Wang Anshi's political reform was beneficial to the Northern Song Dynasty. Why is it opposed by many people?

Political reform was one of the ways that feudal dynasties tried to become powerful. They achieved the goal of prosperity by carrying out major reforms in the state system. To put it bluntly, it is to change the existing pattern, touch the interests of vested interest groups and make the country rich and strong.

From ancient times to the present, the famous political reforms include Shang Yang of Qin State, Wang Anshi of Song Dynasty, Zhang of Ming Dynasty and the Reform Movement of 1898 of Qing Dynasty.

Because political reform touches the interests of vested interests, political reformers often come to a tragic end. For example, Shang Yang was killed, Wang Anshi was deposed, Zhang was liquidated after his death, and Emperor Guangxu was imprisoned by Empress Dowager Cixi after the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898.

Looking at history today, Song Anzhi found that most people have a phenomenon, that is, black or white. For many historical figures or events, they either praise blindly or belittle blindly;

In fact, it is still wrong to look at history from a black-and-white point of view. In fact, many historical figures or events have two sides, one is bad and the other is good. It is impossible to be a perfect person, let alone a heinous person.

Today, Song Anzhi talks about the two sides of history with Wang Anshi and Sima Guang in Wang Anshi's political reform.

Speaking of Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, both of them are well known. Wang Anshi's political reform was a famous loser through the ages, but Sima Guang was called a prodigy since he was a child. For example, in primary school textbooks, Sima Guang has the content of saving friends. Later, Sima Guang wrote a History as a Mirror, which was even more admirable.

Although these two men are both positive images today, in fact, in the hundreds of years after the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi was regarded by most people as the culprit and the villain, and it was not until modern times that he was rehabilitated.

So why is this? What does this have to do with the duality of history? Let's talk about it in detail.

At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, Shi Yang, who had been favored by Cai Jing, criticized Cai Jing for defending Cai Jing. At the same time, he pointed out without trace that Wang Anshi's political reform was the cause of the current bad situation. He told to, who just succeeded to the throne, that Cai Jing had harmed the country and people for more than 20 years, and several dangerous clans were hated by people, and the perpetrators of their crimes did not know what it was. In the name of following Zongshen's story, Cai Jing actually relied on Wang Anshi for personal gain; Today's disaster, Shi Anshi had to start it. I would like to press: An Shi uses the technique of managing merchants to embellish the six arts with slanderous words and confuse the methods of his ancestors. At that time, Sima Guang had said that it would take decades to see its harm. What happened today, if it conforms to the contract.

That is to say, although Cai Jing has brought disaster to the country and people, the root of the evil lies in Wang Anshi's political reform, which led to the siege of 8 Jin Army south today, even out of control.

Since the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi has been defined as the chief culprit of the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty after Du Nan, no one disagreed, and so did subsequent dynasties. Wang Anshi wore the hat of the chief culprit of the Northern Song Dynasty, and it was not until modern times that he was rehabilitated.

In all fairness, the contents of Wang Anshi's reform today, such as the young crops law, the market easy law, the farmland water conservancy law, and the average tax law, are all good and feasible.

But why was Wang Anshi regarded as the chief culprit of the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty hundreds of years after its demise?

There are two main reasons, one is that Wang Anshi's political reform touched the interests of the old school, and the key is that Wang Anshi failed in the final political reform. As a loser, it is inevitable that you will be slandered by the winner.

Second, Wang Anshi's political reform was opposed by the old guard from the beginning, so there was not much room for Wang Anshi to choose the right people, so he used some villains, such as Lv Huiqing and Deng Wan, who were all people with bad conduct.

For example, when Wang Anshi went on strike in Xining in April 2007, he strongly recommended Lv Huiqing who supported the new law to participate in politics. As a result, he didn't expect that when Wang Anshi went on strike, Lv Huiqing also wanted to come to power, so he deliberately created several things that damaged Wang Anshi's political reputation, hoping to prevent Wang Anshi from being reinstated. In the end, the two turned against each other.

After the death of his son Wang Kan, Wang Anshi wanted to take a long vacation. For the sake of her future, Deng Wan repeatedly asked Song Shenzong not to let Wang Anshi take a long vacation, and also asked to give Wang Anshi a mansion in Beijing.

It is precisely because of the use of these villains that many of Wang Anshi's new laws have changed their nature in the process of implementation, but they are self-defeating.

Today, there is nothing wrong with Wang Anshi's political reform. At most, I made some mistakes in employing people, which touched the interests of vested interests. But after the failure at that time, Wang Anshi was blamed on the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty. I have to say that history is really ironic.

This is the two sides of history. Because of the failure of political reform at that time, Wang Anshi was said to be useless from the perspective of black and white, and was said to be the chief culprit of the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty. It was not until modern times that it was rehabilitated and treated objectively.

After Wang Anshi, let's talk about his old rival Sima Guang.

Sima Guang has been a positive figure from the Northern Song Dynasty to today. And Sima Guang is really talented. Just writing "Purple Tongzhi Sword" is admirable.

However, politically, Sima Guang is undoubtedly selfish. As one of the representatives of the old school, Sima Guang and Wang Anshi have different political views, which is simply an idiotic dream.

In the eighth year of Yuanfeng, Song Shenzong died, and his youngest son, Song Zhezong, succeeded to the throne. The power of state affairs fell into the hands of the Queen Mother.

The empress dowager was also an old school, so Sima Guang was reused. So, in order to overthrow the new law, Sima Guang came up with a brilliant idea for the empress dowager, that is, the method of "changing mother into son", which means that the empress dowager naturally wants to change the new law of her son Song Shenzong, and the mother will correct her son.

Sima Guang totally negated the new laws, thinking that these new laws are "giving up evil to gain benefits; It is called loving the people, but in fact there are sick people; It is called benefiting the country, but it actually harms the country. "

Seriously speaking, Wang Anshi's new law was effective at that time, but Sima Guang wanted to completely deny it because he opposed Wang Anshi's new law. This is really too hasty.

For example, many old-school people oppose the abolition of new laws, such as the Garbo Law and the Young Crop Law. Like Su Shi and Su Zhe, they opposed the exemption law in Zaixi Ning. When Sima Guang wanted to abolish the exemption law, they opposed the abolition of the exemption law.

Originally, Wang Anshi's political reform has achieved certain results. If a stable situation is formed, with the passage of time, the Northern Song Dynasty will be revived, and the prosperous time is just around the corner. As a result, Sima Guang was troubled and the new law was completely rejected. The Northern Song Dynasty not only lost the hope of revival, but also suffered repeated policy blows.

More interestingly, Sima Guang also gave the land to Xixia.

When Wang Anshi was prime minister, he supported Wang Shao to successfully complete the battle to seize Hehuang. After the establishment of Xihe Road in Hehuang area in the Northern Song Dynasty, the territory was further expanded.

Later, Song Shenzong hit Xixia No.5 Road. Although defeated, Yan Yanlu, who was in charge of Shen Kuo and Zhong You, won several battles in this war, and captured the four military camps of Mizhi, Futu, Ganlu and Anjiang, all of which went deep into the territory of Xixia. Xixia and the Northern Song Dynasty were hostile regimes, and it was beyond reproach that the Northern Song Dynasty occupied these places.

So, after Sima Guang came to power, he put himself in Xixia's shoes and proposed to take the opportunity of the new emperor Song Zhezong's succession to return all the barracks captured by Song Shenzong during his reign to Xixia.

In the spring of the first year of Yuan You, Sima Guang wrote "On Xixia Miscellaneous Words", saying that he would return these lands to Xixia. People who don't know think that Xixia didn't invade the land of the Northern Song Dynasty. The conservatives brazenly supported it, and Wen Yanbo added fuel to the fire, proposing that Wang Shao recover Xihe Road and all parts of Lanzhou from the Tubo ministries and give them to Xixia.

Wen Yanbo's stupid idea was unexpectedly approved by Sima Guang at once.

They immediately drew up a reason: if you steal other people's money, it's okay not to do it with them.

It means that the Northern Song Dynasty was like a thief, stealing from others, immoral or something.

Faced with this naive reason, Tao An, a political reformer, immediately retorted: East of Lingwu is the hometown of China. Why did the late emperor borrow the Oracle when he resurrected the guilty teacher?

The first emperor had this ability, but now he abandons it for no reason. Won't it be lighter than abroad?

Other ministers, such as Sun Lu and You Shixiong, opposed it, but the result was that although Xihe was preserved all the way, the four villages of Mizhi, Futu, Reed and Anjiang obtained by Shen Kuo and Central Hubei were surrendered to Xixia by conservatives represented by Sima Guang.

This practice, no matter at that time or today, is undoubtedly extremely fatuous. It even handed over the land recovered by bloody battles to Xixia, thinking that it was a thief here, so it was just returned to its original owner. This is simply stupid.

Sima Guang handed over the territory recovered in the Northern Song Dynasty to Xixia. What was the result?

But so far, the public is praising Sima Guang, and this matter has been deliberately and selectively forgotten. Why is this? Because Sima Guang was a winner at that time, and someone sang praises for him.

From the black-and-white point of view, the stupidity of Sima Guang, the winner, is selectively forgotten, which shows how difficult and precious history is and needs to be viewed from both sides.

The so-called view of history is still less black and white and more objective.