[MichaelCHang]

Wang Anshi was a famous politician in China during Northern Song Dynasty.

He's also a poet who wrote many beautiful poems.

The most important thing he did was to transform the method of administrating his nation.Firstly, he legislated some laws to improve economy.And his effort did have some effect, but unfortunately,later on, his laws had been made invalid by conservative minister Sima Guang who was also famous for his work Zizhitongjian.

If you do know about Wang Anshi,please talk about him,state your attitude towards him.

[General_Zhaoyun]

Wang Anshi's Reform (王安石变法) took place in northern Song dynasty during the 11th century.

The northern Song dynasty formed a co-axis with the Khitan Liao dynasty in the north and later with the Tangut Xixia dynasty in China.. Because of various warfare between Song and Xixia, and with Khitan, Song dynasty was forced to exact huge tributes and became weak and poor. The economic burden happened because of excess army, excess government officials, excess salary needed to pay officials, tributes etc. All of these had caused the intellectuals of that time felt worrying. Thus by 11th century, there first appeared the reform by Fan Zhongyan (范仲淹) , followed by Wang Anshi. Compared to that of Fan Zhongyan, Wang Anshi was a much bigger project.

Wang Anshi (王安石) was born in 1021 in Jiangxi Linchuan. His father died at the age of 19 and he became a Jinshi at the age of 21 and began his political career from then on. At that time, many officials such as Ou Yangxiu (欧阳修) recommended him to the posts, and he was assigned an official in 1060 to Emperor Song Renzong. After Wang entered his post, he submitted a proposal and instituted his view on reform. However, this proposal was discarded aside by Song Renzong. Two years later, Song Renzong passed away and was succeeded by Song Yingzong. 4 years later, Song Yingzong died and in 1068, Song Shenzong ascended the throne. At that time, he was only 20 years old and was bent in making the country strong and rich. Thus he assigned Wang Anshi as the Prime Minister, in charge of the reform.

Wang Anshi's reform was focused on economic reform, this include establishing the method on equal distribution (均输法), the law on Qingmiao (青苗法), Agriculture and Waterworks law, the law on freedom from corvee, the law on easy market, the equal farm-tax law. The military reform includes the law on Generals and Soldiers, Protection of armour law, cavalry, weaponry. It also include reform on education and exams for bureaucrats.

After the implementation of reforms, this faced opposition from the conservative cliques within the court. The people who opposed his reform include various famous officials such as Sima Guang, Ou Yangxiu, Fushi, Suche etc. This caused the determination of Song Shenzong to reform to be shakened. Wang Anshi thus tried to stay at home and even asked to resign. Because Song Shenzong wished to change the weakness situation of Song dynasty, he alllowed Wang Anshi to stay. But because the opposition tried to find faults with Wang Anshi, Wang Anshi found it difficult to continue and thus in 1074, he resigned from the post of Prime Minister. In 1075, Song Shenzong started to use Wang Anshi again and Wang started the reform. But this time, those who supported Wang Anshi's reform started to disintegrate, in particular, Song Shenzong started to place less emphasis on his reform. In 1076, he sacked Wang Anshi and Wang was never used again.

The opposition of this reform had several reasons behind this. One reason is that this reform was basically from the law's perspective and ignore the technical difficulties and human relationship problems that will be encountered when implementing the laws. This means that Wang Anshi's reform emphasised too much on ideal case, and ignore the reality or practical nature. Furthermore, Wang Anshi was very stubborn and refuse to negotiate with other people and this caused much opposition from the court. This led to those who initially support him to change to oppose him. Wang Anshi was impatient and with the lack of support, his reform thus became a failure. He was in place for 9 years and was forced to recede. In 1086, he died.

[MengTzu]

MichaelCHang, on Dec 21 2004, 10:48 AM, said:

Wang Anshi was a famous politician in China during Northern Song Dynasty.

He's also a poet who wrote many beautiful poems.

The most important thing he did was to transform the method of administrating his nation.Firstly, he legislated some laws to improve economy.And his effort did have some effect, but unfortunately,later on, his laws had been made invalid by conservative minister Sima Guang who was also famous for his work Zizhitongjian.

If you do know about Wang Anshi,please talk about him,state your attitude towards him.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wish I can tell you but I've tried to understand his reforms but to no avail (I feel stupid when I try to read about his reforms.) For one thing he has a bunch of fancy names for each reform items. For another thing they are actually pretty complicated. As far as I understand, he based it to some extent on Zhou Li, translated "Rituals and Etiquette of the Zhou dynasty." Another name is "Zhou Guan," translated "Bureaucracy of the Zhou dynasty." It's a Confucian classic that is also contained a lot of Legalist elements. It records an ideal system of bureaucracy (such as the idea of six departments) as well as a number of economic and political plans. I'm not sure how much of Wang Anshi's reforms are based on this work. Basically his ideas contain elements familiar to Capitalism and Socialism -- such as the idea of lending money to peasants through credits to increase production and the idea of organizing society into various units. I think I've read that one reason for such urgent reforms was the need of funding of campaigns in the North against Xi Xia and Liao.

[Koolasuchus]

MengTzu, on Dec 21 2004, 03:55 PM, said:

I wish I can tell you but I've tried to understand his reforms but to no avail (I feel stupid when I try to read about his reforms.)  For one thing he has a bunch of fancy names for each reform items.  For another thing they are actually pretty complicated.  As far as I understand, he based it to some extent on Zhou Li, translated "Rituals and Etiquette of the Zhou dynasty."  Another name is "Zhou Guan," translated "Bureaucracy of the Zhou dynasty."  It's a Confucian classic that is also contained a lot of Legalist elements.  It records an ideal system of bureaucracy (such as the idea of six departments) as well as a number of economic and political plans.  I'm not sure how much of Wang Anshi's reforms are based on this work.  Basically his ideas contain elements familiar to Capitalism and Socialism -- such as the idea of lending money to peasants through credits to increase production and the idea of organizing society into various units.  I think I've read that one reason for such urgent reforms was the need of funding of campaigns in the North against Xi Xia and Liao.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have tried to understand Wang Anshi's reforms, and it seems to me that he was trying to go backwards to the laws of Zhou and the Spring and Autum period. It is a good thing that he failed, because water does not flow up hill, and yesterday's sun will never pass over the heavens again.

[MichaelCHang]

商女不知亡国恨，隔江犹唱后庭花。——（王安石《桂枝香》）

This is a fragment of Wang's poem.Who can explain it?

[MengTzu]

Koolasuchus, on Dec 21 2004, 10:41 PM, said:

I have tried to understand Wang Anshi's reforms, and it seems to me that he was trying to go backwards to the laws of Zhou and the Spring and Autum period.  It is a good thing that he failed, because water does not flow up hill, and yesterday's sun will never pass over the heavens again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think Wang was trying to go backwards. There is a Confucian idea called "relying on the past to reform a system," meaning taking something from antiquity as a platform to reform a present system. This, however, is not the same as going back to what things used to be. It is taking a historical lesson, something that used to work, rely on its legitimacy to make a reform for the present age. For all we know these reformers probably merely interpreted the past in a certain way to fit the present. The purpose is meeting a challenge that the world currently faces. Whether or not the world actually goes backwards is a different story. For example, I doubt that Zhou dynasty actually had a capitalistic and socialistic style of government that Wang was inplementing.

[MengTzu]

MichaelCHang, on Dec 22 2004, 09:42 AM, said:

商女不知亡国恨，隔江犹唱后庭花。——（王安石《桂枝香》）

This is a fragment of Wang's poem.Who can explain it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's something along the line of women of Shang did not understand the pain of their regime collapsing, and went on singing. Probably an allusion to how regular peasants can't care less who is actually ruling as long as the ruler is humane.

[Thaibebop]

I want to know more about Wang Anshi. He seemed to have reforms that were ahead of his time. So, I wonder, did he have some sort of precursor to follow? Were his ideas 100% his, as in no influence? How come no one picked up his ideas later, or earlier than the 20th century? Also , why did poeple like Sima Guang and Su Dongpo against his reforms?

Thanks,
Thaibebop

[Yun]

Merged your question into an old thread on Wang Anshi. I believe there is still lots of room for discussing this major figure in Song history.

For now, I will note that Wang Anshi's reforms emphasized a strong, interventionist state, de-emphasized agriculture in favour of trade, and introduced new taxes. These were not acceptable to Sima Guang, who had a minimalist ideal for governance, saw agriculture as most important, and regarded taxing the people excessively as tyranny. Su Dongpo (Su Shi), meanwhile, mainly disliked Wang Anshi's reform program because Wang was intolerant of dissent and tried to force everyone to conform to a single ideological position, to the extent of producing his own set of standard commentaries of the Classics for the examinations. Su felt that it was ridiculous and unethical to try and make everyone fit into the same mould - there had to be room for diversity in the world.

[Thaibebop]

Yun, on Dec 8 2006, 12:13 PM, said:

Merged your question into an old thread on Wang Anshi. I believe there is still lots of room for discussing this major figure in Song history.

For now, I will note that Wang Anshi's reforms emphasized a strong, interventionist state, de-emphasized agriculture in favour of trade, and introduced new taxes. These were not acceptable to Sima Guang, who had a minimalist ideal for governance, saw agriculture as most important, and regarded taxing the people excessively as tyranny. Su Dongpo (Su Shi), meanwhile, mainly disliked Wang Anshi's reform program because Wang was intolerant of dissent and tried to force everyone to conform to a single ideological position, to the extent of producing his own set of standard commentaries of the Classics for the examinations. Su felt that it was ridiculous and unethical to try and make everyone fit into the same mould - there had to be room for diversity in the world.

So, do you think that Wang's reforms are based in examples of Chinese history to his time, or did he just think that far ahead? I guess I should ask if you believe his reforms to be ahead of his time?

[Yun]

They were not too far ahead of their time - the Northern Song saw the growth of a commercialized economy, and the government could have gained much more revenue from this commercialization by implementing Wang's reforms. Besides, the government badly needed revenue for paying and equipping its large professional army. But the reforms were too far ahead for the conservatism of the dominant ideology, which was Confucianism. Many Confucian officials like Sima Guang had a fit over what they saw as the government's attempt to get rich at the expense of the peasantry.

[Thaibebop]

Yun, on Dec 8 2006, 12:41 PM, said:

They were not too far ahead of their time - the Northern Song saw the growth of a commercialized economy, and the government could have gained much more revenue from this commercialization by implementing Wang's reforms. Besides, the government badly needed revenue for paying and equipping its large professional army. But the reforms were too far ahead for the conservatism of the dominant ideology, which was Confucianism. Many Confucian officials like Sima Guang had a fit over what they saw as the government's attempt to get rich at the expense of the peasantry.

Would the Green Sprouts Act be example of taking advantage of the peasantry? It seems that might have helped peasants who were struggling. Were there draw backs to the Green Sprouts Act?

[ue扬]

MichaelCHang, on Dec 22 2004, 03:42 AM, said:

商女不知亡国恨，隔江犹唱后庭花。——（王安石《桂枝香》）

This is a fragment of Wang's poem.Who can explain it?

Oh，no,this isn't a fragment of wang's poem,but wrote by another poet Du Mu(杜牧）of Tang dynasty，

泊秦淮

杜牧

　　烟笼寒水月笼沙，夜泊秦淮近酒家。
　　商女不知亡国恨， 隔江犹唱《后庭花》。

Wang had wrote a Ci（词）having the same meaning with this poem：

桂枝香．金陵怀古
　　　　　　　　　 王安石

登临送目，正故国晚秋，天气初肃。千里澄江似练，翠峰如簇。
征帆去棹残阳里，背西风，酒旗斜矗。彩舟云淡，星河鹭起，画图难足。
　　　　
念往昔，繁华竞逐。叹门外楼头，悲恨相续。千古凭高对此，漫嗟荣辱。
六朝旧事随流水，但寒烟衰草凝绿。至今商女，时时犹唱，《后庭》遗曲。

[Ashura]

Yun, on Dec 8 2006, 10:13 AM, said:

For now, I will note that Wang Anshi's reforms emphasized a strong, interventionist state, de-emphasized agriculture in favour of trade, and introduced new taxes. These were not acceptable to Sima Guang, who had a minimalist ideal for governance, saw agriculture as most important, and regarded taxing the people excessively as tyranny. Su Dongpo (Su Shi), meanwhile, mainly disliked Wang Anshi's reform program because Wang was intolerant of dissent and tried to force everyone to conform to a single ideological position, to the extent of producing his own set of standard commentaries of the Classics for the examinations. Su felt that it was ridiculous and unethical to try and make everyone fit into the same mould - there had to be room for diversity in the world.

Su would be right if it was a democractically elected government. In an absolute monarchy, there is only one will and that's the monarch's. Nothing works unless the monarch gives his consent; thus other ideologies are dangerous to undermine what the other one is proposing. In fact Wang's reforms failed partly because there was no unified stance on the issue. The central bureau, headed by Wang, tried to implement the reforms while the local bureau, led by the hardline confucians who lost their places in the central bureau, did anything they could to sabotage the efforts.

[Yun]

Quote

Oh，no,this isn't a fragment of wang's poem,but wrote by another poet Du Mu(杜牧）of Tang dynasty，

泊秦淮

杜牧

　　烟笼寒水月笼沙，夜泊秦淮近酒家。
　　商女不知亡国恨， 隔江犹唱《后庭花》。

Wang had wrote a Ci（词）having the same meaning with this poem：

桂枝香．金陵怀古
　　　　　　　　　 王安石

登临送目，正故国晚秋，天气初肃。千里澄江似练，翠峰如簇。
征帆去棹残阳里，背西风，酒旗斜矗。彩舟云淡，星河鹭起，画图难足。
　　　　
念往昔，繁华竞逐。叹门外楼头，悲恨相续。千古凭高对此，漫嗟荣辱。
六朝旧事随流水，但寒烟衰草凝绿。至今商女，时时犹唱，《后庭》遗曲。

Correct. Scholars have also compared to the two poems by Du Mu and Wang Anshi (Wang was clearly inspired by Du's poem) and argued that while Du was expressing his sense of angst at the common people's apathy towards the decline of the Tang empire, Wang did not feel the same angst and was merely expressing a conventional sentiment about how fleeting human glory is in the light of history. Both poets were writing of the past glory of Nanjing before the Chen dynasty fell to the Sui conquest in 589, but unlike Du, Wang had no intention of drawing a parallel between his own time and the fall of Chen.