12. Wang Anshi, Sima Guang and Su Shi
Tang rule was greatly weakened by An Lushan's rebellion
(755- 762). After him several other regional commanders and bor-
der tribes rebelled against the central government, and local wars oc-
curred one after another. Many of the late Tang emperors trusted on-
ly their eunuchs, who practically controlled the government and the
army. Corruption and internal power struggle led to the cruel oppres-
sion of the people. Again, peasant uprisings broke out.
In 875 a man called Huang Chao and his followers started a
large-scale peasant uprising in Shandong. Huang had sat for the civil
service examination but failed to pass it. He denounced the crimes of
the Tang rulers in a declaration after he began to fight. His army
took city after city. From Shandong they entered Certral China, then
East China, and then South China. After a short rest there, they
turned north and fought in Hunan, Zhejiang, Anhui and Henan. In
880 they occupied Chang'an. The Tang emperor had fled to Sichuan.
Huang declared himself emperor of Daqi.
In 883 Huang had to leave Chang'an, for he was surrounded by
Tang troops and his own men were not united. After suffering many
defeats in Henan, he finally committed suicide in Shandong, where
he had started the uprising.
Zhu Wen, who had been a general under Huang Chao and later
surrendered to the Tang government, became very powerful in
Henan. He entered Chang'an in 907, put an end to the Tang dy-
nasty, and founded the Liang. This was the beginning of the period
of the Five Dynasties.
The Liang (907 - 923)was followed by the Tang(923 - 936),
Jin (936 - 946), Han (947 - 950) and Zhou (951 - 960). The capi-
tal of the Tang was Luoyang; that of the other four was Kaifeng---an
indication of the eastward movement of the political, economic and
cultural center of China.
These five dynasties ruled only North China. The south was di-
vided by nine states, and there was another state in Shanxi. These
were the Ten States. Many of them lasted longer than the five dynas-
ties put together.
In 960, Zhao Kuangyin, army commander of the Zhou, seized
power and founded the Song dynasty. From 963 to 979 the Song
conquered the ten states one by one and unified China.
Before this the Khitan tribe had become strong in the Northeast.
Shi Jingtang, founder of the Jin of the Five Dynasties, had given 16
prefectures in North China to the Khitan in exchange for their sup-
port in his attempt to seize power. Then the Khitan entered North
China, made Youzhou, now Beijing, one of their capitals, and called
their state Liao.
In the Northwest the Dangxiang tribe founded a state called
Western Xia, Liao and Western Xia often attacked Song areas and
were a constant threat to the Song.
The Song rulers studied the causes of the fall of the Tang and
came to the conclusion that military commanders of the Tang had
been too powerful and independent to be controlled by the emperors.
SO during the Song period the commanders were given only limited
power and lower positions than important civilian officials. Scholars
were more respected than warriors. The economy developed, culture
flourished, but national defence was weak.
North and east of the state of Liao was the area where the
N'tizhen tribes lived. At first the Liao rulers tried to control them.
Later, the N'tizhen grew stronger and stronger, and in 1125 they
conquered Liao and established a state called Jin. In 1126 the Jin
troops attacked Kaifeng, the capital of the Song, and took it. That
was the end of the Northern Song.
One of the sons of Huizong, the last emperor of the Northern
Song, was not captured by the Jin troops. He was made the emperor
of the Southern Song in 1127.
Wang Anshi (1021- 1086) was born into an ordinary landlord
family in Linchuan, Jiangxi. After passing the civil service examina-
tion, he was an official in local governments for many years. This ex-
perience gave him a good opportunity to understand the social ills and
the hardships and wishes of the ordinary people. In 1058 he wrote a
memorial to the emperor suggesting reform, but the emperor turned a
deaf ear to his proposals. Then a new emperor came to the throne.
He saw some of the problems of the country and decided to use the
famous Wang Anshi and empower him to carry out reform.
From 1069 Wang and a few other officials enforced new laws for
about 15 years. They aimed at encouraging agricultural production by
reducing the burdens of the common people and also by carrying out
projects helpful to the development of agriculture. At the same time,
the new laws limited the privileges of high-ranking officials and big
landlords, who naturally hated Wang's reform. The result of the re-
form was quite good: the economy grew find the revenue of the gov-
eminent increased. As it was opposed by powerful people, it was
stopped after the emperor who had favored it died. This was the
greatest social reform of the whole feudal period of our country.
Wang Anshi was also a poet and philosopher. Many of his views
were very progressive in his day. He said, for instance, that Heaven
had neither will nor feelings, and therefore could not react to man's
good or evil conduct, or favor or oppose anything man did. Heaven
and earth, he said, move and change of themselves and are indepen-
dent of man's will or feelings.
According to him, the universe is made up of the five elements
(metal, wood, water, fire and earth). These five elements are mov-
ing and changing because within each of them are two forces, two
materials, two qualities, etc. One is soft and the other is hard; one is
bright and the other is dark, one beautiful and the other ugly; one
good and the other evil, etc. This view is very similar to the modern
concept of the unity of opposites..
Wang knew that nature has its own laws, which cannot be
changed. It is possible for man to know the laws of nature, if man
observes and studies. One should look and listen before one can
think. He wrote a short essay with the title of "The Sad Story of
Zhong Yong." Zhong Yong is an unusual child who can read and
write before he is taught by anyone. His father often takes him to the
homes of rich or important people to show off his abilities, but ne-
glects his education. As a result, when he grows up, Zhong Yong is
not different from any other man. The story points out clearly that
one has to learn to acquire knowledge.
His best-known saying is: "The will of Heaven need not be
feared; ancestors need not be followed; and other people's words
need not be worried about."
Sima Qian of the Western Han dynasty was the first historian
who wrote a general history from the earliest times to his own day.
In the Northern Song period, a historian also called Sima wrote an-
other general history that covers the long period from the early War-
ring States Period to the end of the Five Dynasties. This great work
is Zi Zhi Tong Jian, or Mirror of History. Its author is Sima
Guang.
Sima Guang(1019- 1086) was born in Xiaxian, Shanxi. After
passing the civil service examination and becoming an official in the
central government, he made up his mind to compile a general history
which could be studied by emperors and ministers and would help
them to learn from history and rule with wisdom and foresight. He
chose the form of chronicle, in which important events that happened
in the same year are grouped together.
The whole work consists of 294 volumes. Its record of history
starts from the year 403 BC and stops at 959, so altogether the
events of 1,362 years are included. Its material comes from 17 au-
thorized historical works, and all kinds of unauthorized histories, bi-
ographies, and various collections of literary works.
Sima Guang and his three colleagues worked on it for 19 years.
Politically Sima Guang was very conservative. He was opposed to
Wang Anshi's reforms. When Wang was dismissed from the central
government, he was made the chief minister, and he stopped all the
new laws that Wang had started. But in compiling his great historical
work, he adopted a generally objective attitude. Just like Sima Qian's
Record of the Grand Historian, the Mirror of History was read and
studied almost by all government officials and scholars.
After Sima Guang some other historians also wrote general histo-
ries in the form of chronicle.
Su Shi(1037- 1101) was born in Meishan, Sichuan. His father
Su Xun and his younger brother Su Zhe were both well-known essay-
ists, and the three of them were among the "eight prose masters of
the Tang and Song periods." He passed the civil service examinations
at 21 and became a local official. When Wang Anshi was pushing his
reform, Su was in the capital. A conservative in his political views,
~ Su was opposed to Wang's reform, and for this reason he asked to be
sent away from the capital. He worked in Hangzhou, Xuzhou, and
other cities for a few years, and was once imprisoned by the re-
formists.
After Sima Guang began to lead the government and Wang
Anshi's reform was reversed, Su Shi was summoned to the capital
and assigned to various posts in the central government. But by this
time his views had changed. Having seen some of the advantages of
reform, he wrote memorials to the emperor saying that Wang's new
laws had certain good points and therefore should not be abolished al-
together. This made the conservatives in power dislike him, and send
him out of the capital. Later, the reformists won power again, and
took revenge on the conservatives. Su Shi could not escape his mis-
fortunes. He was more than once demoted and sent to Danzhou in
distant Hainan Island. He was finally pardoned by the new emperor
and allowed to return north. In the next year he died in Changzhou,
Jiangsu, when he was 64.
In the struggle between the reformists and the conservatives Su
Shi wavered and was liked by neither side. Traditional education
made him conservative in thinking, but his experience as a local offi-
cial helped him to understand some of the beneficial effects of reform.
This conflict led to his tragic fate.
In sharp contrast to his political disappointments, he had bril-
liant achievements in literature, and could be regarded as the most in-
fluential writer of the North Song period. He wrote over 4,000 po-
ems and over 300 lyrics in the form of cf, and many articles and es-
says. In his works force and elegance, grandeur and delicacy,
straightforwardness and subtlety, are admirably combined. People
said that his prose and poetry were natural like floating clouds and
flowing water, which go forward when they Should go forward, and
stop when they ought to stop.
His literary works reflect different aspects of his thinking.
There are poems showing his sympathy with the common working
people, his enjoyment of nature, his dissatisfaction with the political
situation, and his dreams of leading an unrestrained life free from the
tedious requirements of custom he had to observe as an official.
Traces of Coufucian, Buddhist and Taoist ideas can all be found in his
works.
Life today is no longer worth painting;
County officials knock at doors at night
To demand payment of taxes.
Li children with their hair tied like horns,
Blow onion leaves to meet their elders.
I wish to compare the West Lake to Xi Shi, like her
It is always beautiful, with light or heavy make-up.
The cool wind on the river produces sound caught by our ears,
and the bright moon in the mountains becomes color seen
by our eyes. We are always free to have them and enjoy them,
for there is no end to them. They are the Creator's
inexhaustible treasury, which you and I can share.
Su Shi's valuable contributions to the development of ci will be
discussed in a later chapter.