Diqin Designer

Chapter 501 The Failures of the Reform Faction (History of the Northern Song Dynasty)

"Zhao Kuangyin and Zhao Guangyi experienced the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and knew the harm of military men interfering in politics. Therefore, during their reigns, they were determined to change this situation and prevent military men from interfering in politics from happening again in the Song Dynasty."

"Their method of changing the chaos caused by military men was to suppress them, thus shifting the social atmosphere from 'valuing military over civil affairs' to 'respecting civil affairs and suppressing military affairs.' This was a national policy established by the Song Dynasty from its founding!"

"There was nothing wrong with reversing the trend of 'emphasizing military over civil affairs,' but everything in excess is as bad as deficiency. The Song Dynasty went too far down this path. They elevated the status of civil officials too high, and civil officials became the foundation of the Song Dynasty's rule."

Upon hearing this, the First Emperor and the others knew what Li Nian meant by "the fourth one".

Every dynasty has a foundation for its establishment and a basis for its rule, and the foundation of the Song dynasty's rule was its civil officials, or rather, its scholar-officials.

In the fourth year of the Xining era, when Wen Yanbo was presenting his memorial to Emperor Zhao Xu regarding the Xining Reforms, Zhao Xu asked, "The reforms may displease many officials and scholars, but what inconvenience do they bring to the common people?"

Wen Yanbo's answer was: "I govern the world with the scholar-officials, not with the common people."

In one sentence, he directly pointed out to Zhao Xu where the foundation of the Song Dynasty's rule lay, the subtext being: Your reforms will shake the foundation of the dynasty's rule.

At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, civil officials were not the foundation of the government. However, under the rule of Zhao Kuangyin and Zhao Guangyi, especially Zhao Guangyi, the government became the foundation of the government.

"The 'redundant officials' policy developed under the Song Dynasty's policy of 'emphasizing literature and suppressing military affairs.' For the entire scholar-official class of the Song Dynasty, the 'redundant officials' policy was not a bad policy, but a good policy."

The "redundant officials" were an inevitable phenomenon under the Song Dynasty's policy of "emphasizing civil affairs and suppressing military affairs," and in essence, it was a benefit that the Song Dynasty gave to the civil officials and scholar-official class.

How can we ensure the loyalty of civil officials and scholars to the rule of the Song Dynasty without offering them benefits?

"When Zhao Xu, Wang Anshi, and others wanted to solve the problem of 'redundant officials,' they were bound to offend the scholar-officials of the Song Dynasty, which would be tantamount to shaking the foundation of the Song Dynasty's rule."

Did Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi have the courage and ability to do this?

That was the foundation of the Song Dynasty's rule. Unless Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi had the courage to overthrow it and start afresh, the problem of "redundant officials" could not be solved.

Civil officials and scholar-officials were the load-bearing walls of the Song Dynasty. If Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi had had the courage to tear down the old one and build a new one, they could have solved the problem of "redundant officials," but they could not have had that courage.

Because overthrowing and rebuilding a dynasty is no simple matter; it would cause chaos and rebellions in various places. Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi were confident that they could pacify the country again.

If it were a monarch like the Second Emperor or the Hongwu Emperor, they would have this confidence because they had conquered the world with their own hands. At worst, they could fight again. But it's rare to find a monarch like Zhao Xu.

"This is not Zhao Xu's fault. It was Zhao Kuangyin and Zhao Guangyi who made the wrong decisions about the founding of the Song Dynasty. Zhao Xu, the successor, could only watch helplessly."

When the First Emperor thought of the Qin Dynasty, which perished after only two generations, he said with emotion: "Throughout history, the establishment of a nation and a dynasty has been of utmost importance. If the policies for establishing a nation are correct, the nation will be correct; if the policies for establishing a nation are wrong, the nation will be wrong. At best, they will cause trouble for the nation; at worst, they will lead to its demise."

The Qin Dynasty's policy for establishing a dynasty was quite flawed, a seriously flawed one, but fortunately, it is now beginning to be reversed.

The flaws of the Zhao Song dynasty weren't actually that severe, and wouldn't have led to its immediate demise. In fact, the Zhao Song system was quite effective in maintaining internal stability, resulting in a relatively long reign.

Li Nian nodded and said, "Your Majesty is absolutely right. Therefore, Great Qin must establish itself as a nation with integrity. We must do our best now and not leave any trouble for future generations. We cannot live for today and forget about tomorrow. We must trust the wisdom of future generations!"

Starting off well is extremely beneficial to both individuals and the nation. Take the Tang Dynasty, for example. Because Li Yuan had no eldest son and Li Shimin had no elder brother, the succession to the throne of the Tang Dynasty felt incomplete without some bloodshed.

Seeing that the First Emperor nodded slightly and stopped speaking, Li Nian continued, "Fifthly, the new policies of Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi did not take the people seriously, or rather, they did not care about the people at all, and abandoned the strongest force in the world."

"In my opinion, Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi did not really consider who their enemies were, who their allies were, what obstacles they would encounter, and what forces they could unite and win over when they carried out their reforms."

"Because their new policies would harm the interests of the scholar-officials, they would certainly find it difficult to win over most of the civil officials and scholar-officials, but the common people would have a chance to be won over by them."

"As long as we have the support of the people, what does it matter if the scholar-officials oppose us? With the support of the people, who do they think they are?"

"The people support us, who do they think they are?" This made Wang Wan and the others look at Li Nian. Only someone from the future could say such a thing.

Li Nian, seemingly oblivious to the gazes of the others, continued, "But the premise is that the new laws they implement are beneficial to the people and can truly bring them benefits. But how did Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi do it?"

“They ignored this force. In their view, they could simply make up new laws and have the people follow them without collecting feedback or explaining them to the people.”

"That's why Wang Anshi said that people are more easily misled after being told that some people cut off their own wrists to avoid the militia system."

"This is precisely Wang Anshi's arrogance and prejudice towards the people! On ordinary days, Wang Anshi may have pity for the people, eat, drink and live with them, and consider their needs as an official, showing that he loves the people like his own children. But in reality, he did not place the people on the same level as himself and still held contempt and prejudice against them."

"Therefore, when formulating new laws, they do not conduct in-depth investigations into the needs of the people, understand their thoughts, or seriously listen to their feedback."

"Of course, this problem was not unique to Wang Anshi, but was common to emperors and officials in ancient times."

That's why our ancestors were great; they treated the people as equals and never showed arrogance or prejudice towards them.

In ancient China, few officials were truly willing to treat the people as equals. Even a renowned minister like Wang Anshi could not escape harboring arrogance and prejudice towards the common people.

Their policy is basically "the people can be made to follow, but not to understand," meaning the people only need to do what their policies say, regardless of how they feel about them.

"An important point is that Zhao Xu, Wang Anshi, and others did not take the people seriously: the new laws they implemented were not so beneficial to the people, and even became a scourge. For example, if the Baojia system were beneficial, why would people cut off their own wrists to escape?"

"Take the Green Sprouts Act for example. Every year when there is a shortage of food, the government lends loans and grain to the people and then collects interest. It seems like a good thing. It can help the people get through the difficult times without having to borrow money at high interest rates to make a living, and it can also increase the government's revenue."

"The new law has a good starting point, but after the implementation of the Green Sprouts Act, the burden on the people has not decreased but increased."

Wang Wan and others were also seasoned administrators, and they immediately knew where the problem lay: the new law had good intentions, but that didn't mean it was in line with reality or could be implemented well.

Laws should be adapted to reality, rather than simply being based on good ideas. For example, after unifying the six kingdoms, Qin Shi Huang and Li Si immediately wanted to implement the prefecture-county system throughout the country.

The starting point was good, but the newly unified empire was not suitable for a complete implementation of the prefecture-county system. When the prefecture-county system and the enfeoffment system coexisted, there was a transition period. Later, Liu Bang took a step back from the Qin Dynasty, allowing the Han Dynasty to gain a firm foothold.

"Because the funds released by the Green Sprouts Act were insufficient to support its implementation, it was unable to stop usury in the private sector. Moreover, during its implementation, even if people did not want to borrow, they would be forced to borrow by Song Dynasty officials, who would then use various means to force them to repay the exorbitant interest."

"Did Zhao Xu, Wang Anshi, and others see or know about these situations? They probably did, but they would only say, 'This is just a painful illness; just bear with it.'"

Li Nian said decisively, "Therefore, their new laws cannot possibly gain the support of the people!"

"Sixth, what was the purpose of Wang Anshi and others' new laws? It was to solve the problem of redundancy, redundancy, and redundancy, and to make the Song Dynasty rich and powerful. It was to 'enrich the country' rather than 'enrich the people.' Moreover, the new laws did not generate new sources of income so that everyone could make money. Instead, they seized the interests of others and put them under the control of the court. Therefore, the new laws were not for the people, but for the Song court."

In terms of purpose, the Xining Reform was not for the benefit of the people, but to alleviate the financial crisis of the Song Dynasty and to collect revenue for the Song court. The "people" were the ones being collected.

By seizing profits from the people, merchants, and landlords, the Song court could increase its wealth, which was tantamount to taking the wealth of the entire nation to enrich the central government.

Just like how they took money from other places to support the prosperous Bianjing.

We only see the prosperity of Bianjing in the "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" scroll, but we cannot see the continuous support that other regions of the Song Dynasty provided to Bianjing.

In fact, one of the major governing philosophies of the Song Dynasty was "strengthening the trunk and weakening the branches".

"How can a new law that is not for the benefit of the people gain their support? Seventh, Zhao Xu, Wang Anshi, and others were too eager, which caused them to fail to see the various problems that arose during the implementation of the new law, or they saw them but did not care."

"It's as if everything will be fine as long as the new law is successfully implemented, so there's no need to worry about the problems that arise."

This is a typical case of "as long as the result is good, the problems that occur in the middle are not important".

"However, in reality, how can the new law be implemented well if these problems are not solved? The problems will not disappear automatically just because they are ignored; on the contrary, they will accumulate more and more."

"Eighthly, the implementation of the new laws was not smooth. Some of the new laws were originally beneficial, but they became harmful in practice. One of the major reasons was that Zhao Xu, Wang Anshi and others did not have enough 'insiders'. They had no shortage of high-ranking officials, but they lacked officials who could actually implement the new laws."

Meng Tian laughed and said, "Because they are short of people, they have to use those officials who oppose the reforms."

Feng Quji continued, "And how could those officials who oppose the reforms truly work for them? Those who don't sabotage the reforms are considered good people. The fact that the Green Sprouts Act became so evil shows that there were quite a few who sabotaged it."

Not only because they deliberately sabotaged the reform, but also because the new law was unclear and chaotic at the beginning of its implementation, which was a good time to make money and profit.

"If Zhao Xu, Wang Anshi, and others really wanted to implement the new laws, they first had to cultivate their own people. How could they not have problems if they used a group of officials who did not support the reforms to implement them? They should first reform the education system of the Song Dynasty and cultivate a group of capable officials."

However, this is difficult to achieve. First, training too few people will not solve the problem. Second, even if you train like-minded people, they may not necessarily become officials.

The officials of the Song Dynasty were all from the civil service examination system. When did Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi begin to cultivate enough officials to implement the new laws?

Li Nian's strategy was flawed; the First Emperor and others realized this, but did not voice it.

The success of Qin's reforms today is also due to the fact that it has enough people of its own, and the implementation of the policy of making Qin soldiers into officials has greatly alleviated the shortage of grassroots officials.

Although the Qin soldiers' ability to govern the local areas was questionable and they caused many problems, they were loyal to the Qin Dynasty and supported the First Emperor.

Moreover, people change and grow. Through their trials and tribulations in the local areas, the Qin soldiers gradually transformed into qualified local officials.

"Ninth, there was discord within the reform faction. This was also because Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi failed to establish clear rules from the beginning. Reform is not a dinner party, not writing an essay, not painting or embroidering. It is a change to the old system, which will inevitably harm the interests of a group of people and make them hostile!"

"This is a battle. Those who oppose the new law will use all sorts of methods against them. Therefore, if our side wants to win, we must have strict discipline and regulations."

"However, the reform faction led by Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi was very loose, and many of them had ulterior motives. How could they possibly unite as one and fight the enemy to the end?"

Wang Wan looked at Li Nian. He had also thought of the internal discord within the reform faction, but he hadn't expected Li Nian to point out that the reform faction lacked strict discipline.

The phrase "reform is not a dinner party" is particularly insightful and makes a lot of sense upon closer examination.

Reform and change are not something that can be decided by sitting down and having a peaceful drink with people, or by having a calm discussion with opponents; it is a fierce struggle!

It was fortunate that the Song Dynasty had a tradition of not killing civil officials; otherwise, many people would have lost their heads in this struggle.

To fight against those formidable enemies, one must also be solid oneself.

The reform faction during the Xining Reforms, while not entirely disorganized, was divided into factions with their own agendas. Even after Wang Anshi was dismissed from his post as prime minister for the first time, Lü Huiqing wanted to remove Wang Anshi from power. Emperor Zhao Xu did not personally intervene at the time, as Wang Anshi was the leader of the reform faction.

"The above nine points are what Li believes are the reasons for the failure of the Xining Reform, and the reasons for the failure of the Yuanfeng Reform are also among them."

"The situation faced by Zhao Xu, Wang Anshi, and others was almost a dead end. They had neither the ambition nor the ability to overthrow and rebuild the Song Dynasty. Even if the new laws were successfully implemented, it would only be a patching up of the Song Dynasty. Moreover, the new laws might not even be able to patch it up well, and might even create more wounds, thus shortening the lifespan of the Song Dynasty."

It seems that once Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi's new laws succeed, the Song Dynasty will immediately become the most powerful country in the world, defeating the Liao Dynasty, kicking the Western Xia, and conquering Jiaozhi and Yanyun in one fell swoop.

But Li Nian thought it was not necessarily the case; it was possible that it would lead the Song Dynasty into an abyss and destroy it prematurely.

From Wang Anshi's perspective, Sima Guang, Han Qi, Fu Bi, Ouyang Xiu, and Su Shi, who opposed the reforms, all seemed to be villains.

However, during the Qingli Reforms, both Han Qi and Fu Bi supported and participated in the reforms.

These people could not have opposed the Xining Reforms because of personal gain.

(End of this chapter)