(Thanks to yjj, three yellow teeth and two book friends for their monthly votes!)
The third year of Qingli was an extraordinary year for the Song Dynasty. First, there was a food crisis and a great famine in the second year of Qingli. The entire Song Dynasty fell into a crisis-ridden situation. Bandits and bandits were everywhere, and refugees and refugees were everywhere.
He made a decisive decision and sent Su Jin to act vigorously and resolutely, using Yangzhou Grain as a breakthrough to resolve the food shortage crisis. The New Year of the third year of Qingli will be a miserable year.
After the food crisis, Xia and Liao jointly put pressure on the Song Dynasty. The Liao people used force as a threat and wanted to take advantage of the fire to extort money. The negotiation team headed by Su Jinfubi came up with clever tricks to scare away the Liao people. Then Yuan Hao took advantage of
At the beginning of the peace talks, he wanted to use a big victory to add weight to the negotiation table, but Su Jin burned the army's food and fodder, retreated in defeat, and was forced to sign an unequal treaty.
The turbulent waves in the first half of the year did not overturn the big ship of the Song Dynasty. Although it was the result of joint efforts from top to bottom, several major events were inseparable from the participation of one person. That was a new star rising like a comet, a person in the eyes of the Song Dynasty.
Su Jin, an all-rounder in both civil and military affairs.
But all these things are incomparable to another thing that made the Song Dynasty talk about it and became a topic that is always quietly discussed in the streets, that is, the new coup d'etat initiated by Fan Zhongyan and others.[
Starting from the impeachment of Wang Juzheng, the deputy prime minister, Lu Yijian, who was seriously ill but controlled the government, was also impeached and dismissed, and died in depression; then Xia Song, the former northwest commander-in-chief and deputy envoy to the privy council, was also impeached and dismissed from office, and then several ordinary people were dismissed.
Officials who held important positions became the targets of the four remonstrance officials and were sacked.
In September, Ouyang Xiu, Han Qi, Fu Bi, Ouyang Xiu and others formally formulated ten policies for reform. Except for the military reform, which required Zhao Zhen's permission, the other nine policies focused on the administration of officials, enriching the country, and the rule of law, and proposed to depose Zhi.
Reform measures such as suppressing luck, promoting fine tribute, selecting officials, equalizing public land, favoring farmers and mulberry trees, favoring trust, emphasizing orders, reducing corvee, etc. clearly defined the goals and details of the reform, and promulgated them to the world with great vigor.
For a time, there was an uproar in the world, and everyone rushed to discuss the contents of the New Deal. They all had their own opinions, and those who agreed with it celebrated each other. If these nine articles could be implemented, the face of the court would definitely take on a new look, and the Song Dynasty would be able to strengthen the country and enrich the people. However, the opponents pointed out that
It is a curse from heaven and earth that once this reform measure is implemented, the first to suffer will be the many officials and dignitaries in office. Their vested interests will be greatly damaged, and their privileges will be greatly weakened from now on.
Take the clear and deposed article of the reform as an example, that is, a strict system for promotion and demotion of officials. Once the shortcomings of promoting and demoting officials regardless of work and rest, and regardless of political performance, and only based on seniority are changed, officials should not seek merit, but seek fault.
Following the rules and regulations, the style of work has changed. The reform proposes to assess political performance, promote those with great merit and obvious political achievements, and replace guilty and incompetent officials, so as to prevent mediocre people from being in a bad position; this article makes people wander.
The unscrupulous people in the officialdom escaped, and a large number of officials from various parts of the Song Dynasty were replaced and demoted. For a time, everyone mourned for themselves and could not live forever.
Take the equal public land as an example again. The public land, that is, the official land, is one of the fixed incomes for local officials in the Song Dynasty, but the distribution is often uneven. As a result of uneven supply, how can officials do their best according to the law? The reform proposed that the court balance the official income of the official land.
; Those who have not been given job fields should be given them according to their grades so that they have enough income to support themselves. Then, they can be supervised to be honest and honest; those who break the law can also be punished or removed from their posts, and
Those who occupy too much land for equalization will be taken back, and officials who violate the land equalization regulations and illegally occupy public property will be severely punished. As soon as this move comes out, there will be basically no officials who do not equalize the land, but there will be a lot of those who occupy more. This is actually a disguised form.
Take back the land equalization that the officials have been greedy for, and the officials will naturally accept it.
Let's take suppressing luck as an example. suppressing luck means restricting the ways for luck to become an official and be promoted. Every year, officials in the Song Dynasty had to recruit their own children to serve as Beijing officials. After twenty years, for an official with a bachelor's degree or above, the descendants of brothers from the same family would serve as Beijing officials. There were twenty of them. Entering the court one after another in this way not only increased national expenditures, but these dandy boys did not do serious business. They only knew how to protect each other and form cliques for personal gain. Therefore, the reform was for the sake of national political clarity and the reduction of financial expenditures. Limit the favors and privileges of high officials to prevent their children from taking up important positions in the court; in conjunction with the policy of fine tribute in Article 3, more talents can be selected for the Song Dynasty to take up important positions in the court.
These nine points are basically a replica of Su Jin's Ten Disadvantages of Policy. Everyone who has read Su Jindian's policy theory knows this. Some people use this to make a big fuss, saying that Fan Zhongyan and others plagiarized Su Jin's proposal, which is really unscholarly. Fan Zhongyan can endure the humiliation and bear the burden. Although he has these thoughts in his heart, for some reason, he is very similar to Su Jin, which makes him feel qgu. As for the culprit, Su Jin will certainly not be stupid enough to excuse him. I plagiarized his memorial.
In the first month of the implementation of the reform, with the strong support of Zhao Zhen, it was very powerful. One thing must be mentioned here. Zhang Dexiang, who took over as the foreign prime minister, refused to accept the limelight and actually wanted to exercise his powers as prime minister and vetoed the reform. He implemented several reform strategies and was immediately impeached by the four admonishing officials. Unfortunately, he was forced to step down after only four months of being prime minister.
The post of prime minister was vacant, but the best candidate could not be announced. What is surprising is that Du Yan, the Privy Councilor, favored Yan Shu to take over, which was surprising. However, Zhao Zhen, who had originally preferred Yan Shu as prime minister, hesitated for a long time. In the end, he accepted his request; what is even more shocking is that Yan Shu, who was determined to win the position of prime minister, refused to take up the position of prime minister.
A series of accidents turned the officialdom of the capital into a mess. No one could guess what was going on, but everyone involved knew it. Fan Zhongyan revealed the secret when discussing the matter privately with Han Qi and others: "Du Yan and Yan Shu knew clearly that Yan Shu did not agree with the reform proposal and enlisted him to fight against us. As for Yan Sansi's unwillingness to take over, it was also because he was unwilling to stand at the forefront of the storm and sing against us in extraordinary times; as for the emperor's We don’t have to guess about the mind, and the holy will is beyond our ability to fathom.”
If Su Jin heard this, he would definitely tell them. The Holy Will is naturally unpredictable, but in this matter, it is very obvious. The emperor obviously does not want Yan Shu to become the target of public criticism, and keeps Yan Shu in the dark. If something happens in the future, , Yan Shu can come out to turn the tide; and all this reveals that the emperor's will to reform is not firm, and he uses people to reform but has backup options. To put it harshly, this is called double-dealing, and to put it nicely, this is the way of conspiracy. road.
But in the end, Yan Shu was appointed prime minister in October, but Zhao Zhen added a condition. Regarding the reform, the prime minister had to intervene and entrusted the deputy prime minister and deputy privy envoy Fan Zhongyan with full authority to take charge. This completely severed the two factions. The possibility of direct confrontation is not unwise.
While Su Jin was making money intensively, the reform was also in full swing. From the capital to the localities, winter thunder resounded throughout the Song Dynasty. In the eyes of some people, the winter of the third year of Qingli was very cold, bone-chillingly cold.
However, reform is easy, and there is nothing difficult in the world. As the saying goes, old habits die hard. It is difficult for a person to change his own habits, let alone the long-standing shortcomings of a country over the past century.
In the Song Dynasty, nearly a hundred officials at the three levels of prefectures and counties were dismissed in a few months. Except for a few who considered themselves unlucky, most of them had backers and backgrounds. As long as there are many people who can sit in official posts at the prefecture level, there are more
There are some in both the court and the court
Background: When beating a dog, it depends on the owner. How can the owners just sit back and watch when a group of dogs are being beaten? What’s more, the reformers who do not know what is good or bad do not shy away from it. One by one, they have become old angry youths. With the support of Zhao Zhen, they will treat everyone equally.
.
This unstrategic approach soon aroused opposition. When the first snow of winter fell in early November, when Su Jinzheng took Yan Biyun and others back to Beijing to sell his Baoshan charcoal cakes and briquettes, Zhongzheng in the capital
A movement is quietly brewing.
The weather was particularly cold after the snow. On the sixth day of November, after the morning court session at the palace, in the large square outside the Yide Gate of the palace city, hundreds of thinly dressed people, old and young, appeared out of nowhere. These people collectively knelt down.
In front of Yide Gate, Yide Gate was blocked tightly, and all the officials of the lower court, big and small, were blocked inside the gate so that they could not leave the palace.
Most of the people kneeling are familiar faces, especially to Fan Zhongyan, Han Qi, Fubi and others. These people are the most familiar. Not only are their faces familiar, some of them even know their names; they are from the prefectures and counties that have been deposed.
The officials, for some unknown reason, gathered collectively outside the palace gate and knelt in the ice and snow.