Wang Anshi (Wang An-shih,1021-86) and the New Policies (1069-73)
Faced with the powerful Liao dynasty (907-1125) to the north, the Northern Song (Sung, 1127-1279) had to defend its northern borders. This required a) good government and b) plenty of money. Wang Anshi’s solution was to expand the economy, arguing that this would make the people better off and that the government would get correspondingly more in tax revenue paid on commercial transactions and in customs duties.
Wang introduced reforms including:
Low-interest government loans to farmers to reduce their debt burden. Less debt gave farmers a bit of financial headroom to keep on producing (instead of being made destitute and becoming a burden on society) and so pay their taxes. They might also have a chance to make improvements (and so produce more) if they were not constantly in fear of losing everything to their creditors.
An updating of tax registers to increase revenue and prevent corrupt officials from pocketing taxes. Population was rising but not all of these people were on the registers – if you weren’t on the register you were not liable for tax. Officials could profit from this by collecting taxes from everybody but only passing on the amount stipulated in the out-of-date registers, keeping the rest for themselves.
Taxes in kind were translated into money taxes. This encouraged trade because farmers needed to sell some of what they produced to get cash to pay their dues. Trade was also taxed so government revenue benefitted twice over.
Wang’s reforms were opposed by Sima Guang (Ssu-ma Kuang, 1019-86)
Both men were supported by loose groupings within the bureaucracy which competed for the emperor’s ear. These are often referred to as ‘factions’ in the secondary literature and it was factional politics that destroyed the reforms by turning the emperor against them and against Wang. Factional politics were conducted by means of writing memorials to the throne. These presented arguments for and against particular ideas, policies and people. The emperor did not have time to read every memorial that everyone wanted to present to him, and the people in charge of deciding what the emperor got to see were accordingly very important. This method of conducting politics is extremely valuable to historians because many of the memorials survive, preserving a record of the debates going on at court at any particular time.
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Naomi StandenHIS 233 Imperial China25 October 2018