Wang Anshi put forward a very important idea in the literature. Later, it was often quoted by everyone. Among the famous sentences were: "The husband is in harmony with the people of the world, the law of the world is governed, and the law of the world is the law of the world."
can see that Wang Anshi is more concerned about the finances of the court. Taxes and national budgets, after all, if a country has no money, then it will be unable to do anything. Everyone often talks about the rule of three generations, but after the real rule of three generations, the court will become very poor and fearful. The current problem is even more serious. The country has no money. Therefore, the country can be stable only if it pays close attention to its finances.
Wang Anshi asked the readers from the beginning in his "Book of Words and Events of Emperor Renzong", letting everyone think: What is the biggest problem of the Song Dynasty? The current emperor Song Renzong is a good emperor. His moral character can be compared with that of Yao and Shun in ancient times, and he is more diligent than those sages. But why is the country still a mess?
For this reason, Wang Anshi put forward his own opinion, that is: the country has no talents.
may be countered by everyone, aren’t there many candidates participating in the imperial court’s imperial examination every year? Are they not talents?
Wang Anshi responded: Those are not talents that the court needs.
The current imperial court lacks talents because the method of selection of talents is incorrect, and the methods of education, training, selection, and appointment of talents need to be reconsidered.
Next, Wang Anshi said that "education is impossible." Why is
?
Now, the country’s most important problem is the country’s finances, taxation, justice, and military aspects. However, what we teach in class now is some articles for exams. What we learn is how to write good articles, so how can we let Do these people who can only test go to govern the country?
These candidates only know how to cite materials, make essays, write poems, take exams, and talk about ideals. They do not understand the politics, economy, finances and justice of the country at all. And this is what Wang Anshi called "education is unlawful." Now, the country should abolish poetry and Ming Scriptures, remove all test essays, and then build suitable schools. After
, Wang Anshi again said that "cultivation is impossible." Why is
?
Now, the financial power is in the hands of the central government. Once the central government has money, it can raise a large number of officials. This makes the official system very bloated. It not only separates civilian officials from military officials, but also separates officials from small officials. But before, no dynasty had raised so many officials like the Song Dynasty. With so many officials in the court, no matter how rich the court is, there will be a day it cannot afford it. When the office expenses of
officials are too high, when the court cannot afford it, they can only cut their salaries. Officials’ salaries are constantly being reduced, causing them to complain. After all, they also need to live a normal life and handle various things. If the official salary cannot meet their needs, either they will leave or use the convenience of their position to embezzle. We believe that more people will choose the second method.
In this way, it is impossible for officials to maintain fairness and integrity, and life will force them to do illegal things.
In addition, Wang Anshi also felt that there was a problem with the selection of officials. All dynasties and dynasties can select capable people in their own way. They will choose suitable talents flexibly, instead of having to act according to regulations like the Song Dynasty. The requirements of the Song Dynasty were: officials must have done every job and stayed at every step before they could have a chance to be promoted. But in fact, the officials promoted in this way, in fact, they know nothing.
Because they have gone through each post and the tenure of each post is not long, so they learn very little in the post, almost nothing. Also, in order to be promoted and thereby reduce the chance of making mistakes, they almost always choose to do less or not to do. Such people are generally mediocre people. Even if they become high-ranking officials, they will not make a big difference. Therefore, the election of officials is really problematic.
In addition, in the officialRegarding the appointment of staff, Wang Anshi also felt inappropriate.
The imperial court has no appropriate, scientific and effective assessment method for the appointment of officials. It is far from enough to just pass the imperial examination to define whether the candidate is an official. Now, in order to prevent the concentration of power, the imperial court often mobilizes officials, making their term of office very short. As a result, there are many problems left over from history, and there is no suitable solution.
As mentioned above, Wang Anshi felt that the fundamental problem of the Song Dynasty was at the top level, and that the court officials were still not professional enough. If you want to reform officials, you need to carry out top-level design.
So, what is the core of this top-level design?
is specialization, that is, officials are evaluated in accordance with actual facts to complete the reform of the organizational line. There is another
, which is what Wang Anshi said about "cultivation".
Since the establishment of the Song Dynasty, the emperor has tried his best to dissolve the grass-roots social organizations, that is, what Wang Fuzhi said is "dissolve the world and rest." Then, the emperor has to rely on officials to do things for himself, pass on and implement his own ideas. . As a result, the bureaucratic system on which the emperor relied became more and more bloated. However, in order to balance income, they can only lower wages as much as possible, and officials cannot give up. So how can they not use their power to engage in corruption?
After the Song Dynasty, the bureaucracy was completely formed and opposed to the imperial power.
At this time, the imperial power wants to control the bureaucracy, but the bureaucracy wants to fight it with corruption and inaction. At that time, society no longer had the ability to organize. Therefore, once officials did not act, this huge machine would be difficult to operate, and it would naturally become a vicious circle.
Because of Wang Anshi's demand for reform and reform, it is violating the interests of certain vested interest groups. As soon as the "Emperor Renzong's Statement" was published, some people attacked Wang Anshi as being "outrageous". Some even said that he was going to disrupt the country. Due to too much social resistance, after the memorial was submitted, it did not attract the attention of Song Renzong, nor did it raise the interest of the ruling party, and Wang Anshi was not reused for this. However, his reform desire and extraordinary courage won a reputation among scholar-officials, attracted people's attention and increased his popularity, and made him a representative of the reformists.
Reference materials:
["Song History·Position Official Record One", "Tongkao·Professional Official Test IV", "Song History·Volume 327·Biography 86"】
