Wang Anshi s change of law ultimately failed to break the barriers of interest groups

Mondo Finance Updated on 2024-01-29

Since the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the annexation of land by large landlords has become increasingly violent, and the outbreak of the Song-Xia War, coupled with the Khitan-Chongqing Alliance, has increased military spending and annual currency, and the burden on the peasants has become heavier.

During the Qingli period, peasant uprisings broke out one after another in various places, and some members of the ruling class put forward reform proposals one after another in order to overcome the crisis.

In August of the third year of Qingli (1043 AD), Fan Zhongyan was appointed as the governor of the council, and Fu Bi was the deputy envoy of the privy council, and in September, they proposed ten reform plans.

Renzong is ready to adopt and promulgate it throughout the country, and it is called"New Deal"。However, it was strongly opposed by most of the bureaucratic members and ultimately failed.

After the failure of the Qingli New Deal, the serious social crisis has not been alleviated, and in the last ten years of the reign of Song Renzong, many ** have put forward various proposals for changing the law.

In 1069 AD, soon after Song Shenzong ascended the throne, he summoned Wang Anshi to Beijing, served as the governor of the government, and presided over the reform of the law.

Wang Anshi (A.D. 1021 1086), the word Jiefu, a native of Linchuan, Fuzhou, a Jinshi in the second year of the Qingli of Song Renzong, was a politician, thinker, and writer in the Northern Song Dynasty.

His poems are long in reasoning, good at rhetoric, and the content can also reflect social reality. Wang Anshi has a collection of books handed down, one is the "Linchuan Mr. Anthology" book, the other is the "Wang Wen Gong Wen Collection" book.

In 1070 AD, Wang Anshi began to fully implement the new law. He successively promulgated the Law on Equal Loss, the Law on Changing Cities, the Law on Green Seedlings, the Law on Conscription, the Law on Equal Taxation of Fangtian, the Law on Farmland and Water Conservancy, the Law on War, the Law on Protecting Armor, and the Law on Protecting Horses, as well as reforms related to imperial examinations.

Wang Anshi's reform basically achieved the expected goal of enriching the country and strengthening the army, and the imperial court increased the number of people"The Chinese and foreign government treasury is all abundant"At the same time, the national strength has also been strengthened, and the combat effectiveness of the armed forces has been enhanced.

However, the reform of the law inevitably touched the vested interests of some big bureaucrats and aristocrats, and they strongly opposed the change.

In 1085 AD, Shenzong died, Zhezong, who was only ten years old, ascended the throne, and the Empress Dowager Gao listened to the government. She summoned Sima Guang and others to govern the dynasty, and all the changes in the law were deposed, and all the new laws were abolished, the history said"Meta change"。

This made Wang Anshi, who had been seriously ill for a long time, strongly stimulated his body and mind, and finally died of hatred. Although the vigorous reform movement presided over by Wang Anshi failed, it had an indelible impact on Chinese history.

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