Northern Song In the spring of the eighth year of Yuanfeng (1085), 67-year-old Sima Guang came to the capital Kaifeng to mourn the Song Shenzong Zhao Xu .
As soon as Sima Guang entered Kaifeng City , he immediately suppressed the popularity of the emperor's death. Kaifeng citizens came to watch the honor of the famous former prime minister, causing a sensational effect of people everywhere, which is like the scene where popular first-tier stars are surrounded by fans after getting off the plane.
Historical records show that in order to see Sima Guang's style, many people in the capital tried every means to climb onto trees, roofs, and roofs, just like they could use a telescope.
There are also some ordinary people blocking the road to the palace, surrounding Sima Guang, begging forever. Everyone was complaining to Sima Guang: "Sir, don't leave anymore. Stay here to assist the new emperor, otherwise we can't survive!"
Why would the people say such words to Sima Guang?
This has to be related to the reform and reform that Song Shenzong had done with Wang Anshi during his reign.
Sima Guang
Wang Anshi
In the eighth year of Yuanfeng, Song Shenzong, who was striving for reform, passed away from illness. A vigorous reform came to a deadlock, leaving behind a mess.
Sima Guang went to Beijing to attend the funeral, but in fact he was just fulfilling his duties as a minister, and he was also very low-key. But the old man Sima unexpectedly became a "phenomenon superstar" in Kaifeng City, attracting everyone to watch. Some people even regarded him as a savior who could turn the tide, which shocked him himself.
I remember that when Shenzong was in power, he was strongly invincible to Wang Anshi's reform plan. Sima Guang, who was the prime minister, had different political views from Wang Anshi of the same level. The two were in a strife and the Shenzong could not coordinate.
Seeing that the emperor favored Wang Anshi more, Sima Guang left the court angrily and returned to Luoyang to concentrate on his " Zizhi Tongjian ".
15 years later, Shenzong passed away and Sima Guang went to the funeral in a low-key manner. He thought he had been forgotten for 15 years, but he didn't know that he suddenly became the "pillar of rejuvenation" in the minds of the people, and he couldn't help but be surprised. So after the condolences were over, he hurried back to Luoyang. Shortly after
, Sima Guang returned to the court with the support of the Empress Dowager Gao Taotao , and launched a counterattack against Wang Anshi's reform , almost all the new laws were abolished. He has always opposed reform and has achieved his long-cherished wish in the last year of his life.
In historical records, Sima Guang was an official who was deeply loved by the people and was quite famous during his lifetime. Surprisingly, less than ten years after Sima Guang's death, he was almost killed by the coffin. The "Zizhi Tongjian" he had worked hard to compile for many years was almost destroyed, and the stele given by the court was smashed and the inscription was also worn away.
After that, his reputation "repeatedly" between loyalty and treacherous. He was once accused of being a treacherous minister, but later he was restored to his reputation and regarded as a good minister. His portrait was also presented in the palace.
In fact, this is very normal. No historical figure is a black or white image. Although Sima Guang does not support reform, it does not mean that he is very pedantic. On the contrary, from a certain perspective, Sima Guang was also a reformer who cared about the world, but his reform was different from Wang Anshi's reform.
In his early years, he was upright and upright, dared to act and be
When Sima Guang became famous, it was Song Renzong during the reign of the reign of him, and he was also a young and precocious talent.
The allusion of Sima Guang smashing the jar is well-known, and this is likely to be true. All kinds of official and unofficial history books, including " Song History ", have been recorded.
There were no such rich news and entertainment activities as it is now. Therefore, the heroic deeds of Sima Guang smashing the tank to save his friends quickly became headlines, and the young Sima Guang became famous in Jingluo.
After that, Sima Guang proved through his personal efforts that he was not only good at saving people, but also good at learning. He passed the imperial examination and entered the ranks of central civil servants, he was only 20 years old. He was a veritable "young young man" in the imperial examination and officialdom.
When he first came to work in the central government, Sima Guang showed a sense of "justice" of "improvement and caring for the world", and his personality was also steadily and straightforward.
In his early years, when he was a censor, he wrote many memorials to Emperor Renzong , and most of them suggested how the emperor reforms and governs.
Sima Guang had already seen the financial difficulties of Song . When he wrote a letter to Song Renzong, he said: "HTM3 is afraid that the country's future troubles are not his, but his financial resources are exhausted. " This is an important reason why Song Shenzong supported Wang Anshi's reform in the future, and Sima Guang had already discovered this crisis.
But in Sima Guang's view, the reason why the country has no money is not because of the problems with the political and economic system, but because of improper employment of people.
Sima Guang once wrote a letter of ten thousand words to Emperor Renzong, expressing that the core of reform is " lies in selecting people, not in legislation ".
This is the biggest difference between him and Wang Anshi.
In order to alleviate financial pressure, Sima Guang has his own set of plans. He believes that the key is to "save expenses" and " hides wealth in the people ".
To this end, Sima Guang made three suggestions to Song Renzong: , one is to stop giving indiscriminate gifts; the second is to promote simplicity; the third is to reduce redundant officials and soldiers, and eliminate corrupt officials.
"Red-official and redundant soldiers" means that the government and military institutions are bloated. Many people only have empty wages and do not work. Officials are embezzled and fed, and minor officials are extorted, resulting in "every time there is a trade purchase in , the money spent ten times the previous one, and the utilitarianism collected has been different from one or two ". In this way, the exploitation of the people is more than before, but the state's funds are still not enough.
During this period, Sima Guang wrote a series of memorials on financial issues, and most of them were saying things that directly criticized the emperor. For example, he opposed the emperor's holidays, the palace banquets, and the addition of royal villas. It looked like a thorn.
However, Song Dynasty was originally relatively tolerant of censor . In addition, Emperor Renzong was a well-known "good old emperor", so Sima Guang was not only not blamed by the emperor, but many suggestions were accepted by the emperor.
Later, on the key matter of Renzong's establishment of the crown prince, Sima Guang once again bluntly accepted advice and gained considerable prestige.
Song Renzong
Chapter 0: In the late reign of Emperor Renzong of Song, he had no son to succeed him. He himself was weak and sickly. The ministers in the court were anxious to ask him to find a suitable person from the Zhao family branch as soon as possible to be the crown prince.
But Renzong seemed unwilling to give up and kept saying "I should be able to do it. Maybe which concubine in the harem will get pregnant tomorrow."
The prime minister at that time Han Qi The mouth was worn out, and she just couldn't persuade Song Renzong, who was beaten up. Seeing this, Sima Guang wrote several memorials without saying a word in one breath, urging Renzong to say, "Only the villain will say that you will live a hundred years long every day. We gentlemen only know how to plan ahead. Of course, we want you to live for more than ten years, but the key is that what we say doesn't count, so we have to be prepared. If you always think about giving birth to a son yourself, but don't make a priest in advance, if you suddenly travel the west one day, those villains who flatter you will control the government and disrupt the country. Tang Dynasty Isn't this the situation in those years? So, you have to make a priest quickly."
Sima Guang's words touched Song Renzong, and the emperor immediately sent the instructions to make a priest to the Prime Minister's office ( Zhengshi Hall ).
After several considerations, Song Renzong finally determined that his nephew Zhao Zongshi was the heir, that is, the later Song Yingzong .
It is precisely because Sima Guang played a key role in the establishment of a crown prince that later Ouyang Xiu also commented that he " has made great contributions to the state, and can be called a minister of the country.
Song Yingzong
Song Yingzong ascended the throne, Sima Guang still did not change his true nature of anger.
Song Yingzong wanted to grant Empress Dowager Cao's younger brother Cao Qi (the prototype of Cao Guojiu in folk legend) as prime minister, Sima Guang publicly expressed his opposition, pointing out that foreign relatives are not allowed to interfere in politics. Song Yingzong wanted to give eunuchs Ren Shouzhong a raise. Sima Guang directly called Ren Shouzhong a "big thief in the country and a huge worm in the people, begging to behead him in the city ", which led to Ren Shouzhong being eventually demoted.
From this we can see that Sima Guang's early experience was not like a stubborn and conservative school at all, but more like a straightforward and loyal and virtuous minister, but he did not eventually become the first candidate for Song Shenzong to implement reform.
Tough but offended the emperor
0 In the fourth year of Zhiping (1067), the eldest son of Emperor Yingzong of Song, 20-year-old Zhao Xu ascended the throne.
This young emperor, who was "strong and easy to change his work", thought about finding talents who could turn the tide when he first ascended the throne.
Song Shenzong
At the beginning, Shenzong still valued Sima Guang very much, after all, his reputation and talent have always been praised.
After Han Qi, an old minister of the three dynasties, stepped down, Song Shenzong asked Sima Guang to temporarily serve as the chief censor, and regarded him as a candidate for the prime minister, and discussed with him on the issue of reform, which inevitably talked about personnel issues.
At that time, the imperial court needed someone who knew how to manage finances. Song Shenzong looked at a minister named Xue Xiang , but Sima Guang disagreed.
Sima Guang holds the traditional values of literati and officials, and believes that those who are good at financial management are often villains. This is also reflected in the criticisms suffered by Wang Anshi's reform. Therefore, Sima Guang labeled Xue Xiang as "traitorous" and asked the emperor to be more careful.
Song Shenzong was not very happy now.
Song Shenzong said to Sima Guang: "After thinking about appointing one or two talents, it is criticized by the government and the people. I'm afraid it's not a good thing?"
Sima Guang directly retorted: "This is a good thing! Even Yao and Shun is difficult to know how to be good at responsibilities. Your Majesty has just ascended the throne. If you appoint evil people and don't say a word to protect yourself, that wouldn't it be a big deal."
Shenzong was satisfied on the surface and was unhappy on the surface. Later, another conversation made the relationship between the monarch and the minister even more broken.
Song Shenzong once asked Sima Guang an intriguing question: "Which one is better to flatter the prime minister or cater to the emperor?"
Sima Guang said: "It's not good. Although the former is done by treacherous ministers, blindly calculating the sage's will and changing with the wind is not done by the righteous monarch."
This sentence touched the emperor's pain point. What does it mean to change with the wind? Can I not listen to my words?
In fact, what Sima Guang wanted to express in his heart was to contempt and flattery, which was his principle of becoming an official. Unfortunately, sometimes being too principled will often offend many people who should not be offended or do not want to offend.
So, not long after, Song Shenzong removed Sima Guang from his post as the chief censor and asked him to become a Hanlin scholar without real power.
Sima Guang obviously felt the emperor's distrust and refused to accept the appointment at first.
Song Shenzong then asked him for a question and said, "My dear, you can write and do politics. If you have to do some writing in Hanlin Academy for a few days, can you still not do it?"
Sima Guang said, "I'm stupid and can't write routine articles (46 parallel prose)".
Song Shenzong said: "You are a good friend, you came in during the civil service recruitment exam. How could you not write official documents? Did you go through the back door?"
Sima Guang still insisted on refusing and said goodbye to the emperor, but he actually ran away. The emperor had to send eunuchs to chase after him and forced the edict to put it into his arms, and he must be the Hanlin bachelor. Sima Guang had no choice but to accept his fate. After
, Song Shenzong summoned another minister who advocated reform - Wang Anshi, who was also Sima Guang's old friend.
is also discussing reform. Song Shenzong asked Wang Anshi: "If you were in power, what would you do?"
Wang Anshi replied firmly, change customs and legislate laws.
As soon as this statement came out, Song Shenzong suddenly realized that God gave him a soulmate.
and Wang Anshi were once friends, but they were in opposition
At the beginning, Sima Guang and Wang Anshi were indeed friends. They were called "Four Friends of Jiayou" , together with Lu Gongzhu and Han Wei. When the four of them were young, they were all central civil servants. They held meetings at work and skewers together after get off work, which was very close.
It is said that Wang Anshi was ungrateful in his early years and even had lice on his body.In response, Sima Guang also wrote a poem "Ban Lice with Wang Jiefu" to tease him for his bad habit of not loving bathing, saying: ", but I want to work hard to clean myself, and all lice should be sprinkled far and near. "
Friends can get rid of each other like this, which is 100% "good friends".
Wang Anshi sculpture
However, no matter how close the friendship is, it cannot withstand the test of political opinions and interests.
Sima Guang and Wang Anshi are born with completely different personalities. After years of experience in the officialdom, they will naturally develop completely different political concepts. They also had completely different attitudes towards the great cause of Song Shenzong's reform.
Sima Guang's reform concept was fully revealed in the Renzong era: he believed that the key to solving the fiscal crisis lies in "reducing expenses".
In contrast, Wang Anshi proposed that the solution to the fiscal crisis is "open source".
Wang Anshi believes that the cake of the national economy can be made bigger, and when the cake becomes bigger, all classes in the court and the country can benefit from it, which is the so-called " does not add taxes and the country can use ".
Sima Guang looked at the problem on the contrary. He believed that the size of the national economy cake is eternal, that is, the so-called ", the goods, wealth and all things produced by heaven and earth are only of this number, but not in the people, but in the public ". Therefore, if the court wants to make a fortune, it must "take money" from the people. To put it bluntly, it is to compete with the people for profit.
It is obvious that Sima Guang naturally looks down on Wang Anshi's reform concept.
At the beginning, Sima Guang did not intend to destroy this friendship between friends, so he wrote three letters to Wang Anshi in a row, with earnest words and meaning: "Old Wang, for the sake of our friendship for many years, I advise you to listen to your brother and not to make any reforms. You must be humble. I am for your own good, and I don't want you to be infatuated for thousands of years."
However, Wang Anshi "is not grateful". For his personal ideal of governing the world, he wrote several reply letters to Sima Guang without hesitation, including the famous " Answer to Sima Jianshe " , refuting the crimes of "invasion of officials, causing trouble, raising profits, refusal, and slander" added to him.
Since then, the two have debated many times on the new law.
Wang Anshi said that solving financial difficulties is to find people who are good at managing finances.
Sima Guang retorted that the so-called financial management is to establish clever names and impose excessive taxes. The people are ultimately unable to take advantage of the exploitation and can only be displaced.
Among the measures of Wang Anshi's reform, the more representative one is Qingmiao method .
In Wang Anshi's idea, after the implementation of the Qingmiao Law, the government can lend surplus grain to the people to prevent disasters and famines from the people, and when the interest is recovered after the autumn, it can increase the income of the treasury. This seems to be a measure that benefits the country and the people. But it also contains great risks: if there is no harvest of food in the event of a disaster, farmers will be unable to repay the money for the green seedlings.
Sima Guang keenly realized that if the Qingmiao Law is implemented improperly, it is likely to become a harsh policy for local governments to exploit the people. Therefore, it strongly opposes the implementation of the Qingmiao Law.
With the introduction of other series of reform measures, the relationship between the two became even worse, almost reaching the point where water and fire were incompatible.
In the third year of Xining of Emperor Shenzong (1070), Sima Guang saw that Shenzong had a bad relationship with Wang Anshi and it was difficult to stop the reform. He felt disappointed and angry. He finally took the initiative to resign and deport him, leave the central government, and become a free official in the local area.
This time, it took fifteen years. Sima Guang almost became a marginal person in the officialdom.
opposition to the reform failed and resigned. After Sima Guang left the capital, he first went to Shaanxi to serve as a provincial official. After working for several months, thieves were everywhere. Local officials here, regardless of the reality of the hardship of the people, raised the interest on borrowing grain under the name of the Qingmiao Law, even far exceeding the repayment ability of the rich. What's more, in order to pursue political achievements, some local officials extorted additional people and paid back the borrowed grain at high prices.
Sima Guang couldn't stand it, so he wrote to the court, asking the poorest farmers to borrow the green seedlings without interest or to only collect small interest.At the same time, he also requested to temporarily exempt the young crop debt owed by the disaster-stricken areas to alleviate the survival pressure of the people.
Unfortunately, because the court and local party interest groups interfered with it, Sima Guang's reasonable suggestions were not understood, but were rejected.
Sima Guang felt extremely depressed and wrote a poem "Climbing Chang'an to the Mountain Tower":
It was only ten days before he could have a leisure time.
years old and we were so sad that we could not see the mountains when we climbed the tower.
Then, the disheartened Sima Guang resigned again and went to Luoyang to take a free position, no longer interfering in political affairs.
When he set out for Luoyang, Sima Guang was still concerned about the people in Guanzhong and was ashamed of his failure to alleviate the difficulties of the local people during his tenure. He expressed his depression in "After serving as an employee, dismissal from office in February next year":
is as peaceful as a dream, and he stays in the bamboo shoots Chang'an .
The ice is still strong when I go away, but the flowers are not yet gone when I go back.
There are few scenery and love and people's lives.
It’s a pity that Zhongnan color is, so look carefully before leaving.
The fifteen years in Luoyang were the period when Sima Guang's official career was bleak, but it was also the period when his literary creation was the most prosperous.
In the past fifteen years, Sima Guang focused on compiling "Zizhi Tongjian" with the assistance of Liu Yan, Liu Shu and Fan Zuyu and completed this 294-volume masterpiece.
Although he is far away from the troubles of political affairs and has the goal of book to enrich his life, Sima Guang's mood is still very complicated.
On the one hand, he felt an unprecedented leisure time as an official in many years. On the other hand, he still couldn't get rid of politics because those who opposed Wang Anshi's reform regarded Sima Guang as a banner.
In the fourth year of Xining (1071), Sima Guang's friend, the chief censor, was dismissed from office for opposing reforms, and soon died of depression.
When Sima Guang was still in the court, Lu Hui sang against Wang Anshi every day. Although Sima Guang also opposed the reform, he persuaded Lu Hui to openly do this with Wang Anshi: You can't beat Lao Wang. Now is the time to become a big hit. We have to wait for the opportunity and not be too reckless.
But Lu Hui refused to listen to advice and was eventually dismissed from office and became ill due to depression.
Returned to politics in his later years, but lived as he hated
After the death of Emperor Shenzong, Song Zhezong Zhao XuActually ascended the throne at the age of 9, Empress Dowager Gao, the mother of Song Shenzong, took charge of the court to rule.
The Empress Dowager, who was known as "Yao and Shun in Women", readjusted the central leadership team and invited Sima Guang, who was aged and sick at this time, to return to the court to become prime minister. At this time, Wang Anshi suffered various attacks due to the reform and eventually stepped down.
Song Zhezong
Empress Dowager Gao hated Wang Anshi's reforms, and she supported Sima Guang to "remedy the trouble." Therefore, Sima Guang began to abolish the new law drastically.
At first, Sima Guang understood that denying the new law was the first to open up a wide range of ideas. When Shenzong implemented the new law, he strictly prohibited "slander" in order to suppress different opinions, resulting in no one reporting the disadvantages of the actual implementation of the new law. Sima Guang handed over the "Statement of Begging for the Road to Open" and asked Empress Dowager Gao to issue an edict to let go of public opinion. As a result, the edict was issued, " Thousands of people from all directions have inconvenient new laws. ".
Sima Guang’s original idea was “ to choose the new law to facilitate the people and benefit the country, and those who are sick and hurt the country will be removed” . This means that the useful things in the new law will be kept, and the evil law will be abolished.
However, during the specific implementation process, Sima Guang became what he hated.
For example, many people advise Sima Guang: After all, the new law has been implemented for so many years, and a group of groups that rely on the new law to make profits has been formed. Therefore, the abolition of the new law must be carried out step by step to avoid being too impatient to cause trouble.
But Sima Guang refused to listen because he was in power, and seemed to be dizzy and became as determined as Wang Anshi back then.
Xing Shu , who stands on the same front as Sima Guang, persuaded Sima Guang: "It is indeed beneficial to abolish the new law, but if you do it with great fanfare, wouldn't it be that your son (Zhezong) openly oppose Laozi (Shenzong)'s actions? What would you think when the little emperor grows up in the future?"
Sima Guang disagreed: "I understand, but I am thinking about the country and can't take care of so many."
So, during the 16 months after returning to the court, Sima Guang angrily wrote more than a hundred memorials, abolished various new laws and measures, demoted a large number of important officials of the new party, and turned upside down.
This political movement lasted until Empress Dowager Gao’s death, known in history as “ Yuanyou Renewable ”. In the first year of 2 (1086), Wang Anshi died in grief and anger. In a letter to Lu Gong, Sima Guang said: " Jiefu (Wang Anshi's name) has many articles and morals, but his nature does not understand things... Guang's meaning is that the court is particularly good and generous. "
Perhaps, in real history, Sima Guang did not hate Wang Anshi, their friendship was pure. Sima Guang just hated the new law, after all, he had seen the people suffer from the new law with his own eyes.
Sima Guang and Wang Anshi stood at two extremes. Wang Anshi only cared about the benefits of the new law, so he ignored the disadvantages it brought; while Sima Guang only saw the disadvantages of the new law, but did not care about its benefits at all.
Both of them felt that they were on the commanding heights of morality and tried their best to oppose each other's ideas and measures. But after all, both of them are actually for the country and country of Song Dynasty.
In the last 6 days of Sima Guang's life, he had been drained by the disease, but he threw himself over and abolished the Qingmiao method he hated the most.
At first, Sima Guang was hesitant. He felt that if the abolition of the Qingmiao Law was improperly operated and performed incorrectly, it might cause greater damage. But at this time, he learned that Fan Zhongyan's son Fan Chunren openly submitted a request to continue to issue Qingmiao loans. Sima Guang was so angry that he got up from the hospital bed and ran to the palace to ask Empress Dowager Gao, which traitor was bewitching His Majesty the money for Qingmiao?
The young reformer at the time completely became a crazy old school.
55 months after Wang Anshi's death, 68-year-old Sima Guang also passed away.
Historical records show that Sima Guang was poor all his life. Although he was in a high position, he dressed simply and had a simple meal. His personal property is pitifully small, which is extremely inconsistent with his position as prime minister. After the news of his death spread, tens of thousands of people in the capital stopped to pay tribute, and tens of thousands of people escorted his mourning car to return home along the way.
Although the leaders of the two factions of reform and conservative factions have passed away, the open and secret struggle between the two factions is far from over.
In the first year of Shaosheng (1094), after the reformists came back to power, Sima Guang was deprived of his reputation and was almost exposed to his body by opening the coffin. After Song Huizong ascended the throne, the treacherous minister Cai Jing 2 controlled the government and even gave Sima Guang the title of "great traitor and evil".
It is said that Cai Jing asked all localities to place the Yuanyou Party membership stele (a big-character poster that slandered the political opposition) all over the country, including Sima Guang's name. There was a stonemason named Chang'an Min in Chang'an who received an order from the government but was unwilling to carve the monument.
He said, "I am not a scholar and do not understand the meaning of the court erecting monuments. But everyone in the world thinks that Sima Guang is upright. Today, he says he is a treacherous and I can't bear to engrave them." After hearing that the government wanted to punish him, he said, "Let me engrave them, but please don't engrave the words 'Anmin' on the monument. I don't want to be blamed by future generations."
From this we can see that Sima Guang was respected by many people during his lifetime and after his death.
Perhaps from the perspective of our modern people, Sima Guang's approach is more conservative. Some people even say that the opportunity for the Northern Song Dynasty to revive was destroyed by Sima Guang. But judging from the situation at that time, Sima Guang, as an official, had a supreme position in the hearts of the people, which means that he was at least not a corrupt official or a treacherous official.
Whether Sima just supports reform or conservative, he has never been for himself, but for the world.
This is indeed worthy of admiration.
( referenced from "The Empire of Civilization: The World Fortune and Characters of the 300th Year of the Song Dynasty" )
