Do you know the long song of laughter?

Chapter 253: Teaching Ao Xianggong a lesson
Li An felt that Sima Guang's evaluation of Wang Anshi was the most pertinent.

Wang Anshi is neither corrupt nor power-hungry, and has no selfish motives at all.

However, he was too stubborn about the reform and had even developed a paranoid mentality.

In the end, when Wang Anshi retired and returned to his hometown, what he saw and heard along the way was the people's dissatisfaction and resentment against the reform, and he died of depression and regret.

These thoughts flashed through Li An's mind, and Li An didn't think much about it and said with a smile: "Those are just some superficial opinions of mine, which made Brother Jiefu laugh."

"Don't worry, Ziqian. Today's reform is not a scourge. There is no harm in talking about it. I have written to the officials many times, stating the pros and cons, and petitioning the officials to carry out reforms. Isn't it okay?" Wang Anshi said.

He could feel from Li An's tone that Li An was reluctant to talk about the reform.

Wang Anshi felt that the reason why Li An was like this was because he was worried that if it was leaked out, he would be targeted by the conservative faction.

After the failure of the New Deal, the reformists were indeed suppressed by the conservatives.

At that time, everyone regarded the words New Deal and Reform as scourges and did not dare to discuss them more.

The more Wang Anshi listened, the brighter his eyes became. He always thought that changes in the sky were not enough to fear, ancestors were not enough to follow the law, and people's words were not enough to show sympathy.

However, this situation has improved since Han Zhang became the Grand Prime Minister.

In recent years, the reformists have been repeatedly suppressed by the conservatives, and there are not many people who still insist on reforming.

In his view, if you want to implement reforms, although official support is important, you also need many like-minded officials.

Although imperial power was supreme in ancient times, in fact, except for the first few generations of emperors, the imperial power in later generations has been gradually restricted by ministers.

But it's mostly just because the reform affects their interests.

Hai Wenren is very accurate in judging people, and those who can be praised by him will basically be included in the gold list.

If some of Ang Lee's views on reform can be recognized by him, he will also have a good helper when Ang Lee is named to the gold list.

Wang Anshi learned a lot of experience from the failure of Xianggong Fan's New Deal.

At the time of Grand Xianggong Fan, although some people supported him. However, compared with the old school, it still seems weak.

Among those conservatives, some may be just stubborn and conservative, while others may feel that reform will cause greater chaos.

Li An always feels like laughing when he hears Mr. Ao saying that others are stubborn.

As the saying goes, you can never wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep.

Li An is young and not a member of the court, so it is normal for him to not understand this.

Many laws were enacted in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China and were applicable to the circumstances at that time. Now that so much time has passed, many disadvantages will naturally arise. The purpose of the reform is to formulate laws that suit the current situation, eliminate these shortcomings, and achieve the goal of enriching the country and strengthening the army. "

Li An's words are undoubtedly very consistent with his thoughts.

Seeing what Wang Anshi said, Li An knew that it would be impossible not to talk about it. He pondered for a while and said: "In my opinion, any law should not be static, but should be adapted to the changing circumstances.

On the one hand, I really wanted to listen to Li An's remarks this time, and on the other hand, I also wanted to test him.

"What Zi Qian said is exactly what I think. However, most of the people in the court are stubborn and conservative, and believe that the laws of the ancestors cannot be changed lightly. How do you think we can change the minds of these people?" Wang Anshi asked.

But when faced with Wang Anshi's question, he really didn't know how to answer it.

But most people feel that the laws of their ancestors cannot be changed.

And what they restrict the emperor is that the so-called ancestral laws cannot be changed lightly.

The founding emperors all wanted the empire they built to last for generations to come, and were worried that future emperors would become cowardly kings, so they set various regulations.

However, the more they set, the greater the restrictions on future emperors.

No matter how good the regulations are, there will inevitably be loopholes. These ministers exploit loopholes and naturally do not want the emperor to close them.

It is not easy for Wang Anshi to change the minds of those people.

"Brother Jiefu is really making things difficult for me. After all, I am still young and have little experience. There is nothing I can do about it at the moment." Li An shook his head.

Wang Anshi was not disappointed with this, but took the initiative to tell Li An some of the reform measures he had thought of.

Li An only had a brief understanding of Wang Anshi's reforms in history. Now listening to Wang Anshi's story, he has to say that his reform measures are all good.

But some are too idealistic. Take the horse protection method as an example. Because the Song Dynasty was blocked by the Liao Kingdom and Xixia, war horses could still be obtained through the Western Regions and the Ancient Tea Horse Road.

However, in the battle between Song and Xia, Lingzhou City leading to the Western Regions was also lost, and the road to the Western Regions was completely cut off.

The law of horse preservation is to let people in some areas help raise horses.

The government distributes horses or the government gives money to the people to buy them themselves. Each household has one horse. If the conditions are good, they can keep two horses.

Horse farmers can enjoy some tax exemptions.

This measure seems to be beneficial to both the court and the people.

After all, people can reduce taxes by feeding horses, and the court can greatly reduce expenses and unnecessary personnel.

But the pitfall of this thing is that if something goes wrong with the horse, the people will have to pay compensation according to the price.

Moreover, war horses don't just need to eat grass, they also have to eat refined grains and salt.

The government will not provide these, but will be provided by the people themselves. Of course, the taxes reduced and reduced by the court can be fully deducted, and there is still some leftover.

However, in ancient times, people relied on the sky for food. Once any natural disaster occurred and food production was reduced, the people themselves would not be able to survive, and there would be no food to feed horses.

Local officials will not care about this for the sake of their own political achievements. As long as something goes wrong with the horse, the people will have to foot the bill.

This policy has made the people suffer.

However, Wang Anshi finally learned the lesson from the failure of Xianggong Fan’s New Deal.

He did not attack the army and officials. The reason why Fan Daxiangong failed so quickly in the New Deal was because he wanted to streamline officials.

He also wanted to limit the number of people admitted to the imperial examination, and also restricted Yin Feng, and even the army was not spared.

Naturally, the civil and military officials were unhappy and objected one after another. The officials could not withstand the pressure and had no choice but to call it a halt.

Wang Anshi learned his lesson and did not attack the official system. The army came up with a method to protect the horses, and also implemented a method to protect the armor.

Simply put, the so-called Baojia Law allows rural people to form militias to stabilize local security.

The selected people are all young and strong and receive military training, so that the number of local armies can be reduced.

Moreover, when the regular army recruits soldiers, these young men are good candidates.

However, Wang Anshi's land equalization tax law touched a larger group than the official system - the landlords.

Some people may think that the landowners and gentry are bigger than the official system and are they so difficult to offend?
To a certain extent, landlords and gentry are actually more difficult to offend than officials.

As the saying goes, imperial power does not go to the countryside.

In ancient times, imperial decrees could only be issued to counties, and the lower towns had to be governed by local squires.

That may not be specific enough.

Generally speaking, when the county magistrate takes office, he will invite the local gentry to dinner.

why.

Because if the county magistrate wants to manage the place well, he must have the cooperation of the local gentry.

Things like tax collection, local security, and even some cases in the countryside were handled by the squires.

Officials were polite to the gentry, and the gentry also gave them face, such as building bridges and roads, and so on, and the officials' achievements came.

If the squire is dissatisfied, he won't even be able to collect taxes.

In ancient times, it was common to hide farmland to evade taxes. Landlords and gentry might pay only a few acres of tax on hundreds of acres of farmland.

Most taxes were borne by ordinary people and small landowners.

Ordinary people and small landowners occupy only a few fields in a county, or are they the worst fields? How much tax can they pay?
At this time, we have to rely on the help of the landlords and squires.

These people also know not to go too far, and every time they pay taxes, they will come up with some to fill the holes.

The premise is that the officials give face, otherwise there is nothing they can do if they don't hand over the officials.

After all, many of these officials are landlords and squires in their own families. Even if they knew that local landlords and squires were hiding their fields to evade taxes, they would not dare to expose them.

Firstly, this is not good for them. Secondly, once they do this, they will offend the landlords and gentry all over the world.

The square field equalization tax is to re-measure the land in the world and collect taxes according to the land.

After the implementation of this policy, more than 20,000 yuan of tax-evacuated land was found in one county alone, which is simply shocking and appalling.

It was precisely because Wang Anshi acted in the interests of all landlords and gentry that he paved the way for the failure of his reform.

However, not all Wang Anshi's measures have drawbacks. For example, the Art of War effectively solved the problem of the Song Dynasty's soldiers not knowing the generals and the generals not knowing the soldiers.

The farmland water conservancy law is also a good policy that is beneficial and harmless.

After listening, Li An said some good words and expressed his affirmation of Wang Anshi's policy, and then reminded: "Brother Jiefu, I think no matter how good the policy is, it still depends on the effect after implementation. You can first choose a place to try it out. What's the point? Shortcomings can be corrected in time.”

He still admires people like Wang Anshi.

If his current reminder can make Wang Anshi realize some problems earlier, even if the reform fails in the end, the consequences will not be entirely borne by the people.

The prosperity of the people will be miserable, and the destruction of the people will be miserable.

This sentence is most vividly reflected in Wang Anshi's reform.

Although the starting point of his reform was good, it ended up being a mess.

But it is ordinary people who bear the consequences.

Li An is not a noble person, but he wants to do things within his ability.

Wang Anshi's eyes lit up when he heard this. Although he was very confident in his own measures, Li An's method inspired him a lot.

If a place is chosen for trial implementation, officials will definitely support it after seeing the results.

And many people who have lost confidence in the reform will regain their confidence and support him.

(End of this chapter)