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The beginning of the reform

Su Shi wrote a letter to object, and accused Song Shenzong in person of "Your Majesty of seeking governance is too urgent, listen to the words too widely, and advances too sharply." Zhao Xu was shocked and said, "Your words are said three times, I should think about it." The first shot of the vigorous reform was beaten into a dud by Su Shi. You can imagine Wang Anshi's anger! So when Emperor Shenzong proposed to use Su Shi as the Regulations on the Revision of the Secretariat of the Central Secretariat, Wang Anshi firmly opposed and appointed Su Shi as the Promotion Office of Kaifeng Prefecture.

On June, the boss of the Censorate, Lu Hui was also pulled down by Wang Anshi. The Lu Hui incident specifically has nothing to do with the reform. Its cause is related to the sacredness and breadth of maternal love. Speaking of the future, the wife of Yingzong, the "Yao and Shun" who is extremely powerful in the future, and the son of Empress Dowager Gao, the mother of Shenzong, is not the eldest son of Song Shenzong Zhao Xu, but the second son, King Qi Zhao Hao, who loves so much that he must meet every day and be inseparable. The specific method is to keep the adult Zhao Hao in the palace and not to rush outside to live.

She violated the rules of heaven! It was really that my father-in-law (Renzong) died early, her husband (Yingzong) died early, and her mother-in-law and aunt (Cao) had a good temper, which made her habitually. The bloody lessons of all dynasties summed up a principle: there can only be one emperor in the palace, plus a crown prince, these two men related to the throne exist. Other princes will all rush outside, or even go to other places to live, the farther away, the better! Otherwise, be careful of a coup happening at any time!

But Empress Dowager Gao just doesn't care. Her preferences and her will are more important than the safety of the country! This will become a fact in the future, and so on. What's the big deal about keeping a beloved son and living nearby!

So when the minister who asked Zhang Piguang to write a letter to remind her, she was furious and ordered Shenzong to deal with the Zhang surnamed seriously and strictly! Shenzong had no choice but to be obedient, so he had to order Zhang Piguang to let go. At this time, no one in the civil and military affairs in the court dared to speak, only Wang Anshi stood up: Zhang Piguang had no mistakes, and there was no need to deal with it!

At this time, Lu Hui used Empress Dowager Gao's power to impeach Wang Anshi with this matter! To be fair: Is Wang Anshi wrong? He just said a fair word, isn't it the same nature as when Lu Hui, the previous Yingzong Dynasty, opposed Puyi, opposed Puyi? Then why did Lu Hui oppose Wang Anshi? The answer is in the impeachment memorial he wrote. It summarizes Wang Anshi's ten major crimes: "Arrogant and rude, good reputation, want to advance, ask the king to name, use love to refute the public, rely on personal gain, recruit power, and be powerful, and dominate the government, and be in the same place, and compare friends to be traitors, shake the world." It is so great that Wang Anshi "a great traitor is like loyalty, a great fraud is like trustworthy, and shows simplicity and treacherous..."

But Emperor Shenzong resisted the pressure from his mother this time, saved Wang Anshi, and dismissed Lu Hui. He appointed Kaifeng magistrate Lu Gongzhu as the chief censor. The reason for appointing Lu Gongzhu was that Lu Gongbi, the brother of Lu Gongzhu, opposed Wang Anshi, and Wang Anshi wanted to use Lu Gongzhu to force the Privy Council to lean against him.

The above is the experience of Wang Anshi angering Tang Jie to death, driving Lu Hui away, and pkating the two most famous quarrels. In theory, this kind of record was enough to make him look down on the world and even a cough would overwhelm the officialdom of the Song Dynasty. But it didn't work at this time, and no one obeyed him.

This month, the Privy Councilor of the Northern Court of the Great Liao Dynasty, King Yelu Yixin of Wei was appointed as the Grand Tutor. The military affairs of all directions were conducted by Yixin. The Khitan proverb "It is better to violate the imperial edicts than to violate the white posts of King Wei."

On July 17, the first decree of the new law was issued. It completely met the needs of the officialdom and did not harm their income. At the same time, it doubled the national tax revenue by 10 times. But what was depressed was that some people still jumped out and opposed it sternly. Why is this?

The equal-export method was introduced! The dignitaries and nobles in the capital quickly saw the effects of the new method, and cleverly avoided the largest lifeline of ancient China - agriculture.

The time is not right, never move the most sensitive and basic things.

The equal-to-export method belongs to commercial, which is related to the living conditions of more than one million residents in Kaifeng. We all know that the prosperity of big cities depends on the supply of surrounding small towns and rural areas. It is like a huge queen bee. All worker bees have to do their best to support it in order to raise it, and in turn it spit out nutrients to reproduce the entire bee colony.

The same is true for Kaifeng City. In order to prosper it, Zhao Kuangyin established a department called the Shipping Department. Its chief shipping commander was responsible for the transportation of six routes including Huai, Zhejiang, Jiang, and Lake, and transported a series of good things from the south, including firewood, rice, tea, salt, etc. to the capital. But over time, its disadvantages were revealed.

The shipping department is just an executive authority, and can only go to a certain place to collect and transport things according to the order. However, the one who decided to transport things was a big boss from the Sansi Province in the capital. He looked at the bottom of the store that had been saved in some years and months and said that there was a place to produce this thing. OK! With a big stroke, he sent the shipping envoy there to pay the tax.

This makes the whole canal transportation mess. Many times, there is no product in this place, but the task comes; there is this thing in that place, but it is rotten in the local area. Don’t waste it? Don’t worry! There are even more wasteful things!

The supply and demand in the capital are even more chaotic. The bosses of the Sansi are all "gentlemen" who are not good at speaking and do not stick to money. How could they go to market research? So what is urgently needed in the capital often cannot be transported. The accumulated amount in the capital continues to flow in. In the long run, supply and demand will be disconnected, but the wonderful thing is that the capital will be more prosperous.

In response to this, Wang Anshi's method was to increase the power of the shipping envoy. He wanted to give the shipping envoy the power to know what is needed in the capital and what is produced in various places. In this way, he decided where to go, what price to buy, and what to buy. This was equivalent to the country opening a comprador company, which solved the problem of disconnection between supply and demand in the past, and also allowed the country to make money between buying and selling.

At the same time, Wang Anshi did not violate his competition declaration at all, and did not move officials. The people's half of the tax revenue made the country more affordable. In order to achieve this in actual operation, Wang Anshi selected a suitable candidate - Xue Xiang. He used to serve as the judge of the Du Branch of Kaifeng Prefecture and the deputy envoy of Shaanxi Transportation. He was definitely a good candidate for financial management.

After Xue Xiang took office, he used the 5 million stag of hidden money allocated by the emperor to the shipping department and million stag of rice as the starting capital to run this state-owned comprador company. At the same time, he was also scolded by famous gentlemen and gentlemen.

The first round of attack wave was initiated by Liu Qi, Qian Yan and other censors. As a result, one was demoted to the State Council of the State Council of Salt and Wine Affairs, and the other was demoted to the State Council of Quzhou State Council of Salt and Taxation.

The next one was Su Shi and Su Zhe brothers. Su Shi's words really came to the point. To understand the mystery, you have to think about another question first: before the introduction of the equal-export method, the supply and demand of the capital had long been disconnected, but why can Kaifeng still maintain the peak prosperity of feudal society in the history of feudal society? Why?

That is what the Song Dynasty most yearned for. Before the British Industrial Revolution, the most prosperous and free thing in the world - commerce. It reached an unimaginable height in the area with the smallest territory of the righteous dynasty created by the Han people! The beautiful and prosperous city of Bianliang is evidence!

But it is also a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it maintained the prosperity of the capital and the circulation around it, but on the other hand, it also allowed the Golden Mountains and Galaxy to flow away from the Song Dynasty's treasury and did not have any relationship with the country.

In connection with Su Shi's words, it is "the self-equalization method is implemented, and the wealthy merchants and big businessmen are suspicious and dare not move." What the equalization method needs to do is to compete with merchants for profits and nationalize the profits of merchants. If merchants dare not move, it is the success of the equalization method.

Some people want to say: Isn’t this monopoly? Strike free competition? This is a turning back in history and killing the prosperous and prosperous Song Dynasty business! It is also right. Because of free competition, monopoly takes place in modern society, and it matches it with high commercial taxes. In the Song Dynasty, no matter how developed the business was, it was only compared to other dynasties, in terms of nature it was still an agricultural society. Can the commercial tax collected based on agricultural tax match the profits earned by those big merchants?

After the two Suzhous, Fan Zhongyan's second son Fan Chunren launched a new round of attack waves. Fan Chunren is an incomprehensible person. He always floats around in the reform of the law, and the swings are very skillful. At this time, he was the first to jump out of the new law, and more than 10 years later, his performance was exactly the opposite...

At this time, his position was the same as his father back then, and he was the Censorate. His memorial repeated the theory of gentlemen and villains again. In his opinion, the new party made trouble because of nothing. The so-called method of enriching the country was nothing more than learning from Sang Hongyang, a villain in the Han Dynasty. He thought about how to make money like Shang Yang every day, which completely violated the teachings of saints such as Confucius and Mencius...

On the 1st, Fan Chunren was dismissed from the Censorate and demoted him to the capital, and went to other places to reflect.

On the 16th, Su Che was dismissed from the establishment of the Three Departments and the Commission for Procuratorate of Henan Prefecture.

There are also Feng Jing, Xie Jingwen, Li Chang and others who constantly attacked the same method. The reasons are the same, and they are just disturbing order and their magic is incorrect. I don’t know which Song Dynasty law stipulates? I don’t know what the correct magic is? Anyway, Wang Anshi and his accomplices are incorrect!

Emperor Shenzong had no good face in this regard. He took the salary paid by the Zhao family in front of the state civil servant, but stood on the side of the big businessman and spoke. Is there any reason in this world? Nothing else, refuted and drove them away one by one, while reflecting on it!

Up to this point, it was just a small fight. After the implementation of the all-loss method, Fu Bi, Sima Guang, Han Qi, Wen Yanbo and other famous and powerful bigwigs have not yet appeared. Maybe they are still watching and thinking...

On the other hand, what Song Shenzong and Wang Anshi were doing was to stabilize their pace, take advantage of the momentum of suppressing the opposition, promote the equal export of France across the country, and make every way do it! To let everyone see the sufficient treasury, the most important thing is to give everyone a period of adaptation, so that their brains that have been rigid and stable for more than 100 years can gradually adapt to changes.

Wang Anshi himself also realized this. He wrote a passage in the memorial, "In the case of reform, slowing down the change will be beneficial, and urgently doing harms. Everyone should focus on thinking and take it slowly."

Article 2 of the new law is of great importance because it involves the foundation of the country - agriculture. This is the most important thing! If it is handled improperly, people will suffer from misfortune, complain and even change dynasties! How many times have the dynasties changed? It is because agriculture collapsed and the people cannot afford to eat and take risks and become mobs!

This new law is called "Qingmiao Law". It is very famous in historical books and has even become synonymous with the "Wang Anshi Reform"...

When talking about the Qingmiao Law, it must be linked to another term, that is, the "Changguan Law" that was popular in the Tang Dynasty, which can be said to be a benevolent policy that benefits the people 100% of the time. From any point of view, it is not harmful. It is a special balance of the country. When the harvest is good, the state will pay to stabilize the market price and prevent low grain from hurting farmers. When the disaster occurs, the state sells it at a low price so that the people can have a meal.

Pay attention to its nature: it is completely unprofitable, and it is a public welfare undertaking run by the state. Then the question arises: Since this is good, why did Wang Anshi still change it and implement the Qingmiao Law?
Chapter completed!
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