Chapter 251 We have no choice
“If you don’t try, how will Junshi know that he will fail?” Wang Anshi asked rhetorically.
"Jiefu, why are you so stubborn? Even if you succeed, what will happen?"
Sima Guang said earnestly: "Shang Gong's reforms made Qin rich and its people poor. Although Qin's In the end, he swept the six kingdoms and unified the world, but it also laid the foundation for the death of Qin II! "
Sima Guang likes to study history and has in-depth research on various dynasties.
Unlike others who attributed the demise of the Qin Dynasty II to the tyranny of Qin Shihuang and Hu Hai, Sima Guang believed that the demise of the Qin Dynasty had actually been laid since Shang Yang's reform.
The core of Shang Yang's reform is to make the country rich and the people poor.
In addition, in order to achieve rapid results in the reform, a high-pressure policy was implemented, and the law enforcement was very strict.
Historical books say that Qin Shihuang was a tyrant. Don’t you know that Qin’s strict laws themselves had a great impact on the Qin monarch.
It is said that when the First Emperor died, the world was in chaos.
But after carefully studying the history of the Qin Dynasty, Sima Guang came to the conclusion that even if Qin Shihuang did not die, the Qin Dynasty would still be in chaos.
Qin State’s exploitation of the people was so severe that it was already overwhelming the Qin State.
But the Qin State was able to dominate the world by squeezing the people, strict laws and military merit system.
Qin Shihuang had tasted the sweetness, and even if he found problems, he would not adjust them, but would only use more stringent means to suppress them.
Even if Qin Shi Huang lived another ten or twenty years, the people would only be exploited even more severely, and Qin Shi Huang might not be able to suppress them at that time.
Of course, all of this is hypothetical, but it is certain that the demise of the Qin Dynasty had a certain relationship with Shang Yang's reforms.
Shang Yang's reforms can only be regarded as part of the reason for the demise of the Qin Dynasty.
The Qin State unified the world, and Shang Yang's reform accounted for a lot of credit, but Sima Guang did not agree very much.
The reason why Shang Yang is always called Shang Gong is just to respect the sages.
Sima Guang firmly disagreed with Wang Anshi's reform, and even went so far as to cut off contact. It was not just about reform.
Historically, Sima Guang and Wang Anshi commented on each other that "although the trends are different, the general return is the same."
It means that although the two people have different opinions, the general direction is the same.
But Sima Guang was very determined in opposing Wang Anshi's reform.
When Shenzong appointed Wang Anshi to carry out the reform, Sima Guang wrote a letter to stop it.
Shenzong did not adopt it. In order to appease Sima Guang, he appointed him deputy envoy to the Privy Council.
However, Sima Guang refused and asked to leave Beijing. He had the intention not to serve as a minister in the same palace as Wang Anshi.
The reason why he was so resolutely opposed was mainly due to Wang Anshi's advocacy of reform.
Wang Anshi’s reform proposal is that the people should not be taxed but the country should use it.
It means that the people do not need to increase taxes, and the country has sufficient money.
To put it simply, Wang Anshi advocated open source, while Sima Guang advocated expenditure reduction.
Although the two opinions are different, they are not incapable of coexistence.
But Wang Anshi’s targets for open source are almost all ordinary people.
In Sima Guang’s view, although the Song Dynasty had many shortcomings, the most serious one was the problem of three redundancies.
The problem of three redundancies should be solved through official administration and financial pressure should be alleviated.
If officials govern the Qingming Festival, the people in the court will naturally become rich.
Open source is okay, but it shouldn’t be used on the people.
Sima Guang was well aware of the sufferings of the people and knew that the people were overwhelmed. This can be reflected in the frequent rebellions in various places.
Wang Anshi's reform strategy seems to be harmless to the people, but it will benefit the people.
But in Sima Guang's view, if the administration of officials is unclear, problems will arise no matter how good the policy is implemented.
But Wang Anshi didn’t think so. In Wang Anshi’s view, the three-redundancy problem certainly needed to be solved.
But we should first find ways to ease the financial pressure on the court.
In the final analysis, the three-redundancy problem can actually be regarded as two-redundancy.
Redundant officials and redundant soldiers lead to redundant expenses. If we want to solve the problem, we must attack civil and military officials and touch their interests. There is too much resistance.
Xiangong Fan’s new policy was intended to solve the problem of redundant officials and soldiers, but it encountered great resistance.
However, the financial pressure on the imperial court was very high, and the New Deal was not effective. Instead, it caused turmoil in the court, and ultimately led to the failure of the New Deal.
Having learned the lesson of Xianggong Fan, his reform strategy did not want to deal with the three-redundancy problem at the beginning, but thought about open source.
On the one hand, it was to relieve the financial pressure on the court, and secondly, it was to give the officials a little sweetness.
In this way, we can strengthen the government's determination to reform. This is not completely wrong at all. Why did Shenzong support Wang Anshi's reform so firmly?
In addition to the serious shortcomings of the Song Dynasty, the most important thing is that Wang Anshi made him see the benefits.
Although Wang Anshi's reform increased the burden on the people, it is an indisputable fact that the imperial court's fiscal revenue increased at the beginning of the reform.
Emperor Shenzong was not stupid. There was a lot of criticism among the people, but he saw no benefit, and there were still a lot of people who opposed it, but he still insisted on reform.
In addition to face, it is not because of tangible benefits.
"Jun Shi, I understand what you said, but when you are poor, you want to change. You want stability, but you don't want to use too drastic means to shake the country's foundation. However, the court's long-standing shortcomings are too deep, and blind pursuit of stability cannot solve it. "
Seeing that Sima Guang wanted to speak, Wang Anshi said, "Jun Shi, listen to me."
"After the implementation of the Green Crops Law, the landlords and gentry sent a large number of tenants to borrow money in order to prevent the implementation of the Green Crops Law. At that time, I went to ask His Highness for countermeasures. His Highness said that if the problem cannot be solved, then the people who created the problem will be solved. This sentence The words made me enlightened!"
"If you can't solve the problem, then solve the person who created the problem?" Sima Guang murmured to himself, savoring it carefully.
Wang Anshi saw Sima Guang looking thoughtful, paused and continued: "I blindly want to solve the problem through reforms, but you want to solve the people who created the problem. Neither of us can convince the other. I After hearing what His Highness said, I thought at first that His Highness had the same idea as you.
But then I thought about it carefully. If His Highness had the same idea as you, why would you let me implement the Qingmiao method?
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I thought hard for a long time and finally realized that we were all wrong. ”
Sima Guang came back to his senses, looked at Wang Anshi and said: "What's the explanation?"
"I want to solve the problem, but I ignore that the problem itself is caused by people. Just like the implementation of the Green Seedling Method this time, The landlords and gentry want to stop it, and many officials in Kaifeng Prefecture are colluding with them.
Even if other new laws are implemented, the effect will be greatly reduced and it will even be harmful to the people.
And you want to solve the problem through governance, but when will it be done? How can you ensure that your governance policy can be implemented smoothly and be effective? It was because he wanted to reform, but he realized later that for His Highness, whether he wanted to reform or not was not the key. His Highness wanted to use the reform to screen out those who had problems, and then get rid of these people. All problems can be solved easily," Wang Anshi said.
Wang Anshi made such an inference not without reason, but with certain basis.
Zhao Xing allowed him to implement the Green Seed Law. When the landlords and gentry were in trouble, Zhao Xing was very restrained and only used a small number of people to kill chickens to scare monkeys, and did not involve too much.
There was strong resistance from the court. Zhao Xing also made some preparations, but he gave in at the court and promised that he would not promote the Green Seed Law nationwide. Even Kaifeng Prefecture would only implement it once. It will stop in two years.
No one took any action afterwards.
Zhao Xing seems to be not very enthusiastic about reforms. If this is the case, what is the purpose of Zhao Xing's tormenting?
Wang Anshi thought for a long time, and combined with Zhao Xing's previous words, he came to the conclusion that Zhao Xing didn't care much about changing the law and not changing the law. His goal has always been people.
The reason why he didn't move was just because he was still the prince and it was inconvenient to move.
“Not everyone who opposes the reform has selfish motives!” Sima Guang frowned.
Wang Anshi said that Zhao Xing deliberately acted as if he wanted to change the law in order to screen out people with problems and get rid of them.
The so-called problematic people are those who oppose the reform with selfish motives.
The solution is not to kill them all, but to use some means to either demote or release them so that these people cannot become obstacles.
But not everyone who opposes the reform has selfish motives. He does not agree with the reform, but he does not have any selfish motives.
"Will these be important at that time?" Wang Anshi asked.
Sima Guang was silent after hearing this. Maybe some people will be wronged, but sometimes necessary sacrifices cannot be avoided.
Since you can’t tell whether it is an obstacle or not, clearing them all is the best way.
Although cruel, he still understands the truth that kindness does not control soldiers and justice does not care about wealth.
"How will your Highness deal with so many people? And if His Highness wants to scare everyone in this way, is it really possible?" Sima Guang said in silence for a long time.
Even if all these people are cleared, the vacant positions will still need to be filled by officials from the local area.
Can these people be more obedient than before?
The reason why I use obedient to describe it is because if what Wang Anshi said is true, Zhao Xing wants to clean up some disobedient officials, and at the same time use this method to intimidate other officials to become obedient.
The Song Dynasty and the scholar-bureaucrats jointly ruled the world. The scholar-bureaucrats had a very high status and could even fight against the imperial power when they united.
If the Song Dynasty is regarded as a company, the official is the chairman of the board, and the scholar-bureaucrats are the top executives of the company, and they still have shares.
The scholar-bureaucrats do not need to all unite, only some of them with higher status unite to influence the situation in the court.
As time passed, the prestige of the official family was greatly reduced, and officials also lacked real respect for the official family.
The fundamental purpose of everything Zhao Xing did was to re-establish the authority of the royal family and put the royal family above the scholar-bureaucrats again.
Let the so-called co-ruling the world with scholar-bureaucrats become empty talk.
What is co-governance? It's just a matter of discussion and consideration.
In Sima Guang’s view, it is unrealistic to achieve this.
"Whether we can do it or not is a matter for the future, but Jun Shi, we have no choice. Only by assisting His Highness can we realize our ambition." Wang Anshi said.
Thanks to Brother Yang123 for the reward.
(End of this chapter)