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Chapter 106 How to Make a Country Rich
  After Su Chen finished talking about the failure of Wang Anshi's reform, some historical figures from the later dynasties of the Northern Song Dynasty expressed their views.

Some people have positive comments about Wang Anshi's reform, some have negative comments, and even some have neutral attitudes. There are different opinions.

After Wang Anshi was silent for a moment, he cheered up again. He would not be knocked down by setbacks.

Since it is now known that the reform failed, it means that there must be something wrong with the reform.

As long as you know the problem exists, you can find a way to solve it.

Wang Anshi: Anchor, I would like to ask, what is the reason for the failure of the reform?
  This is the question he wants to know most. Only by knowing the cause can we prescribe the right medicine.

Su Chen was silent for a moment after hearing this. There were many reasons for the failure of the reform, and it was hard to explain clearly at the moment.

In order to let the ancients of various dynasties, especially the ancients of the Song Shenzong period, clearly and intuitively understand Wang Anshi's reform, Su Chen planned to briefly explain the causes and consequences of Wang Anshi's reform.

"Many people will be confused just by talking about the root causes of the failure of the reform. The anchor will explain it from beginning to end so that everyone can have a clear understanding of Wang Anshi's reform."

Wang Anshi: That's fine. It's just a good time for me to see how future generations view the reform.

"First of all, let's talk about why Wang Anshi wanted to reform. The background of the reform was that the Northern Song Dynasty was facing the crisis of three redundancies and the problem of poverty and weakness."

"The three redundancies refer to redundant officials, redundant soldiers, and redundant expenses."

"After the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, in order to avoid the separatist situation of vassal towns in the late Tang Dynasty, Zhao and Song Dynasties knew that power could not be too concentrated, so they established a layer-by-layer bureaucracy."

"To put it simply, a job that could be done by one person in the past now requires several people to do it due to decentralization, which has led to a cumbersome bureaucracy."

"In just a few decades, the number of serving officials has increased to more than 20,000. This is a problem of redundant officials."

"In order to ease social conflicts and resist the invasion of Liao and Xia, the Northern Song Dynasty recruited wandering farmers as the Forbidden Army, bringing the number of the army to 1.2 million, which was six times more than the 200,000 people Zhao Kuangyin founded. This is the problem of redundant troops.”

"Redundant officials and redundant soldiers brought a heavy financial burden to the Northern Song Dynasty. With so many officials, the annual salary expenditure was a huge amount."

"Of course, military expenditures are even more terrifying, reaching 48 million taels of silver each year, accounting for 70% of the annual fiscal revenue. This is a problem of redundancy."

Liu Che: Hiss! The annual military expenditure is 48 million taels of silver. When will I be able to fight such a wealthy war?

Cao Cao: I’m so angry! With so many troops and rich financial resources, he still cannot defeat the enemy. If he had such military and financial resources, he would have unified the world long ago.

Li Shimin: With so much military expenditure in the Northern Song Dynasty, it could not even defeat the Liao and Xia Dynasties. What a waste. If my Tang Dynasty had so much money, I would have wiped out the world long ago.

Li Longji: The Northern Song Dynasty was really weird. It had many officials, soldiers, and fiscal revenue, but it could still be bullied by two small foreign countries.

"The three-redundancy problem caused a financial crisis for the Northern Song Dynasty. To put it simply, it was out of money. In order to make money, Zhao Song used all kinds of means to collect taxes and increase taxes, which made the lives of the people miserable. When they were desperate, they all revolted against the Northern Song Dynasty. , making the rule of the Northern Song Dynasty weaker and weaker."

"Furthermore, in foreign wars such as between the Song Army and the Western Xia and Liao Kingdoms, they often lost more than they won, and were forced to pay large amounts of gold and silver in compensation every year, which made the court's finances more difficult, thus forming a vicious cycle and making the Northern Song Dynasty even more impoverished and weak. ."     Song Shenzong Zhao Xu had complicated eyes. It was precisely because the Song Dynasty was poor and weak that he so firmly supported Wang Anshi's reforms to become stronger.

When he first came to the throne, he hoped to make a difference and change the current situation of poverty and weakness in the Song Dynasty, and finally decided to use Wang Anshi to assist him in realizing his ideal of strengthening the army and enriching the country.

Unfortunately, the reform ultimately failed.

But now there is a turning point. He hopes to hear from the anchor why the reform failed, so that he can know where the problem lies.

"Wang Anshi's reform is mainly carried out from three aspects, economic aspect, military aspect, and employment aspect. The anchor will give you a brief introduction."

"There are six economic reforms, namely, the Green Crops Law, the Labor Exemption Law, the Farmland Equalization Tax Law, the Farmland Water Conservancy Law, the Market Change Law, and the All-Transportation Law."

"The Green Crop Law: At that time, the interest rate on private loans in the Northern Song Dynasty was very high. The Green Crop Law suppressed the prevalence of usury. During the years of famine or lean times, the court funded low-interest loans to farmers, which alleviated the farmers' urgent needs."

"Legal Service Exemption Law: Before the Reform, service was performed on a rotating basis per household. After the Reform, it was borne by people hired by the court. Households or bureaucratic landlords who did not want to serve could be exempted from service by paying a certain amount of money."

"Fangtian Equalization Tax Law: Orders the country to clear land, verify land owners, and divide the land into five grades according to the quality of the soil, as the basis for collecting land taxes. After the promulgation of this law, it severely cracked down on the behavior of powerful landowners who concealed their property and evaded taxes. , in addition, it also alleviates the situation of thalassemia and heavy taxes in some areas.”

"Farmland Water Conservancy Law: Encourage land reclamation and construction of water conservancy projects. The cost of construction of water conservancy projects shall be funded by local households according to their wealth levels. Low-interest loans may also be obtained from state and county governments."

"Market Trade Law: Set up a trade office in Tokyo, pay for unsalable goods, and sell them when the market is in short supply. This law broke the monopoly of big businessmen on the market and played an important role in maintaining price stability."

"Uniform transportation method: The shipping envoys responsible for purchasing products from various places and transporting the products back to the capital are required to uniformly purchase and transport them in accordance with the principle of "moving the expensive to the cheap, using the people and the far away". This can not only save the cost of the court, but also Prevent big businessmen from driving up prices."

Wang Anshi looked quite proud. These methods of enriching the country were proposed by him based on the current predicament of the Song Dynasty. As long as they are fully implemented, the Song Dynasty will surely be rich and the national treasury will be filled.

But then he looked a little disappointed. He didn't understand why such a good way to enrich the country failed.
  He was puzzled and couldn't figure it out.

Li Shimin: On the surface, these six measures can indeed increase the country's wealth, but this is only when they are fully implemented.

In order to make the Tang Dynasty rich and powerful, he also promulgated some policies one after another, and he was well aware of the twists and turns involved.

No matter how well a policy is formulated, it is useless if it is not implemented in place.

It can be seen from the failed outcome of Wang Anshi's reform that there must be someone who was acting in a disobedient and ineffective manner, and failed to implement the reform in place, which was why the reform was abandoned halfway.

Although Wang Anshi's six-point method of enriching the country was good, he saw the problem at a glance, which was that it harmed the interests of many powerful landlords.

If it is not implemented forcefully with an iron fist, I am afraid it will be opposed by many powerful landowners.

He speculated that one of the reasons for the failure of Wang Anshi's reform must be the strong opposition from interest groups.

(End of this chapter)