Song Shenzong tossed and turned all his life, the nobles and doctors did not fish well, and the common people did not fish well in the end, but in terms of foreign wars, in 1081, the five roads cut down the summer, which actually formed a suppression posture against the Western Xia, and it can even be said that from then on, the Northern Song Dynasty turned from strategic defense to strategic offensive posture to Western Xia.
However, this situation immediately encountered twists and turns after Zhao Xu succeeded to the throne.
Of course, this has nothing to do with Zhao Xu, who was only 9 years old when he succeeded to the throne, and when Sima Guang lost power and humiliated the country, he could still celebrate Children's Day.
Zhao Xu succeeded to the throne, and until the age of 17, the affairs of the imperial government were actually presided over by Empress Gao.
The emperor is young, the empress dowager is in the dynasty, and this is not necessarily a bad thing in ancient times. As long as this empress dowager does not act arbitrarily, it will be conducive to the smooth transition of political power.
Specific to Empress Gao, who was she and what did she do?
She was the wife of Emperor Yingzong Zhao Shu, who was crowned empress in 1065 and had 4 sons and 4 daughters, and Song Shenzong was the eldest son of her and Zhao Shu, and Zhao Xu was his imperial grandson.
When the Divine Sect changed the law, the old lady objected. It is not surprising that, from a class standpoint, she is the most prominent aristocrat. Of course, in fact, it may just be that the elderly generally seek stability and do not love toss, just like we are now, when parents often say to their children " not good xx, blind toss what" alike. In short, in opposing Wang Anshi's change of law, Empress Gao was a die-hard faction.
Before and after Emperor Shenzong's death, Empress Gao also played a decisive role in the smooth succession of Emperor Zhezong Zhao Xu.
At this point, opposing the change of law, Empress Gao had both motives and power.
Therefore, as soon as she became in power, she immediately took up the role of conservative leader Sima Guang. At this time, the elderly Sima Guang became as extreme as Wang Anshi, dealing a severe blow to the Fa-Changing Faction, and the Fa-changing methods that Wang Anshi had changed were all removed regardless of whether they were good or bad.
But in this way, is Empress Gao a bad person?
Exactly? She took the initiative to suppress the power of the Noble Relatives of the Gao Clan, which can be called selfless. In response to the financial difficulties caused by redundant officials, she took the lead in laying off employees from foreign relatives first. Her life was relatively simple, and after determining the political line, she was able to let go of her subjects and return to the harmonious political pattern of the Renzong era.
From this point of view, Empress Gao at least did not hesitate, did not extravagant, and was quiet and inactive, which was quite similar to Empress Dowager Dou of the Western Han Dynasty. Of course, in terms of control of her grandson, she also has similarities with Empress Dowager Dou, this Rong Hou said.
But for the Song Dynasty at that time, the liquidation of the reform group actually formed a very bad cycle. At this time, if you are a rational politician, you should correct deviations, and correction is not the same as anti-left or anti-right (turning correction into anti-right, a typical example in modern times, is a meeting in a famous place in the south in 1959). However, during the period of Empress Gao, one of the major political events was the complete liquidation of the change of law.
During Empress Gao's reign, another thing that had a very bad impact was the abandonment of the territory opened up during the Shenzong period on the northwest frontier. Of course, the impact is very bad from the current point of view, "cut the land to pay compensation, lose power and humiliate the country", well, the current China, who does this, is the public enemy of China, but in the Song Dynasty it is not a rare thing. From that time, peace with Western Xia was regained.
This peaceful situation also had implications for the Khitans, and it is said in the History of the Song Dynasty that the Khitan lord had therefore warned his subordinates not to mobilize troops against the Northern Song Dynasty, on the grounds that "the Southern Dynasty did its best to carry out the government of Emperor Renzong." I think the deep reason is that in the eyes of the Khitan lord, this is a signal from the new leadership group with Empress Gao as the core to maintain the old international relations (tribute and free trade), which the Khitan needs, and of course will praise Empress Gao.
However, Zhezong Zhao Xu did not see it that way. The Law Changers don't see it that way.
"Changing a son from a mother" (a concept created by Sima Guang) is to change the Song Shenzong with Empress Gao, so Zhao Xu can only observe the "buttocks" of the Zaifu when the chancellor and the empress dowager are deliberating.
Empress Dowager Gao was afraid that Zhao Xu would come chaotically like the Divine Sect and disciplined Zhao Xu extremely severely. But in the end, Empress Gao wanted Zhao Xu to become Emperor Renzong, and Zhao Xu still became emperor Shenzong, his father was his father, but his great-grandfather was not his great-grandfather, and his genetic whip was beyond reach. And where there is oppression, where there is resistance. A strict parent usually makes the child's rebellious period more violent.
From the perspective of the Fa-Changing Sect, the ancestral law cannot be changed, and the ancestral land can be lost? The mouth is doctrine, the heart is power. We want to come back, we want to overthrow all reactionaries, we want to thoroughly promote the change of law.
But back, the Law Changers said it didn't count.
In the eighth year of the Yuan Dynasty, that is, in 1093, Empress Gao died, and Zhao Xu, the Emperor of Song, took the throne.
This year Zhao Xu was 16 years old, the rebellious period had surged forward, Gao Hou had already seen it in the later period, and now that Gao Hou was gone, no one could restrain him anymore.
Change the law, change the law, and oppose everything that Empress Gao approves of!
Changing Yuan Shaosheng means inheriting, and of course inheriting is the legacy of the Divine Sect. Sima Guang died, but this matter was not over, the title was degraded, the tombstones given earlier were destroyed, the brothers Su Shi and Su Rui were driven to Lingnan to eat lychees, and Empress Gao almost could not even keep the title of empress dowager, and was once accused of being an "old traitor who trespassed on the country" (the empress dowager was in the dynasty, and no dynasty in history was scolded so badly).
Of course, all this was not done by Zhezong alone. He had a thug, this new thug was called Zhang Huan, and Su Shi had an anecdote about crossing the canoe bridge, and Su Shi judged that this was a fierce lord.
Zhang Wei was Emperor Zhezong's Wang Anshi, who was even more so on the iron fist, he presided over the restoration of Wang Anshi's transformation method, restarted the war against Western Xia, and finally forced Western Xia to become a vassal after two battles of Pingxia City. Relations with the Liao state were also very tense, and the two sides almost fought.
After a few years of tossing and turning, in 1100 AD, Zhao Xu died of illness at the age of 23. Next, it was the turn of the famous Emperor Huizong to appear.
One last thought.
Wang Anshi's transformation method finally went to the extreme. Sima Guang overcorrected and went to extremes in opposing the change of law. In the process of Sima Guang's anti-leftism, Zhang Huan, who was beaten as a traitorous minister, once again went to extremes.
In this way, the Great Song Dynasty was rapidly internally attrition in the fierce political struggle, and eventually came to the subjugation of the country.
Later generations evaluated that the Northern Song Dynasty died in Shenzong, and Wang Anshi was naturally the main person responsible. But if at that time, the change of law could form a full consensus, why did Wang Anshi go to extremes. Fundamentally, it was the political soil of the Northern Song Dynasty that determined that reform was not feasible.
The positive effect of the kidnapping of imperial power by the nobles and scholars is that it is a full check on the imperial power, while the negative effect is that any reform that requires the aristocratic class to give profits to the commoner class will be greatly hindered.
The enlightenment for our modern politics is probably that capital and public power need a balance, capital is too strong, knocking out the marrow is not conducive to the livelihood of the people at the bottom, public power is too strong, there is a danger of sliding into authoritarian dictatorship, and all correction mechanisms will fail.
In the final analysis, politics is the art of balance, and if the basic design is unbalanced, it will slide into a perverted balance.
Reply to the "Zizhi Tongjian" in the public account basketball ecology, you can get the pdf version of the Mao batch "Zizhi Tongjian".