One day in the eighth year of Yuanfeng, I was studying at home, when someone suddenly told me that Emperor Shenzong had died. I was shocked in my heart, because in my opinion, Emperor Shenzong was in the prime of life, how could he pass away suddenly.
I asked my servant to tell me the details, but he thought I was crazy and said that the current emperor had died. Although I was mentally prepared, I still felt a little overwhelmed when I heard the news.
I told my servant that I needed to be quiet, and he left.
I know that you passed away with deep regret, and I learned from my conversation with you that you were an emperor with great ideals. You hope to be able to reproduce the prosperity of the Han and Tang dynasties in our Great Song Dynasty and make our country the most powerful country in the world.
However, I know that the battle of Western Xia in the fifth year of Yuanfeng has hit you too hard, and you have put in so much effort, but in exchange for a fiasco. This is not only a blow to the individual, but also unbearable for you, as the lord of the Great Song Dynasty.
Even though I have been away from the court for a long time, I still hear that you are sad and depressed because of this. This may be the real reason for your death, you don't want to see the Zhao dynasty decay in your hands.
I pondered this deeply. In April of the first year of Xining, I returned to the capital and accepted your personal summons. As soon as you saw me, you held my hand tightly and eagerly asked me what I thought about the change.
I feel that the time has come to realize my ideals, and I have elaborated on my reforms. After you heard this, you said that I am a virtuous minister who can help you achieve great things.
You have also expressed to me your great ambition to create a prosperous era of Han and Tang Dynasties again. I was so impressed by your ambition that the young emperor in front of me might be even more holy than the late Emperor Renzong.
Although I have also told His Majesty Emperor Renzong about these thoughts, he has not made any indications. Although I have no doubts about the sage of His Majesty Emperor Renzong, my intuition tells me that a monarch who can accept the change of law is a more virtuous monarch.
In the second year of Song Shenzong's reign, I was fortunate to be appointed as the governor of the government, and I was fully responsible for the reform of the law. In order to better promote the reform of the law, His Majesty has formed a new ruling team, which is what I am most moved by.
I accepted this important task and introduced a series of reform measures, including the law of enriching the country, the law of strengthening the army, and the law of learning from the world. I am extremely happy to think that after the implementation of these policies, I can change the long-term poverty and weakness of the Great Song Dynasty.
However, my proposed policy of changing the law has been met with numerous doubts and abuse. They accused me of being anxious for quick success and destroying the laws of my ancestors, which would lead to chaos in the world and make life difficult for the people.
My former friend Ouyang Xiu, and even my friend Su Shi, came out to accuse me, which made me very painful. But I know that these accusations are just an excuse for them, and they are just worried that their interests will be damaged.
Several of my reform measures were aimed at them, because they took possession of many resources of the Great Song Dynasty, but they were unwilling to pay any taxes. I stood up to my position and argued loudly with them: "The sky is not enough to fear, the words of people are not compassionate, and the laws of our ancestors are not enough to be observed." ”
This is my response to them.
Figure Xining three years, this year may be the most high-spirited year in my life, His Majesty appointed me as the Tongzhong Shumen Pingzhangshi, which is equivalent to making me the prime minister. I knew that His Majesty did this to let me feel at ease to carry out the reform, and I did not live up to His Majesty's expectations, after the greater power, I introduced new laws such as farmland, water conservancy, green seedlings, equal loss, Baojia, exemption from military service, Shiyi, Baoma, Fangtian, etc., and the reform entered a new stage.
After that, His Majesty listened to my recommendation and appointed Lu Huiqing, Zhang Dun and others, all of whom were my right-hand men, and I believe that their participation would make my reform more smoothly.
However, I did not expect some changes to come so quickly. In the seventh year of Xining, natural disasters occurred frequently and the people were displaced. I foresaw that Sima Guang and other old-fashioned ** would definitely attack me again, and sure enough, they accused me of changing the law in the court again, causing natural disasters.
I can't understand their rich imagination, and it's a shame that they don't go to the market to tell stories. Natural disasters are not human to decide, if I were so powerful, these people would have been solved by me with magic a long time ago.
Therefore, I wrote to His Majesty, saying that tomorrow's disasters cannot be avoided, and it is only necessary to send someone to deal with it. Your Majesty has not punished me for my crimes. However, the next thing that happened was something I didn't expect.
Zheng Xia drew a map of the drought and hardship of the displaced people, and accused me of changing the law as a way to get out of trouble. I never expected him to jump out and accuse me, because I had promoted him, and he still remembered how grateful he was to me, but now he bites me back.
This group of people who oppose me is so capable, even my history has been turned over by them, it seems that I will have to pay more attention in the future, maybe I will have their people around me.
I am saddened by Zheng Xia's actions, not because he told His Majesty about my various wrongs, but mainly because he wants to interrupt the great cause of reforming the law of recovering my Great Song Dynasty, which I cannot tolerate.
Pictured: In this incident, my Majesty did not support me as firmly as before, and I was disturbed, and the two Queen Mothers cried to Your Majesty, causing the Emperor to remove me under pressure from all sides.
Although I am disheartened, as a politician, I will not be easily defeated. So I asked the emperor to let Lu Huiqing serve as the governor, and asked to summon Han Jiang to replace me.
The Emperor agreed to my request, and I was slightly relieved. But I didn't expect that after Lu Huiqing took power, in order to keep his position, he tried to frame me by trying Zheng Xia's case.
Fortunately, Han Jiang secretly recalled me. In the eighth year of Xining, I was worshiped by the emperor as the prime minister again, and this time I made up my mind to insist on changing the law. After a while, however, I found that the Emperor did not trust me as much as he had done in the past, and when I told him about the change, he seemed impatient, and I had a hunch that I might lose my greatest support.
In the face of the attacks of our opponents, there is no unity within our reformers, who only want to be promoted and make a fortune, and cannot carry out my policies.
After a series of tosses and physical and mental exhaustion, I repeatedly asked His Majesty to resign as Prime Minister, but His Majesty never responded. Until the ninth year of Xining, my son Wang Yan died of illness, which was too big a blow for me, and the pain of the white-haired people sending the black-haired people was indescribable.
Under these circumstances, His Majesty finally agreed to my resignation as Prime Minister. Little did I know, however, that this would be the last time Your Majesty and I would ever meet. In April of the first year of Motoyu, my physical condition was getting worse and worse, and I might not even be able to spend this month.
The new emperor ascended the throne, worshiped Sima Guang as the prime minister, and completely abolished the new policy of Emperor Shenzong and me. Despite our political differences, in other respects I admired Sima Guang as much as he admired me.
Your Majesty, I can't do anything about the current situation of the Great Song Dynasty, I hope you can forgive me. But I firmly believe that our new policy is correct, that the world will understand us for thousands of years, and that you will be the great king that will be passed down by word of mouth.
I seemed to see Emperor Shenzong waving and smiling at me, as if I had returned to the place where he first summoned me to the palace, and how happy we were at that time.
Through measures such as the Seedlings Law and the Law on Exemption from Military Duty, the government has increased its fiscal revenue, made the state treasury abundant, and has the conditions for large-scale project construction. At the same time, to a certain extent, it has slowed down the process of land annexation, restricted the exploitation of peasants by landlords, greatly increased peasants' enthusiasm for production, and promoted the rapid development of agriculture.
The tax policy of commerce was also regulated, and the illegal acts of merchants manipulating the market were cracked down, so that commerce flourished in the Song Dynasty. In addition, the New Deal also improved the combat effectiveness of the army through measures such as the Baojia Law and the Baoma Law, reversed the situation of repeated defeats of the Song Dynasty army for a long time, and achieved major victories such as the opening of the Xihe River, changed the appearance of the Song Dynasty army, and played a positive role in the consolidation of border defense.
Wang Anshi's reform in the Northern Song Dynasty was a major social change in history. This reform played a significant role in improving the poverty and weakness of the Song Dynasty, and the results were remarkable.
However, there were some problems with this reform, and even exacerbated the social contradictions of the Northern Song Dynasty to some extent, accelerating its downfall. This is because the content of the reform is too advanced, and the reform faction has problems such as being eager for quick success and quick gain, and internal contradictions.
In the end, under the suppression of conservatives and the influence of various factors, the reform finally ended in failure. These historical facts can be corroborated from historical documents such as the History of the Song Dynasty, the Records of Shenzong, and the Long Chapters of the Continuation of the Governance of the Tongjian.