Political Struggle and the Wang An-shih Economic Reforms
The Sung dynasty was experiencing a takeoff of economic growth, making it
the most productive economy thus far in the history of the world. Along with
this prosperity came financial and military strains. Sung government income
peaked in 1021, then declined into chronic revenue crisis; inflation and polari-
zation of wealth produced a sense of upheaval that had become acute by the
1060s. Wang An-shih (1021–1086) proposed radical reforms, including price
controls, new taxes aimed at the large landlords, and low-cost credit for small
farmers. His reforms were supported by the young emperor Shen Tsung during
his reign (1068–1085); Wang served as prime minister from 1069 to 1076,
during which time he reformed the exam system to include engineering and
science subjects instead of the literary classics. But there was considerable
opposition even under Emperor Shen Tsung, and in 1086 Ssu-ma Kuang
became prime minister in a new regime that undid the reforms.
The Neo-Confucian movement as a whole constituted one of three inter-
connected groups whose struggles made up the politics of the mid-Sung dy-
nasty. Despite doctrinal disagreements among themselves, the Ch’eng brothers
and their friends and teachers Chou Tun-I, Shao Yung, and Chang Tsai were
united in opposition to the economic reform movement. Ssu-ma Kuang (1019–
1086), himself a major scholar and historian, was the friend of both Shao Yung
and Chang Tsai and patron of the Ch’eng brothers; he was the most important
political leader of the anti-reform group.
In a second camp were followers of the reformer Wang An-shih. His
political and economic movement also had an intellectual side—not surprising
in a period when the examination system administered by scholars had become
the most important route to high office. Wang An-shih, himself a poet and
scholar, led a group of scholars in revising the Confucian classics to justify
state controls.
A third group comprised orthodox Confucians who defended literary and
textual scholarship against Neo-Confucian religiousness as well as against the
economic reformers. This orthodox faction also had its significant network: in
Figure 6.4 we see the chains around the notable scholars Fan Chung-yen (313)
and Ouyang Hsiu (314), as well as Hü Yuan (the orthodox teacher of the
Ch’eng brothers) and Sun Fu (315). In the earlier years of the century, they
had been the reforming faction within Sung politics (Liu, 1967). Wang An-shih,
a protégé of Ouyang Hsiu, carried the reform movement in a more radical
direction at a time when the older generation were pulling back, exalting
literary cultivation as a standard of gentility which they expected to provide
social leadership. Toward the latter part of the century, the leadership of the
conservative clique was taken over by a family of noted poets, headed by Su
Revolutions: Buddhist and Neo-Confucian China • 301