History of The Song Dynasty - Partisans and Factions, Reformers and Conservatives

Partisans and Factions, Reformers and Conservatives

Further information: Society of the Song Dynasty: Political partisanship and reform

After students passed the often difficult, bureaucratic, and heavily demanding Imperial Exams, as they became officials, they did not always see eye to eye with others that had passed the same examination. Even though they were fully-fledged graduates ready for government service, there was always the factor of competition with other officials. Promotion to a higher post, higher salary, additional honors, and selection for choice assignment responsibilities were often uncertain, as young new officials often needed higher-ranking officials to recommend them for service. Once an official would rise to the upper echelons of central administration based in the capital, they would often compete with others over influence of the emperor's official adoption of state policies. Officials with different opinions on how to approach administrative affairs often sought out other officials for support, leading to pacts of rivaling officials lining up political allies at court to sway the emperor against the faction they disagreed with.

Factional strife at court first became apparent during the 1040s, with a new state reform initiated by Fan Zhongyan (989–1052). Fan was a capable military leader (with successful battles in his record against the Tanguts of Xi-Xia) but as a minister of state he was known as an idealist, once saying that a well-minded official should be one that was "first in worrying about the world's troubles and last in enjoying its pleasures". When Fan rose to the seat of chancellor, there was a growing opposition to him within the older and more conservative crowd. They disliked his pushing for reforms for the recruitment system, higher pay for minor local officials to discourage against corruption, and wider sponsorship programs to ensure that officials were drafted more on the basis of their intellect and character. However, his Qingli Reforms were cancelled within a year's time (with Fan replaced as chancellor), since many older officials halfway through their careers were not keen on making changes that could affect their comfortably set positions.

After Fan Zhongyan, there was Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1086). The new nineteen-year-old Emperor Shenzong (r. 1067–1085) had an instant liking of Wang Anshi when he submitted a long memorial to the throne that criticized the practices of state schools and the examination system itself. With Wang as his new chancellor, he quickly implemented Wang's New Policies, which evoked some heated reaction from the conservative base. Along with the Baojia system of a community-based law enforcement, the New Policies included:

• Low-cost loans for farmers and replaced the labor service with a tax instead, hoping this would ultimately help the workings of the entire economy and state (as he directly linked state income to the level of prosperity of rural peasants who owned farms, produced goods for the market, and paid the land tax). These government loans replaced the system of landlords offering their tenants private loans, which was prohibited under the new laws of Wang's reforms.
• Government monopolies on tea, salt, and wine in order to raise state revenues (although this would now limit the merchant class).
• Instituting a more up-to-date land survey system in order to properly assess the land tax.
• Introduction of a local militia in order to lessen the budget of expenses paid for upholding the official standing army, which had grown dramatically to roughly 1 million soldiers by 1022.
• The creation of a new government bureau in 1073 called the Directorate of Weapons, which supervised the manufacture of armaments and ensured quality control.
• Introduction of the Finance Planning Commission, created in mind to speed up the reform process so that dissident Conservatives would have less time to react and oppose reforms.
• The poetry requirement of the civil service examination (introduced during the earlier Tang Dynasty) was scrapped in order to seek out men with more practical experience and knowledge.

In addition, Wang Anshi had his own commentaries on Confucian classics made into a standard and required reading for students hoping to pass the state examinations. This and other reforms of Wang's were too much for some officials to bear idly, as there were many administrative disagreements, along with many personal interests at stake. In any case, the rising conservative faction against the reformer Wang Anshi branded him as an inferior-intellect who was not up to par with their principles of governance (likewise, the reformers branded conservatives in the same labeled fashion). The conservatives criticized Wang's reforms as a means of curbing the influence of landholding families by diminishing their private wealth in favor of self-sufficient communal groups. The conservatives argued that the wealth of the landholding class should not be purposefully diminished by state programs, since the land holding class was the essential socio-economic group that produced China's scholar-officials, managers, merchants, and landlords.

Reminded of the earlier Fan Zhongyan, Wang was not about to allow ministers who opposed his reforms to have sway at court, and with his prowess (and perceived arrogance) was known as 'the bullheaded premier'. He gathered to his side ministers who were loyal to his policies and cause, an elite social coalition known as the New Policies Group (新法, Xin Fa). He had many able and powerful supporters, such as the scientist and statesman Shen Kuo. Ministers of state who were seen as obstructive to the implementation of Wang's reforms were not all dismissed from the capital to other places (since the emperor needed some critical feedback), but many were. A more extreme example would be "obstructionist" officials sent far to the south to administer regions that were largely tropical, keeping in mind that northern Chinese were often susceptible to malaria found in the deep south of China. Even the celebrated poet and government official Su Shi was persecuted in 1079 when he was arrested and forced into five weeks of interrogation. Finally, he confessed under guarded watch that he had slandered the emperor in his poems. One of them read:

	An old man of seventy, sickle at his waist, Feels guilty the spring mountain bamboo and bracken are sweet. It's not that the music of Shao has made him lose his sense of taste. It's just that he's eaten his food for three months without salt.
Su Shi

This poem can be interpreted as criticizing the failure of the salt monopoly established by Wang Anshi, embodied in the persona of a hard-working old man who was cruelly denied his means to flavor his food, with the severity of the laws and the only salt available being charged at rates that were too expensive. After his confession, Su Shi was found guilty in court, and was summarily exiled to Hubei Province. More than thirty of his associates were also given minor punishments for not reporting his slanderous poems to authorities before they were widely circulated to the educated public.

Emperor Shenzong died in 1085, an abrupt death since he was in his mid 30s. His successor Emperor Zhezong of Song was only ten years old when he ascended to the throne, so his powerful grandmother served as regent over him. She disliked Wang's reforms from the beginning, and sought to appoint more Conservative officials at court who would agree to oppose the Reformists. Her greatest political ally was Sima Guang (1019–1086), who was made the next Chancellor. Undoing what Wang had implemented, Sima dismissed the New Policies, and forced the same treatment upon Reformers that Wang had earlier meted out to his opponents: dismissal to lower or frontier posts of governance, or even exile. However, there was still mounted opposition to Sima Guang, as many had favored some of the New Policies, including the substitution of tax instead of forced labor service to the state. Sure enough, when Emperor Zhezong's grandmother died in 1093, Zhezong was quick to sponsor the Reformists like his predecessor Shenzong had done. The Conservatives once more were ousted from political dominance at court. When Zhezong suddenly died in his twenties, his younger brother Emperor Huizong of Song (r. 1100–1125) succeeded him, and also supported the Reformers at court. Huizong banned the writing of Sima Guang and his lackeys while elevating Wang Anshi to near revered status, having a statue of Wang erected in a Confucian temple alongside a statue of Mencius. To further this image of Wang as a great and honorable statesman, printed and painted pictures of him were circulated throughout the country. Yet this cycle of revenge and partisanship continued after Zhezong and Huizong, as Reformers and Conservatives continued their infighting. Huizong's successor, Emperor Gaozong of Song, abolished once more the New Policies, and favored ministers of the Conservative faction at court.