Song Shenzong Zhao Ji was the sixth emperor of the Great Song Dynasty, the Great Song Dynasty he took over was full of crises, internal financial difficulties, external strong enemies around, in the face of the crisis, Shenzong reused Wang Anshi, and actively implemented the new law. Wang Anshi's reforms, which began during the Xining period, are undoubtedly one of the most exciting moments in Chinese history.
The crisis-ridden Great Song
Song Shenzong Zhao Ji, formerly known as Zhao Zhongjun, was the eldest son of Song Yingzong and was named King Ying.
Yingzong fell ill just four days after ascending the throne, and his condition improved after that, but within a few years of pro-government, in 1066, Yingzong fell ill again, and his condition became more and more serious, and in December of this year, Yingzong decided to establish King Ying Zhao Ji as the crown prince.
But the ceremony of canonizing the crown prince has not yet had time to be held, on the eighth day of the first month of the second year, Yingzong died, and Zhao Ji took over the throne and ascended the throne, which is Song Shenzong, who was just twenty years old at this time.
Soon after Shenzong was established as the crown prince, he hurriedly ascended the throne, and it was inconvenient to ask about politics as a prince before, so he still lacked experience in governing the country.
At this time, the Great Song Dynasty was peaceful for a long time, and the surface was calm, but in fact, the crisis was lurking, and after Shenzong ascended the throne, the first problem he faced was the national financial crisis.
On the fourth day after Shenzong ascended the throne, Han Jiang and Zhang Fangping wrote a report on the emptiness of the treasury and suggested that Yingzong's legacy and the construction of the imperial tomb should be simplified.
However, in four years, Renzong and Yingzong had two state funerals, and Renzong's funeral was extravagant and wasteful.
As a result, Shenzong ordered Yingzong's funeral to be simple in order to alleviate the tense financial crisis.
In addition to funerals, the greater financial cost is the problem of redundant soldiers, the Song Dynasty implemented a conscription system, not compulsory conscription, the state paid soldiers salaries, attracted them to serve as soldiers, maintained a standing army of nearly one million, and brought a great burden to the national finances.
Then, in the court, Shenzong also faced the aftermath of the dispute between Yingzong and Pu, and the Taiwan officials and the government consuls were arguing endlessly, and the momentum was like fire and water.
Especially for Ouyang Xiu and Han Qi, the Taiwan officials seized every opportunity to impeach them, Ouyang Xiu and Han Qi wrote to resign, and finally, Ouyang Xiu went out of Bozhou, Han Qi dismissed the prime minister, and sentenced Xiangzhou.
In terms of people's livelihood, Shenzong faced heavy service, in the Song Dynasty villagers to serve, that is, the people had to go to the yamen to serve as a public servant, free of charge, the Song Dynasty had a wide variety of service, among which the task of taking care of the official property for the government was the most onerous, once accidentally caused by the loss of official property, but also compensation, countless people went bankrupt.
On the northwest frontier, after more than 20 years of peace, the war with the Western Xia resumed, and the Western Xia king Zhao Liangzuo raised troops to attack the Song Dynasty Dashun City, but was repelled by the officers and soldiers defending the city, and the Western Xia threatened to attack again.
Shenzong hoped to find a way to completely solve the border troubles of Western Xia, and at this time, the border ministers Xue Xiang and Chong Ge proposed to Shenzong the strategy of passing through Hengshan, which was a strategic place in Western Xia, rich in materials, and if Hengshan could be occupied, the situation could be reversed.
They proposed to gradually encroach on the Hengshan region by recruiting the Hengshan tribe, and seeing this twist, Shenzong was very excited.
Chong Ge led his troops to attack Hengshan, defeated the Weiming Mountain tribe, and then built a Suizhou city in Hengshan.
This is the Great Song Dynasty that the Divine Sect faced.
Reuse Wang Anshi
Shenzong is a monarch who tries to make a difference, in the early years, he often heard his teacher Han Wei mention Wang Anshi, and he has admired Wang Anshi for a long time.
As soon as Wang Anshi arrived in the capital, Shenzong couldn't wait to summon him to meet him, after this summons, Wang Anshi wrote "A Hundred Years of Nothing to Do in this Dynasty", wrote about the ruling situation since the founding of Taizu, pointed out the current shortcomings, and this note also became the program of Wang Anshi's change of law later.
After Shenzong read Wang Anshi's notebook, he was impressed by his insight and summoned Wang Anshi again.
Shenzong intended to reuse Wang Anshi, entrust great power, and lead the reform, but the time was not ripe at this time, Wang Anshi's qualifications were still shallow, and Shenzong had not thought it through, so he let Wang Anshi continue to be the emperor's adviser as a scholar of Hanlin.
In the following years, Shenzong appointed Wang Anshi as the governor of the government, entered the center of power, and began to implement his new law.
Wang Anshi changed the law
In order to facilitate the implementation of fiscal policy, Wang Anshi suggested that Shenzong create a new organization, the Ordinance Department, which would override the three divisions in the same month as he took office.
In 1069, in the second year of Xining, with the support of Song Shenzong, Wang Anshi's new law began to be introduced one by one.
On July 17, the law was approved by the Divine Sect and officially released and implemented.
At that time, the Song Dynasty Kaifeng Mansion royal family, the imperial court and the forbidden army had a large population, and a large amount of materials needed to be consumed, which were mainly transported from the Jianghuai Sixth Road through the canal, and the department responsible for these materials in the imperial court was the shipping envoy.
According to the system at that time, the materials sent by the Jianghuai Sixth Road to Beijing were fixed every year, regardless of whether it was a good year or a disaster year. The grain harvest is low, and they do not dare to overharvest it, and in a disaster year, the grain harvest fails, but they still have to collect a fixed amount.
The equalization method is to solve this drawback, giving the shipment greater autonomy, according to the actual situation of the purchase change, when the price is low, you can buy more, when the price is high, you can sell the materials that are not urgent.
However, as soon as the equal-loss law was introduced, it was strongly opposed and attacked by Taiwan officials and ministers, because it violated the concept of traditional scholars, Wang Anshi still withstood the pressure and gradually introduced the new law.
On the fourth day of the first month of September, the Qingmiao Law was promulgated, and Shenzong's approval was first piloted in Hebei, Jingdong, and Huainan three roads.
The so-called green seedling method is a kind of official small loan for farmers, before farmers encountered capital turnover can not open, generally private loans, the interest rate is generally very high, sometimes as high as 100%, and the introduction of the green seedling law, the annual interest rate dropped to 20%.
The Seedlings Law can be said to be beneficial to both the government and the people, and the peasants have avoided the reduction of private loans by borrowing money from the seedlings, and the government obtains interest income through the distribution of seedlings money, which is equivalent to a government-run bank.
Less than half a year after the pilot of the Seedlings Law, Shenzong and Wang Anshi decided to promote it in an all-round way, but the introduction of the Seedlings Law was also fiercely criticized and resisted by the old party scholars, because the Seedlings Law was a government loan for interest, which violated the way of the sages, and there were some problems in the implementation of the Seedlings Law.
On 11 November, the law on the awarding of official favors by the clan was promulgated, reducing the number of official favors conferred by the clan and depriving the clan of their qualifications.
On 13 November, the Farmland Water Conservancy Law was promulgated to encourage the whole country to reclaim farmland and build water conservancy projects to increase agricultural output.
In leap November, the Jiaozi Law was implemented on Hedong Road and paper money was issued.
In December, the law on capital offenses was enacted, increasing the scope of prosecution for the death of a person caused by a mispunt in the country's judiciary.
From the second to the third year of Xining, a large number of Taiwanese officials such as Lü Xu, Qian Gongfu, and Fan Chunren besieged Wang Anshi one after another and attacked the new law.
Shenzong was under great pressure, and in May of the third year of Xining, Shenzong ordered the abolition of the decision-making body of the law, and then Wang Anshi wrote to Shenzong, transferring the Qingmiao Law and the Farmland Water Conservancy Law to Sinong Temple for management.
Under pressure, the reformers launched a series of measures, in August of the third year of Xining, the implementation of the warehouse law, related to warehouse management, the Song Dynasty warehouse management officials did not have a fixed salary, they relied on extortion, bribery to make a living, the distribution of military rations also had to be deducted.
The introduction of the Kura Law gave high wages to officials and punished them for taking bribes.
In August, Shenzong approved the merger of provinces and counties, and the previous states and counties were set up too much, and the states and counties with a small number of people were abolished and merged.
In October, the conscription law was put into trial, and the change from errand service to conscription was actually from military service to taxation, and personal freedom was obtained by paying military service money, and the government used the received military service money to hire labor.
In December, the Pilot Protection Law is a kind of grassroots public security management organization and a militia organization.
In February of the fourth year of Xining, the Gongju Law was promulgated and implemented, abolishing the examinations of various subjects, and only retaining the Jinshi course, and establishing a new department of Ming Law as an examination for admitting legal talents.
In May, a new school inspection law was introduced, which was a property trusteeship system in the Song Dynasty, and the government checked the property of orphans whose relatives had died, deposited it in the school treasury, and paid living expenses regularly, and then returned the property to them when they grew up, and the new law reformed it, and used the escrow property for lending.
In March of the fifth year of Xining, another major initiative was launched, that is, the City Easy Law, which is an official trading platform, merchants can sell goods in Beijing City, and the City Easy Service looks for a buyer to join to see the goods, and can borrow cash from the City to buy goods, without investing in the capital, and then return the principal and interest after half a year or a year, which is equivalent to a commercial bank.
Needless to say, the introduction of these new measures has attracted criticism from opposition doctors.
Not only verbally opposed, but they also used practical actions to resist the implementation of the new law, such as many states and counties that refused to distribute green seedling money at that time.
Shenzong and Wang Anshi's approach to the opposition was to transfer them out of the imperial court and take up local posts, or give them idle posts.
Wang Anshi dismissed the prime minister
Beginning in the summer of the sixth year of Xining, the Song Dynasty suffered a severe drought, which lasted for three years, causing the people to live in poverty.
The ancients believed that natural disasters were warnings from heaven that they were dissatisfied with the administration of human kings and ministers, and this also gave the old party opposition an opportunity to attack and change the law.
The old party took advantage of natural disasters to violently criticize the change, and in this situation, the position of the Divine Sect began to waver.
At this time, Zheng Xia, a supervisor in the capital, gave Shenzong a "Picture of the Wandering People", drawing the bleak situation outside the palace.
Zheng Xia also wrote that "the drought is caused by Wang Anshi, if Anshi is stopped, it will rain", which is also a coincidence, it really rained in the capital.
In fact, not only the old party, but also the interests of the emperor's relatives and the harem, they also demanded the removal of Wang Anshi, and under pressure, Wang Anshi could only resign.
So Wang Anshi dismissed the affairs of the peace and knew Jiangning Mansion, but still enjoyed the treatment of the prime minister.
Wang Anshi relieved a lot of pressure on Shenzong, and soon, Shenzong regained confidence in changing the law.
In the eighth year of Xining, Wang Anshi dismissed the prime minister less than a year, Shenzong recalled him to the imperial court, in February of this year, he worshiped Wang Anshi as a flat chapter matter, a scholar of Zhaowenguan University, and in March, Wang Anshi entered the court.
At this time, the Imperial Historical Observatory and the Imperial Court were basically silent, and rarely contradicted the Reform faction anymore, but there was a split within the Reform faction.
After Wang Anshi was reinstated, the consuls of the government were: Prime Minister Wang Anshi, Vice Minister Han Jiang, Governor Wang Qi and Lu Huiqing, Privy Envoy Wu Chong, and Privy Deputy Envoy Wang Shao.
However, it was between these close friends that soon gave rise to disagreements, first of all, Han Jiang and Wang Anshi had disagreements, and there was a conflict, Han Jiang dismissed the prime minister, and then Lu Huiqing and Wang Anshi had a bad relationship and withdrew from the court, and finally Wang Shao and Wang Anshi also had a disagreement.
The friendship of friends and the death of his beloved son made Wang Anshi disheartened, and in October of the ninth year of Xining, Wang Anshi resigned again and sentenced Jiangning Mansion.
After Wang Anshi dismissed the prime minister, Shenzong reorganized the ruling team, Wu Chong and Wang Qi worshiped the prime minister, Feng Jing served as the Privy Councillor, Wu Chong and Feng Jingjing were conservatives, and Wang Qi was a wall-riding faction.
After Wu Chong paid homage to the prime minister, he planned to change Wang Anshi's new law, and he wrote to Shenzong to ask for the recall of Sima Guang, Lu Gongzhu and other old party figures, but Wu Chong was not a strong prime minister, although he intended to change the new law, but he was powerless.
At this time, Shenzong had already changed Yuan Yuanfeng, and the change at this stage was presided over by Shenzong himself, but he didn't introduce new laws much, but continued to implement the new laws during the Xining period.
Divine Sect's martial arts
Shenzong was an emperor who was interested in restoring the old domain of the Han and Tang Dynasties, and he wanted to recover Western Xia and Yanyun's hometown, but the imperial court's finances at the beginning of his reign could not make ends meet, making all this unrealistic.
After ten years of reforms, the imperial court's finances have a surplus, which makes Shenzong see hope again.
In the fourth year of Yuanfeng, a coup d'état occurred in Western Xia, and the lord of the country, Zhao Bingchang, was imprisoned, which gave Shenzong a reason to send troops to intervene.
Shenzong decided to march westward, and requisitioned soldiers and horses from five routes, hundreds of thousands of troops, and attacked Western Xia on a large scale.
The Western Expeditionary Army progressed smoothly, laid down some cities, and surrounded the city of Lingzhou in Western Xia, but the Song army lacked siege equipment, and the grain and grass could not keep up.
The Song army of all roads encountered a problem, the lone army went deep, the food and grass were not continued, and there were not a few soldiers who froze to death, starved to death, and fled, and finally Shenzong had to order the retreat.
This western expedition was ultimately unsuccessful, and tens of thousands of soldiers and horses were lost, which was undoubtedly a failure.
Shenzong's martial arts seem to be unrealizable, Yuanfeng five years, Shenzong had a serious illness, since then the body has not fully recovered, Yuanfeng's eight years of illness worsened, in March of this year, Shenzong died, at the age of Chinese New Year's Eve eight.
After the death of Shenzong, the Yuanyu party abolished the new law, and the change of law can be said to have failed.
Emperor Shenzong took over the Great Song Dynasty, it has been nearly a hundred years since Taizu founded the country, the country has been peaceful for a long time, the undercurrent is surging, the military and politics are sluggish, and the finances are tight, Shenzong actively seeks change, reuses Wang Anshi to preside over the change, with the goal of achieving a rich country and a strong army, the law change for ten years, the national finance has a surplus of 100 million, although the final change failed, but it still initially achieved the goal.