The dynasty is not in the right place
Zhao Kuangyin was originally the head of the Later Zhou Dynasty, and after the death of Emperor Chai Rong of Zhou, Emperor Gong, who was only 7 years old, succeeded to the throne. Zhao Kuangyin, who had made great achievements in battle and decisive killing, naturally would not be at the mercy of a 7-child child, and at this time, there was an invasion of the Liao and Northern Han forces. The imperial court sent Zhao Kuangyin to raise troops to suppress it, and when he was at Chen Qiao, he was "forced" to claim the title of emperor by his subordinates.
As for whether the foreign invasion was Zhao Kuangyin's handwriting history is not clearly recorded, but the Qing Dynasty scholar Zhao Yi has a poem that is quite interesting: "Qianqiu suspected Chen Qiaoyi, who called off the army as soon as he ran away." ”
He was not in the right position, and he was afraid that those generals who led troops to fight outside would learn from him and add their yellow robes, and after the establishment of the Song Dynasty, they immediately came to a "cup of wine to release the military power". At the same time, he placed the most effective forbidden army in the capital, emphasizing literature over force, resulting in too weak military strength in the border areas.
The frontier is unstable
When the Song Dynasty was founded, the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun fell into the hands of the Liao State, making the gateway of the entire Central Plains Dynasty open to the Liao State.
Speaking of Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, I have to say a historical figure, Shi Jingyao. Shi Jingyao rebelled and was trapped at that time, and sent his envoy Xiang Khitan to ask for help, in return for Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures. In this way, Shi Jingyao became emperor, and Yanyun Sixteen Continents fell into the hands of the Liao State, once again returning to the Ming Dynasty more than 400 years after the time of the Central Plains Wang Chao.
Although the Yanyun Sixteen Continents were small in size, they were the gateway to the north, and they often used it to attack foreign strongholds during the prosperity of the dynasty. This place fell into the hands of the Liao State, and the Song Dynasty has been in a passive situation of being beaten.
The founding of the country was inherently insufficient, and there were strong enemies on the outside who were looking at the tiger, but internally they were heavy on literature and light on force. By the time of Emperor Renzong of Song, what looked like prosperity on the outside was actually full of contradictions inside. The typical problem is "three redundancies and two povertys": redundant officials, redundant personnel, redundant expenses, and poverty and weakness. Any little bit of turmoil can be the last straw that overwhelms the empire.
"Celebrating the New Deal"
Faced with this situation, some scholars, led by Fan Zhongyan and Fu Bi, stepped forward and reformed the country, which is known in history as the "New Deal for celebrating the calendar."
In the New Deal, the "Ming Dynasty, Suppression of Luck, and Selection of Officials" made the imperial court officials less protective and tightly polished. Naturally, the officials of the DPRK and The Chinese People's Government were dissatisfied, so they wantonly impeached them, saying that they were "friends of the party", and That emperor Renzong had wanted to increase finances and strengthen national defense strength, but he did not expect the minister to react so fiercely, and coupled with Emperor Renzong's soft personality, the New Deal would not be solved.
The failure of the "Qingli New Deal" gave the later reformer Wang Anshi a wake-up call, and if he wanted to succeed, except for the support of an emperor, he must suppress the opponents at all costs. At the same time, it also opened the prelude to Wang Anshi's transformation method.
Xi Ning changed the law
After the failure of the Qingli New Deal, social contradictions have not eased, land annexation has become increasingly serious, redundant military expenses have been doubled, and ethnic contradictions have been very acute. In order to alleviate social contradictions, the newly ascended Shinjong set out for change.
In the second year of Xi Ning, with the full support of Emperor Shenzong of Song, the Northern Song Dynasty began a vigorous reform of the law change, known in history as the "Xining Change Law". Compared with the superficiality of the "Qingli New Deal", which only touched on the surface of the Song Dynasty, the "Xining Reform Law" involved a deeper and broader social level and affected a wider range of classes. The following is a simple list:
1. Green shoots method: In February and May of each year, when the green and yellow are not received, the government will give loans and grain loans to the peasants, and every six months, two or three points of interest will be taken, and the two taxes will be returned with summer and autumn respectively. This is the modern rural microcredit, compared to the high 300%-400% interest rate of usury, 20% interest is already very little. Suppress usury by criminal syndicates and evil forces, and increase the government's finances.
2. Municipal Easy Law: Set up a municipal easy service in Tokyo, pay for the purchase of unsalable goods, and then sell them when the market is short. This is actually the macro-control of the modern market economy, which can make the price in the market fluctuate within the controllable range.
3. Fangtian Average Tax Law: Order the whole country to clear the land, verify the landowner, and classify the land as the fifth grade according to the quality of the soil as the basis for collecting land grants. This allows you to measure hidden land, government revenues.
4. Reform the examination system: promulgate the tribute law, abolish the Ming Jing Section, and the examination of the Jinshi Section is mainly based on the scriptures and policies, and the law section is added. Select students who have real talents and practical learning.
5. Law on Reduction of Soldiers: Rectify the van army and the forbidden army, and stipulate that soldiers must retire after the age of fifty. Test soldiers, those who are not qualified by the forbidden army are changed to van troops, and those who are unqualified by van army are changed to civilian status. Wait a minute.
These reforms have increased the state's revenue, selected a large number of students with real talents and practical learning, and greatly strengthened the country's military strength. Wang Anshi would also think about it in his spare time, and if all went well, it would not be impossible to raise troops to the north one day and retake Yanyun Sixteen Continents. However, like all reforms and changes in history, it has been opposed by the original vested interest groups.
The "New Deal for celebrating the calendar" only made them less privileged and the officials were not so comfortable; then Wang Anshi's change of law was to cut flesh and bleed on them in a down-to-earth manner, not only cutting off their financial roads, but also sweeping them out of the house and driving them out of the court. This is already a violation of the core interests of the big landlords and the big bureaucratic class. In this case, Song Shenzong was still unmoved, or as always supported, which was also rare.
In the face of so many opposition voices in the court, Wang Anshi also fought back with an iron fist. Whoever opposes, throws out. Celebrities like Sima Guang, Han Wei, Wen Yanbo, Ouyang Xiu, Fu Bi, Han Qi, Fan Zhen, and Su Shi were all attacked by the New Party, losing their official positions and degrading them.
Su Shi was choked up enough because he said a few words of dissatisfaction with the change of law. If it were not for Zhao Kuangyin's rule when he founded the country, he could not kill the scholar doctor, perhaps Su Shi would have died in the "Wutai Poetry Case" case.
Wang Anshi's original intention of changing the law was good, enriching the country and strengthening the army, alleviating the social contradictions of the Northern Song Dynasty. It increased the revenue of the state treasury and dealt a blow to the big landlords and the big bureaucracy. Lenin praised Wang Anshi as "the greatest reformer in China in the eleventh century", but because the content of the change was too advanced, not only did he have a professional modern management team, but he was also constrained by the background of the times at that time.
The variation failed
The "Green Shoots Law" was originally given to peasants with low-interest loans to tide over the famine when they were not receiving any time, but when they were implemented, they became compulsory loans, and local officials raised interest rates at will, which only increased the peasants' burdens; the "Water Conservancy Law" built water conservancy projects and irrigated farmland; officials forcibly apportioned them in order to complete the assessment, and the people's grievances boiled over.
In the spring of the seventh year of Xi Ning, when there was a great drought in the world and the hungry people were displaced, the courtiers complained that they would be exempt from the harm of money, and the Divine Sect was full of sorrow and wanted to abolish the bad laws. Wang Anshi believed that natural disasters could not be avoided even in the Yao Shun era, and it was enough to send people to govern them. Zheng Xia, the superintendent of the prison, opposed the change of law, drew a map of the drought and hardship of the displaced people and dedicated it to the Shenzong, and commented on the negligence of the new law, and urged Wang Anshi to depose him. At the same time, empress dowagers Cao taihuang and empress dowager Gao also cried to Emperor Shenzong that "Wang Anshi was in chaos in the world", and Emperor Shenzong gradually became suspicious of the change of law and removed Wang Anshi from his position as prime minister.
History is a river that runs non-stop, there will always be a few fish that jump out of the lake, they know where history will go, they can see the essence of society, even if they have the talent of heaven and earth, they have the ambition to change the world, but history will eventually go according to its own predetermined trajectory. Wang Anshi is undoubtedly such a person, after seeing the social ills to carry out reform, it turns out that nothing has changed, for himself, is it lucky or unfortunate?
Throughout the whole process of changing the law, the vested interests in Wang Anshi's change of law are the peasants, peddlers, pawns and other low-level masses. They should have been staunch supporters and the strongest voices of this change, but in that era, the people at the bottom had no say at all except to rise up. The royals, landlords and bureaucrats of the feudal dynasty were the interest groups of the entire dynasty, and they united in a piece of exploitation and divided the world, not allowing others to destroy it. The failure of the "Xi Ning Change" is a matter of time.
In the eighth year of Yuanfeng, Shenzong died, the new emperor ascended the throne, Empress Gao bowed to the government, and slowly abolished the new law; on the sixth day of the first month of April in the first year of the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Anshi died of illness at Zhongshan at the age of sixty-six, was given the title of Taifu and buried in Jiangning Mid-Levels Garden.