Do you know that my grandfather was entitled to be enshrined in the Imperial Ancestral Temple?

Chapter 31 The Common Problems of Scholars

Although the reform was a sensitive topic, the Song Dynasty as a whole still enjoyed a degree of freedom of speech.

Most scholars in the country actually supported the reform.

Otherwise, if the reform had failed back then, Fan Da Xiang Gong and others wouldn't have been able to escape unscathed so easily.

It was precisely because of the support of the majority of scholars in the country, coupled with the emperor's sense of guilt, that the conservative faction in the court dared not put too much pressure on Fan Da Xiang Gong and others.

Therefore, there was a lot of discussion about the reform among the people. Although it was a sensitive topic, it was not one that could not be discussed.

Upon hearing this, Ma Ping pondered for a moment and said, "I don't know much about other places, but the people on the border are indeed living in very hardship. If the court doesn't implement reforms, it will be difficult to change this situation."

"That's right. Many of the court's systems were suitable in the past, but now they have become deeply entrenched problems. It's truly regrettable that the officials in the court can't see this," Zhao Sheng said, shaking his head.

Wang You remained silent upon hearing this. The majority of scholars in the land supported this view because there were very few sons of officials among the scholars.

Most of them were ordinary people and some ordinary rich kids.

Although Fan Da Xiang Gong's new policies had some impact on them, the impact was minimal.

Those officials and their families were the ones who suffered the most.

To give a simple example, the most influential factors for scholars were the imperial examinations and the promotion of officials.

Previously, promotions for officials were entirely based on seniority; once someone reached a certain level of seniority, they could be promoted.

Of course, this is also closely related to the separation of official positions from duties in the imperial court.

As mentioned earlier, an official's seniority determines the benefits they receive.

However, the fact that officials can be promoted after reaching a certain age will undoubtedly increase the burden on the imperial court.

The salaries of officials in the Song Dynasty were the highest in history.

Moreover, the practice of granting official titles through hereditary privilege was rampant, resulting in the court supporting a large number of idle officials.

These idle officials do no work, yet they collect their salaries and even prevent others from getting promoted based on their seniority.

The new policy shifted the focus of promotions from seniority to performance evaluation.

However, this matter directly affected officials, not scholars who had not yet entered officialdom.

For scholars, the most important thing is to become an official first before considering promotion.

For scholars, the imperial examination system had a direct impact.

However, refining the imperial examination system did not mean reducing the number of people taking the imperial examinations to obtain official positions; rather, it meant making the requirements for obtaining official positions more stringent.

Although the difficulty has increased, there is another provision in the new policy: limiting the number of hereditary privilege positions and the promotion of hereditary officials.

From a human nature perspective, if you are unlucky, you can accept it as long as someone is even more unlucky than you.

However, this unfortunate person cannot be someone completely unrelated to oneself.

A person who is destitute will not feel comforted if he sees a beggar on the street, even if the beggar is more miserable than him.

However, if his relatives and friends are poorer than him, he will feel happy and may even join others in mocking and belittling them.

Scholars were certainly reluctant to increase the difficulty of the imperial examinations, but they hated even more those officials who relied on their family background for their official appointments.

Even after years of hard study, one may not necessarily pass the imperial examination and become an official.

Those who were less talented than him in every way could become officials directly when they reached a certain age because of their family background.

It was precisely because of this mentality, coupled with the fact that their own interests would be minimally harmed, that most scholars in the country supported the reform.

But these people may support you, but they won't support you forever.

To put it bluntly, it's about who you are and who you think about.

At this point, they were not yet beneficiaries, so they were naturally happy to see those beneficiaries suffer.

But once they pass the imperial examinations and become officials, they will likely be the first to stand up and oppose the reforms.

Wang You carefully studied the new laws formulated by Fan Da Xiangong and found them to be excellent, almost perfect.

It addresses various problems of the Song Dynasty, and if it can be implemented, the long-standing problems of the Song Dynasty can be resolved to some extent.

But it was precisely because he was too perfect that he failed.

Because in all the new laws, only those who suffer losses do not gain any benefits.

It can't be said that there was none; the imperial court was the biggest beneficiary.

The imperial court is the only beneficiary; others not only receive no benefit but also suffer losses. Who would be willing to accept that?

Later generations called Wang Anshi an idealist, but if you really think about it, wasn't Fan Zhongyan also an idealist?

They don't even understand such a simple principle as to win over some people and suppress others.

Was Shang Yang's reforms successful because of the support of the Qin ruler?

It's because the people benefited, and then a Wu Xun group emerged.

It thoroughly distinguished between civil officials and military generals, allowing the two to check and balance each other.

Before Shang Yang's reforms, there was actually no strict distinction between civil and military officials.

The military strategist was one of the Hundred Schools of Thought in ancient China.

At that time, the ideal was to be both a general and a prime minister. Whether one was a scholar or a military general, one should be able to fight on horseback and bring peace to the people on foot.

This way of thinking did not disappear even during the Han Dynasty.

The fundamental reason for the failure of the new policy was the self-indulgence of a group of morally upright people.

"Ziqian, what do you think?"

Wang You didn't want to say more, but Zhao Sheng wasn't willing to let him off the hook. Seeing that he didn't speak, he urged him to ask.

"What you said makes a lot of sense. You've said everything I could think of," Wang You said with a smile.

Zhao Sheng didn't think much of it and laughed loudly, "Haha, this also shows that we share the same ideals."

When the topic of reform came up, it was inevitable to discuss the various long-standing problems plaguing the imperial court.

The problem of redundancy is naturally the most pressing issue.

Of the three problems of redundancy, the most serious are redundancy in military personnel and redundancy in expenses.

The imperial court supported over a million soldiers, including nearly 800,000 imperial guards alone, which were considered local garrison troops, bringing the total strength to around 1.34 million.

The imperial court used a conscription system, and soldiers were all paid military pay.

Even if we assume that each soldier receives one tael of silver per month, the soldiers' pay alone would amount to more than one million taels per month, which would amount to nearly twenty million taels per year.

Soldiers' weapons and armor, warhorses and equipment—all of these cost money.

Moreover, given the current cost of living in the Song Dynasty, one tael of silver is certainly not enough for the soldiers' pay, and there are also a large number of military officers whose salaries are extremely high.

As a result, more than 70% of the annual fiscal revenue is spent on the military.

Is it because there are no natural defenses in the north that so many troops have been raised?

No, it was because of land annexation.

Severe land consolidation has left many people without land to cultivate, forcing them to become tenant farmers.

But when natural disasters occur, those landlords and gentry don't care about the lives of ordinary people.

Therefore, whenever there is a slightly larger natural disaster, rebellions will break out.

To prevent this from happening, the imperial court would incorporate the able-bodied men into the army whenever a natural disaster occurred.

The remaining elderly, weak, women, and children were no longer capable of rebelling.

The imperial court had considered reducing the number of troops, but there was nowhere to place them.

The land has been annexed and is now in the hands of a few.

If laid-off soldiers cannot be resettled, they will become a source of instability.

Even if the Song army was weak, these soldiers had still received some military training.

If troops are disarmed and there is no way to resettle them, the consequences are predictable.

However, listening to Zhao Sheng and Ma Ping's conversation, Wang You also discovered a very serious problem among ancient scholars.

That is, you can see the problem, but you don't know how to solve it.

Both men discussed the many long-standing problems within the imperial court, and Zhao Sheng even mentioned that the court was too harsh on the imperial clan and that they should be allowed to participate in the imperial examinations.

However, no solution was mentioned.

To put it nicely, they're just talking the talk; to put it bluntly, they're just being boastful.