In the Northern Song Dynasty, there is such a story that is not a historical fact.
Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin once made a private appointment with his close minister Zhao Pu and asked him how he came up with so many good policies for governing the country and what books he had read.
Zhao Pu shook his head and blurted out: "Half of the treatise rules the world!" Zhao Kuangyin sighed after hearing this, and the two monarchs and ministers looked at each other and smiled.
The veracity of this story is yet to be examined, but we can see from this story. Zhao Pu is indeed a great contributor to the creation of Taizu's rule of the world.
However, if Zhao Pu is characterized, then he is a successful quick-acting strategist and a failed long-term politician.
01
Zhao Pu's early years are legendary. He was not born in a prominent family, but with perseverance and wisdom, he climbed through the rivers and lakes, and finally achieved a great cause.
According to historical records, Zhao Pu experienced hardships in his early years, and served as the secretary of the Yongxing military festival envoy Liu Ci in the shogunate in the Later Han Dynasty, but after Liu Ci's death, he lost his position and was exiled to Bianjing for a time.
During this time, he went deep into the people, understood the people's feelings, and accumulated rich life experience and wisdom. He was well aware of the complexity of society and the suffering of the people, which also laid a solid foundation for him to become an outstanding politician in the Northern Song Dynasty.
Zhao Pu's travel life has not been smooth sailing. He was robbed by robbers in Luoyang and almost died, but with his wit and bravery, he managed to escape. These experiences not only tempered his mind, but also made him cherish life more and strengthen his determination to contribute to the country and its people.
During his travels, Zhao Pu also actively participated in some political activities. With his keen insight and outstanding talent, he successfully solved a major case and saved many innocent people.
The incident catapulted him to local fame and the attention of politicians. It was these early experiences that enabled Zhao Pu to deal with all kinds of complex situations with ease in his later political career.
And as his fame grew, Zhao Pu met Zhao Kuangyin, who was still under Chai Rong's account at the time.
02
The turning point of Zhao Pu's career occurred in the third year of Later Zhou Xiande (956). This year, he was recommended by the then Prime Minister Fan Zhen and was appointed as the military judge of Chuzhou, thus forming an indissoluble bond with Zhao Kuangyin.
In Chuzhou, Zhao Pu won the favor of Zhao Kuangyin with his outstanding political talent and loyalty. The two hit it off at first sight and planned the world's major events together. Zhao Pu's thoughtfulness and foresight made Zhao Kuangyin rely on him very much.
As the relationship between the two grew closer, Zhao Pu began to participate in Zhao Kuangyin's military and political decision-making. At the same time, he also proposed a unified strategy of "first the south and then the north," that is, first conquer Jiangnan and other places, and then map the Central Plains in the north. This strategy laid the foundation for Zhao Kuangyin's future establishment of the Great Song Dynasty.
With the assistance of Zhao Pu, Zhao Kuangyin's power gradually grew. Finally, in the Chen Qiaoyi Mutiny, Zhao Kuangyin was crowned as the emperor and established the Great Song Dynasty. As the founder of the country, Zhao Pu was appointed prime minister and became a core figure in the imperial court.
As the prime minister and the founding hero of the Great Song Dynasty, Zhao Pu not only participated in the daily government affairs of the imperial court, but also shouldered the important task of formulating major national policies. He knew that in order to consolidate the nascent Great Song Dynasty, there must be a set of effective national policies. Therefore, he put forward the unified strategy of "first the south and then the north" and "first the easy and then the difficult", and successfully implemented a series of measures to strengthen the centralization of power.
Under Zhao Pu's planning, the Northern Song Dynasty army successively pacified the separatist forces in the south and unified the country.
He reduced the power of the feudal towns and strengthened the central government's control over the localities, he removed some of the generals of the forbidden army to make the army more loyal to the central government, and he introduced more military rules that made the army more flexible in dealing with foreign invasions. These measures effectively consolidated the central power and laid the foundation for the prosperity and stability of the Northern Song Dynasty.
However, behind the prosperity is a harbinger of weakness.
03
Although Zhao Pu made great contributions to the unification and stability of the country in the early Northern Song Dynasty, he also had some biases in formulating national policies, which laid hidden dangers for the poverty and weakness of the Northern Song Dynasty.
First, Zhao Pu's excessive emphasis on centralization led to the weakening of local power. In order to consolidate the central power, he took a series of measures to weaken the power and power of the local governments.
However, although this mode of excessive centralization temporarily stabilized the power structure within the imperial court, it made the localities appear invulnerable in the face of foreign invasions. The limited power of local officials and the weakening of local armies led to the fact that in the late Northern Song Dynasty, when faced with the threat of strong enemies such as Liao and Jin, the state appeared to be overstretched and unable to effectively defend against them.
Second, Zhao Pu's over-support for business development has also brought some negative effects. He actively promoted commercial prosperity and promoted economic growth, which made the commercial activities of the Northern Song Dynasty reach an unprecedented degree of prosperity.
However, this over-reliance on commercial tax revenues to support state finances neglected the development of agriculture and handicrafts. This has led to a culture of abandoning land and engaging in business. Even with the government's strict control, there was an increasing number of ownerless lands, which led to the annexation of the lands of the Song landlords far ahead of all previous dynasties. Therefore, it is said that the economy of the Northern Song Dynasty was prosperous, but in fact, the people of the Northern Song Dynasty were the people who lived the hardest.
In addition, Zhao Pu also made some specific mistakes when formulating national policies. For example, when he helped Zhao Kuangyin to implement the "release of military power with a glass of wine", although he successfully relieved the military power of the generals of the forbidden army, he did not establish an effective military leadership system and command system. This led to low morale and reduced combat effectiveness of the army, making the Northern Song Dynasty appear powerless in the face of foreign invasion. Moreover, the change of tactics has created an embarrassing situation in which "soldiers do not know generals, and generals do not know soldiers."
Zhao Pu also had some problems in employing people, he attached too much importance to personal loyalty and talent, and ignored the moral character and integrity of officials, which led to the promotion of some incompetent or corrupt officials, which not only further aggravated the country's governance problems, but also made the Northern Song Dynasty more and more officials, and formed a redundant situation in the middle and later periods.
To sum up, some biases and mistakes of Zhao Pu in formulating national policies had a great negative impact on the development of the later period of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Although his original intention was to strengthen the centralization of power and promote the development of the country, the implementation of these policies had a series of undesirable consequences.
04
Zhao Pu is a virtuous person who is bound by the times, why do you say that, just look at the history books.
Before the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Central Plains Dynasty changed five times in just fifty years, not counting the separatist forces including the Northern Han and Southern Tang Dynasties. In such a context, Zhao Pu's first consideration after helping Zhao Kuangyin establish the Great Song Dynasty was how to avoid the situation of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.
And the facts have also proved that Zhao Pu's decision-making did stabilize the Great Song Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty has become the only dynasty other than the Han Dynasty that has been in the country for more than 300 years. Therefore, Zhao Pu's decision to formulate some national policies cannot be completely denied.
But later, the limitations of Zhao Pu's era became apparent. After stabilizing the Great Song Dynasty, the emperors of the Song Dynasty continued to govern the country according to the strategy formulated by Zhao Pu in the early days. During this period, there were emperors who wanted to break through the "Zhao Pu model", and Song Taizong and Song Shenzong were both representatives. But the result was that Song Taizong completely turned to defend the interior and the outside after the failure of the Northern Expedition, and the failure of Song Shenzong's reform directly contributed to the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Therefore, I say that Zhao Pu is a virtuous man who is bound by the times, and if he can formulate a variety of national policies according to the different stages after the Song Dynasty, maybe the Song Dynasty will not be the era of poverty and weakness in the impression of ordinary people.