My first impression of Wang Anshi came from a junior high school history textbook more than ten years ago. The textbook described Wang Anshi’s new law and praised his spirit of reform and innovation. Later, when the new law failed, the textbook blamed it on the conservatives. , believing that they were stubborn, unable to accept reform, and refused progress for their own interests, which led to the failure of reform.
Later, I read some articles, which further solidified my understanding, so that I formed a simple and easy-to-remember concept: Wang Anshi is a good man, and he has made huge contributions to the progress of society. However, due to the obstruction of the conservative faction headed by Sima Guang, the reform ultimately failed, and Wang Anshi's officialdom was frustrated.
These understandings can be more simply summarized into a simple judgment: Wang Anshi is a good guy, and Sima Guang is a bad guy.
Until I read "The Romance of the Song Dynasty" written by Cai Dongpan. This book completely overturned my previous understanding of Wang Anshi. At the beginning of the chapter, the author used the two words "seeking fame and reputation, being tired of the old and loving the new" to describe Wang Anshi, and said: "Anshi's life was filled with only these eight words." So, I finished reading this period of history with shock and disbelief. .
If you want to know about Wang Anshi's deeds, you can find a lot of them by just searching on the Internet, and the "History of Song Dynasty" is even more comprehensive. I will not list them one by one here. What I want to talk about is my subversive understandings.
1. Although he is knowledgeable and talented, he is not suitable for politics. Wang Anshi had a photographic memory, and his literary achievements were recognized by his contemporaries. However, governing a country is not different from studying, or even different from governing a people. He implemented unproven governance concepts across the country at the same time. Not only did he not consider the different situations in different regions, he did not even take into account that the unified laws were supervised and implemented by different people, and the effects were vastly different. For example, in the Green Crops Law, in some places the people did not have the capital to sow the seeds, so the government lent money to the people, and the principal and interest were recovered during the autumn harvest. This was a good thing. However, in fact, after the Green Crop Law was implemented, in order to obtain interest and achieve political achievements, local officials forced farmers who did not need to borrow money to borrow money, and then charged high interest rates, making the people miserable.
2. Eliminate dissidents. Wang Anshi was narrow-minded, and anyone who raised objections to his political views would be immediately deposed. Wen Yanbo, a veteran of three dynasties, Fu Bi, who hated evil, and Fan Chunren, the son of Fan Zhongyan, all made great contributions to the country, but they were all rejected by Wang Anshi because of their opposition to the new law.
?3. Trust the villain. While Wang Anshi eliminated dissidents, he got close to and promoted people who agreed with him. Among them were many treacherous villains, and the most resentful among them was Lu Huiqing. At first, Lu Huiqing was favored because of his affiliation with Wang Anshi. Later, he had a rift with Wang Anshi, so he spared no effort to speak ill of Wang Anshi in front of Shenzong, completely ignoring the kindness of knowing him. A large part of Wang Anshi's bad reputation came from joining forces with Lu Huiqing to implement the new law by any means necessary.
Taking a closer look, in the Northern Song Dynasty, traitors took over and the Jin soldiers went south. The original root can be traced back to the period when Wang Anshi was in power. He appointed unworthy people and disturbed the people with new laws, which led to social unrest.
Here, I would also like to quote a dialogue from the Song Dynasty's "Biography of Wang Anshi": Shenzong said: "I heard that the people are suffering greatly from the new law." Wang Anshi replied, "It is severely cold in winter and rainy in summer, and the people are still resentful." , There is no need for compensation." Shenzong said: "Isn't there such resentment as the severe cold in winter and heavy rain in summer?" After hearing this, Wang Anshi was very unhappy and went home to be ill in bed. Shenzong comforted and exhorted Wang Anshi before going to court to manage political affairs. Through this dialogue, we can more intuitively understand some of the characteristics of Wang Anshi's governance.
However, Wang Anshi did not become a pure, good-for-nothing bad guy. Sometimes, it is impossible to evaluate a person absolutely, and I no longer easily draw such conclusions. Therefore, I would like to talk about one of Wang Anshi’s characteristics that I particularly admire, and I believe that this characteristic deserves everyone’s admiration—not being superstitious. In the second year of Xining, Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, an earthquake occurred in the capital. This was generally regarded as a warning from God in ancient times. Therefore, Shenzong reduced meals and removed rituals and music to increase merit. Only Wang Anshi said: Natural disasters and visions are determined by God and have nothing to do with personal behavior. It doesn't matter. In ancient times a thousand years ago, Wang Anshi was able to break the limitations of the times. This insight was extraordinary.
Wang Anshi has been criticized a lot in history, and I think the most pertinent comments are those of Sima Guang and Lu Simian.
Sima Guang said: If people say that Anshi is treacherous, they will destroy it too much; but they are ignorant and stubborn.
Lu Simian said: Wang Anshi's reform was slandered by old historians and defended by recent historians. In fact, it was biased. Wang Anshi's political affairs were all good. But there is one important point of administration, that is, what is done must achieve the purpose, so the evil caused must be reduced to a minimum. If disadvantages are unavoidable and the purpose is still not achieved, it will inevitably cause trouble. It cannot be said that the political affairs carried out by Anshi were completely ineffective, but the disadvantages caused by this cannot be ignored.
To know a person, you should comprehensively consider all aspects of his characteristics. Just like Wang Anshi, he was a man of extraordinary talent, far-sightedness, and economic ideas that were only accepted by the world in modern times, but he was also stubborn, narrow-minded, and intolerant of others. This is all Wang Anshi, or in other words, the combination of these characteristics makes Wang Anshi.