What are the shortcomings of Wang Anshi's reform?

First, Wang Anshi’s reform relied on the support of the emperor alone. This is one of the biggest limitations of most reforms in feudal societies. Wang Anshi's reform was a reform from top to bottom. Wang Anshi lived in an autocratic system based on the natural economy that "respected the emperor and subordinated the people" and "family world". The emperor had supreme power, and reforms could get the emperor's support, and in most cases they could get a certain degree of support. implementation. However, it is impossible for an emperor to live forever without borders, and death is the normal state of an autocratic regime. In fact, after the death of Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, the 10-year-old Zhezong ascended the throne. Zhezong's grandmother, Empress Dowager Gao, listened to politics from behind the curtain. The conservatives headed by Sima Guang gained power, and all previous new laws were abolished.

Second, the square-field tax equalization law in Wang Anshi’s reform required the government to measure the cultivated land, classify the land into five grades, and determine the tax amount. As a result, a group of bureaucratic large landowners concealed Lands were seized and forced to pay taxes. From a technical perspective alone, these policy designs of Wang Anshi are reasonable. But it was a major adjustment of interest relationships, and its implementation encountered heavy resistance from large landowners and bureaucrats. Due to the high level of opposition, the Fangtian Equalization Tax Law failed to be implemented nationwide. The equalization of losses method severely inhibited the opportunities for big businessmen to speculate and make huge profits, so it encountered strong opposition from businessmen. Although Wang Anshi emphasized the leading role of state power in reform, he did not agree with the state's excessive intervention in social production and economic life, and proposed and adhered to the idea and practice of "not asking too much about the law." This approach to restricting state power naturally encountered opposition from the bureaucracy. As prime minister, Wang Anshi's actual power was greatly reduced compared to the previous dynasty due to the reforms of the political system by the rulers in the early Song Dynasty (as mentioned above). The resistance to reform he faced was the social culture of "seeking stability and fearing change" developed on the basis of the small-scale peasant economy and the strong vested interests. In the ninth year of Xining (AD 1076), after Wang Anshi resigned from the throne for the second time, Song Shenzong, in order to ease the conflicts within the ruling group, weakened the content of measures to suppress bureaucrats, landlords, and businessmen, and paid more attention to increasing tax revenue and strengthening armament measures. Moreover, as a member of the landlord ruling class, Wang Anshi’s fundamental purpose of the reform was to maintain the rule of the landlord class and would not fundamentally touch the landlord ruling system and class order. Therefore, the reform would not fundamentally change the production relations at that time. Moreover, the actual benefits of the peasant class were limited, which determined that the reform could not gain widespread support from the people.

Third, the conservative forces faced by Wang Anshi’s reform were terrifying. At that time, the empress dowagers of the two palaces (Empress Renzong Cao, Yingzong Gaohou and Shenzong Hou) all opposed the reform, and Yingzong and Shenzong were not the direct descendants of Renzong. It was only because Renzong had no children that Yingzong was selected as the crown prince and finally succeeded to the throne. Therefore, Renzong's Empress Cao and Shenzong's mother Gao Empress had a greater deterrent force on Shenzong. Conservatives in ancient China have always been on the opposite side of reform. Instead of raising reasonable doubts about the new law and making it perfect, they just opposed it blindly and wanted to eliminate it completely and quickly, and did not allow the existence of any dissidents. When Wang Anshi was implementing the New Deal, when Su Shi, who originally opposed the new law, saw that the conservatives wanted to abolish some of the policies in the new law that he thought were reasonable, he said a few words of justice for Wang Anshi, but he was repeatedly persecuted. Conservative theorist Sima Guang was able to persuade Wang Anshi calmly and matter-of-factly at the beginning. Later, in "Wang Anshi's Biao", he impulsively denounced Wang Anshi as a "rebellious minister and traitor", and wanted to get rid of him quickly, saying, "The minister and Anshi are like ice and coal, which cannot be used together, just like the cold and heat cannot be at the same time." Wang Anshi underestimated the conservative forces, carried out too radical reforms, did not adopt progressive reforms, and went too far in changing the ancestral system ("enlightening the heart with the technique of enriching the country and strengthening the army, seeking quick results, and forgetting his old learning"), which made Wang Anshi Conservatives find it difficult to accept. The direct consequence is that when conservatives are in power, the New Deal is completely repealed.