to the change of law!
Others compare it to Qin Juniper:
The cause of national unification, its combination and cracking, Wang Anshi's crime is also. Those who split but do not compound, Qin Juniper's sin also.
Cai Dongpan, who wrote "Popular Romance of the Past Dynasties" in modern times, also commented as follows:
There are lords who are eager to make meritorious achievements, and there are ministers who are pretentious and different.
For example, the Divine Sect is to Wang Anshi already.
Selling fame and fishing, tired of the old and happy the new, An Shi's life, only this eight characters.
……
So who is sure of Wang Anshi?
The most famous is the modern reformer Liang Qichao, who comprehensively affirmed Wang Anshi from changing the law to his character, praising his mind like a thousand miles of lakes, and his temperament like a thousand mountains, praised: From Xia Shang Zhou to the present, in the history of more than 4,000 years, Wang Anshi can be called the first perfect person in ancient and modern times!
Not only was Wang Anshi unprecedentedly controversial at home, but he also had great international influence, such as Russia's Lenin who strongly endorsed Wang's land state-owned policy, calling him "China's 11th-century reformer."
US Vice President Wallace also praised Wang Anshi as the first person to implement the New Deal in China, believing that the issuance of agricultural loans during the US economic crisis was inspired by Wang's Young Seedlings Law and played a great role in saving the US economy.
Having said all this, there are many people who scold and praise a lot, and whether Wang Anshi changed the law is right or wrong, to this day, there is still no conclusion.
But it is undeniable that in addition to changing the law, Wang Anshi's personal character is almost impeccable.
Politics aside, to read Wang Anshi's poems alone, I think if life is a choice, Wang Anshi is also willing to live in a carefree and prosperous world, fighting cocks and lackeys, and ridiculing a life, how easy it is.
In the final analysis, it is not a responsibility for him to enrich the country and strengthen the army and reform the law, and he does not know that it is an extremely difficult road, but he still chooses to carry the weight forward.
Because someone has to do such things.
As for his posthumous name, when he took his first step, he was destined to put it aside.
It is a pity that the affair is always idle, and the merits of thousands of autumns have been commented.