New Policies (Song dynasty)
The New Policies, also known as Xining Reforms, Xifeng Reforms or Wang Anshi Reforms, were a series of reforms initiated by the Northern Song dynasty politician Wang Anshi when he served as minister under Emperor Shenzong from 1069-1076. The policies were in force until the emperor's death, then repealed, then enacted again and were a focus of court politics until the end of the Northern Song. In some ways, it continued the policies of the aborted Qingli Reforms from two decades earlier.
Background
Economic context
Government statistics show that in 1034, 80 percent of the Song dynasty's population consisted of rural households. However because the state had given up ownership and distribution of land in the villages and deregulated the markets, the 11th century rural and urban economy saw a great deal of commercialization, privatization of land, and urbanization. Around 40–60 percent of the rural households were small farmers who possessed only 20 percent of cultivated land. They were unable to secure sufficient income to support their families and took out loans from landowners who possessed 80 percent of the land. The interest rate was very high: the government set the ceiling at 100 percent p.a. The beneficiaries, the wealthy landowners, were commonly called jianbing zhijia, which has been translated as plutocrats, engrossers, or exploiters and described as "magnates who preyed on the poor and usurped the fiscal prerogatives of the state."Wang Anshi's career
Wang Anshi was born on 8 December 1021, to a family of jinshi degree holders in Linchuan. He placed fourth in the palace exam and obtained a jinshi degree in 1042. He began his career in the Song bureaucracy as a secretary in the office of the assistant military commissioner of Huainan. He was then promoted to district magistrate of Yinxian, where he reorganized hydrological projects for irrigation and gave credits to the peasant. Later he was promoted to controller general of Shezhou. In 1060, he was sent to Kaifeng as assistant in the herd office and then prefect of Changzhou, commissioner for judificial affairs in Jiangnan East, assistant in the Financial Commission, and finally editor of imperial edicts.Wang's mother died and he observed a mourning period from 1063 to 1066. In 1067, he became governor of Jiangning.
During his time in the local administration, Wang Anshi gained an understanding of the difficulties experienced by local officials and the common people. In 1058, he sent a letter ten thousand characters long to Emperor Renzong of Song, in which he suggested reforms to the administration in order to solve financial and organizational problems. In the letter he blamed the downfall of previous dynasties on the refusal of their emperors to deviate from traditional patterns of rule. He criticized the imperial examination system for failing to create specialized workers. Wang believed that there should not be generalists but that people should specialize in their roles and not study extraneous teachings. His letter was ignored for ten years until Emperor Shenzong of Song succeeded the throne. The new emperor faced declining taxes and an increasingly heavy burden of taxation on commoners due to the development of large estates, whose owners managed to evade paying their share of taxes. This led him to seek advice from Wang in 1069. Wang was first appointed vice counsellor, a key position for general administration, and a year later was made chancellor.
Objective
The primary objectives of Wang Anshi's New Policies were to cut government expenditure and strengthen the military in the north. To do this, Wang advocated for policies intended to alleviate suffering among the peasantry and to prevent the consolidation of large land estates which would deprive small peasants of their livelihood. He called social elements that came between the people and the government jianbing, translated as "engrossers." By "engrossers" he meant people who monopolized land and wealth and made others their dependents in wealth and agriculture. Wang believed that suppressing jianbing was one of the most important goals. Included in the category of jianbing were owners of large estates, rural usurers, large urban businessmen, and speculators responsible for instability in the urban market. All of them had ties to bureaucrats and had representatives in the government.According to Wang, "good organization of finance was the duty of the government, and the organization of finance was nothing else than to fulfill public duties," and "The state should take the entire management of commerce, industry, and agriculture into its own hands, with a view to succoring the working classes and preventing them from being ground into the dust by the rich." Wang proposed that "to manage wealth the ruler should see public and private as a single whole." Wang believed that it was wealth that united the people and if wealth could not be administered properly, then even the lowliest men who did not possess political power would rise to take advantage of the situation, take control of the economy, monopolize it, and use it to advance their unlimited greed. Under such a situation, Wang considered any claim that the emperor had control of the people to be just words.
Implementation
Wang Anshi was promoted to vice counselor in 1069. He served as the sole chief councilor in 1071–1074 and 1075–1076. He introduced and promulgated a series of reforms, collectively known as the New Policies/New Laws. The reforms had three main components: 1) state finance and trade, 2) defense and social order, and 3) education and improving governance.Equal tax law
The equal tax law, also known as the square field law was a land registration project meant to reveal hidden land. Fields were divided into squares 1,000 paces in length on each side. The corners of the fields were marked by earth piles or trees. In the autumn, an official was dispatched to supervise the surveying of the land and to place the soil quality in one of five categories. This information was written in a ledger declared legally binding for the purposes of sale and purchase, and the taxation value assessed appropriately. The law was highly unpopular with land owners, who complained that it restricted their freedom of distribution and other purposes. Although the square field system was only implemented around the region of Kaifeng, the land surveyed made up 54 percent of known arable land in the Song dynasty. The project was discontinued in 1085. Emperor Huizong of Song tried to revive it but the implementation was too impractical and gave up after 1120.The system of taxation for mining products was a similar project to the equal tax law, except for regulating mining projects.