Wang Anshi

Wang Anshi (born 1021, Linchuan, Jiangxi province, China—died 1086, Jiangning [now Nanjing], Jiangsu province) was a Chinese poet and prose writer, best known as a governmental reformer who implemented his unconventional idealism through the “New Laws,” or “New Policies,” of 1069–76. The academic controversy sparked by his reforms continued for centuries.

Life

Wang emerged from a rising new group of southern bureaucrats with a strong utilitarian bent, who challenged their more conservative, large-landholding colleagues from the north. At age 21 Wang earned his jinshi (“advanced scholar”) degree in the civil service examinations, and for nearly two decades he served ably as a local administrator in various posts in the south.

After working as a local government official for nearly 20 years, Wang concluded that the unlimited annexation of land weakened the economy. In 1058 Wang submitted to the Song emperor Rensong his “Ten Thousand Word Memorial,” which contained rudiments of his later policies and political theories; no action was taken on his proposals, which were aimed at the bureaucracy—Wang asserted that more capable officials with skills suited for their duties should be trained and recruited. Wang entered the central government in 1060, but not until the succession of a new emperor, Shenzong, in 1067/68 did he achieve a powerful rank close to the throne and gain the trusting imperial ear.

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A Study of Poetry

With his appointment in 1069 as second privy councillor, Wang launched his multifaceted reform program, its cornerstone resting on fiscal policies. He held the view, unconventional by traditional Confucian theories, that, to expand economic growth, a sound state economy required not just measures of economy but also stimulation, whereby both the government and the people would benefit. Accordingly, he first created a fund for agricultural loans at interest to farmers, who were thereby spared the exorbitant demands of moneylenders. To fuel a dynamic money economy and to meet the demand created by expanded state finance, he also pumped more currency into the economy.

The two measures that drew particularly heavy fire from conservatives were a land survey to reassess property taxes more equitably and a system that made the government an active agent in trade. Officials were allowed to purchase supplies at the cheapest price and in the most convenient market, thus discontinuing the cumbersome tribute system used to supply the central government. Other areas of reform included the establishment of a village militia system for local policing and for the buildup of army reserves, the replacement of corvée (unpaid labour) with a hired service system financed by a graduated tax levied on all families, and the creation of both a directorate of weapons for armament development and a horse-breeding program to obviate importation of cavalry mounts. Wang also reorganized the Hanlin Academy (sometimes known as the National Academy), which trained expectant bureaucrats; emphasized professional courses in law, medicine, and military science; restructured the civil-service examinations around policy discussions and interpretation of the Five Classics, doing away with the previously required rote recitation of the classics and poetry composition; and, finally, brought government clerks under stricter supervision and provided incentives for promotion.

Increasing popular discontent with some reform measures and a disastrous famine strengthened the conservatives’ stand against Wang. His pride wounded, he bowed to pressures to resign in 1074, only to return the following year but with less political power and without imperial carte blanche. Because he was unable to win sufficiently wide cooperation from high-ranking officials and because of unscrupulous or inept men in the lower bureaucracy, Wang and his policies were doomed to eventual rebuff. This frustration, plus the death of his son, depressed Wang to the point that he retired in late 1076. In retirement he lived a simple, withdrawn life, continuing his literary endeavours and his scholarly pursuits, mostly in etymological study. The framework of the reforms remained intact until the emperor’s death in 1085/86, when, to Wang’s great dismay, a virulent antireform clique dismantled the system. Wang died in 1086. Subsequent decades of continued intense factional politics saw a weakened revival of the reforms between 1093 and 1125.

Legacy

Wanting to emphasize the practical application of the Confucian classics, Wang wrote original interpretations of several ancient works and instituted these as standard texts for the state examinations—moves that caused great consternation among conservatives. Friend and foe alike, however, did not deny Wang’s skill with the pen. Wang actively joined the poetry and prose reform movement led by Ouyang Xiu. For a long time, he attacked the Xikun style, then popular, for its formalistic tendency and argued that writings should be utilitarian. Wang wrote more than 1,500 poems in his lifetime, some of which, especially those composed later in his life (with an occasional Zen Buddhist flavour), have earned high critical acclaim and are still widely read. His prose, distinguished by its clarity, elegance, vigour, and depth, was much more remarkable and earned him fame as one of the “Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties.”

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Wang’s reform measures, of unprecedented scope in the imperial era, were idealistically directed—though not always with the desired results—toward the moral and material improvement of the people; but in the end they strengthened the power and finances of the state. In some measure because of Wang’s own personal and political shortcomings but mainly because of rabid opposition from conservatives, the reforms and Wang himself were with some exceptions denigrated until the 20th century.