No war in the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 17 Sir, times have changed

What do I think?
Zeng Gong and Wang Anshi both looked at Su Ze.

Su Ze also had a headache.

"Brother Jiefu, you are talking about the three redundancies: redundant officials, redundant soldiers, and redundant expenses."

Wang Anshi clapped his hands and said:
"Three Redundancies, Brother Su is really talented, this is a great summary of the Three Redundancies!"

Su Ze then remembered that the history textbooks talked about the three redundancies in the Northern Song Dynasty. In fact, this term was not proposed until the Ming Dynasty. Although today's scholars have also criticized it, they have never put forward the term "three redundancies".

Well, since I even copied Fan Zhongyan’s famous quotes, it doesn’t matter.

Su Ze said:
“I think these are not problems.”

Wang Anshi and Zeng Gong looked at each other, pretending to be eager to learn, and said:
"Appreciate further details."

Su Ze said:

"Let's talk about the redundant army first. Our army is far superior to that of the previous dynasty, but there are reasons for this."

"The military systems of the Han and Tang dynasties included conscripted soldiers, government soldiers, and hereditary soldiers, but ultimately, they were all conscripted soldiers."

"Although our dynasty also recruits soldiers, it is completely different from the recruitment of soldiers in the Han and Tang dynasties."

Wang Anshi and Zeng Gong actually did not have in-depth research on military affairs. It was the first time they heard Su Ze say this. They both found it fresh and listened to Su Ze's explanation carefully.

Su Ze said:

"During the Han and Tang dynasties, the recruits were all from good families. These good families brought their own weapons and horses with them. To put it bluntly, they were the sons of powerful and aristocratic families, bringing their own troops to seek a career in the army. Wars were mainly fought with these soldiers."

"I said that in essence, they were both recruiting soldiers, but the Tang Dynasty's military system used land grants to recruit soldiers, while the Han Dynasty's military system used official titles and nobility to recruit soldiers."

"As for the forcibly recruited soldiers, they were just a means of persuasion."

Wang Anshi and Zeng Gong nodded. After Su Ze said this, it seemed to be true.

The armies of the Han and Tang dynasties often had strong combat effectiveness with only a few thousand people, and tens of thousands of people could pursue the enemy to the north. At that time, those who could provide their own weapons and fight were already elite.

The aristocratic families in the Han and Tang dynasties were both civil and military, and the boundaries between the civil and military were not so clear.

Su Ze said:

"It's not like that when we recruit soldiers in our dynasty."

"Taizu gathered his troops in Bianjing because he had learned from the lessons of the Five Dynasties and wanted to prevent the recurrence of the rebellious military situation of the Five Dynasties."

"To this day, there are certainly capable warriors among the Imperial Guards, but the current Imperial Guards have absorbed a large number of refugees, bad people, and rural wanderers. These people are redundant soldiers. But what will happen if these redundant soldiers are dismissed?"

Wang Anshi and Zeng Gong stopped talking.

Su Ze sighed and said:
"Everyone says I'm a redundant official, but they don't realize that times have changed."

Wang Anshi and Zeng Gong humbly sought advice and asked:

"Please teach me, Mr. Su."

Su Ze said:

"In the Han and Tang dynasties, a city with a population of 50,000 was considered large. In the countryside, however, the aristocratic families were everywhere. When a county magistrate was in office, he could collect taxes and assign corvée labor as long as he had good relations with these powerful families."

"Let's not even talk about the drawbacks of powerful aristocrats, but at least the localities are under control." "But after the chaotic times of the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, the aristocracy and powerful aristocrats were almost completely eliminated. As the saying goes, 'The swallows that once graced the courtyards of the wealthy and powerful now fly into the homes of ordinary people.' Now the government can't even find the powerful families that influence a county. How can they control a county with just two or three officials and a dozen or so yamen runners?"

"Never mind the prosperous towns and cities of the upper counties. Governing a city is much more complicated than governing a village."

The Northern Song Dynasty was in such a period. The aristocratic families of the Middle Ages were in decline, and the small and medium-sized landlords had not yet taken their place. In the local areas, Manichaeism, associations, martial arts schools, and village societies, all kinds of organizations emerged like mushrooms after rain.

The aristocratic families are not good things, and the landlords are even less good things, but that doesn’t mean these secret societies and cults are good things.

When it comes to social governance, if you don’t take control, others will.

Although "Water Margin" is a novel written by a Ming Dynasty person, bullies and gangs were rampant in the Northern Song Dynasty, which was indeed a common occurrence in cities during that period.

These "social organizations", together with the emerging class of large landowners who were annexing land, continued to erode the government's tax base, ultimately leading to a series of problems.

Therefore, today’s problems cannot be simply summarized and solved by the phrase “three redundancies”.

It does not mean that the financial situation will improve if all these redundant officials and soldiers are laid off.

These redundant officials and soldiers who understood the internal operating rules of the officialdom and had a certain amount of military power, once left their positions, joined those "dynamic social organizations" for the livelihood of their families. I am afraid that the Northern Song Dynasty would explode before the Jin army could move south.

In addition, the more advanced a society is, the more people need to participate in social governance.

In feudal times, a county had only a few dozen officials on the payroll, but in modern society, there are often hundreds or thousands of people involved in social governance.

Of course, population growth is one of the reasons, but as society develops, the functions of social governance become more numerous and complex, which is also one of the reasons.

The simplest way is to operate on the street and open a shop on the side of the road.

In the Tang Dynasty, special business areas were set up within the city and managed by city officials. There was also a curfew in Chang'an City during the Tang Dynasty, and these markets were open for only a few hours.

That market town can be managed by just a few city officials.

But now the city of Bianjing allows businesses on the streets and there is no curfew at night, so the difficulty of urban governance has increased exponentially.

Shops need to be taxed, and there are various social issues such as public security and fire prevention, all of which require manpower to manage.

This is also why the post of Acting Governor of Kaifeng Prefecture is now regarded as a hot potato by officials. Among all the Acting Governors of Kaifeng Prefecture over the years, only Fan Zhongyan has not been scolded by the people, and in the future, at most Bao Zheng will be the only one to be scolded.

In Su Ze's view, the problem of Renzong's reign was that "times had changed."

After three reigns of Taizu, Taizong, and Zhenzong, the frequent natural disasters during the reign of Renzong made the court out of touch with the times in terms of official system, tax system, and military system. The New Deal of Qingli was aimed at reforming this system, but it ultimately failed.

By the time of the Xining New Deal, social problems had become very prominent. Wang Anshi used drastic measures to reform the country, but this was like giving a drastic measure to a seriously ill patient. The factional struggles that eventually arose can be said to be an important reason for the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty.

If slower and more moderate reforms had been carried out during the reign of Emperor Renzong, perhaps the Northern Song Dynasty could have continued.

Su Ze's words made Wang Anshi and Zeng Gong fall into deep thought. Neither of them had ever been an official and had never considered the issue from the perspective of a system builder.

However, Su Ze started from the perspective of historical development and pointed out that the experience of the Han and Tang dynasties was no longer applicable to the current dynasty, which made the two feel refreshed and indeed explained many of the current problems.

As the two of them were thinking, it gradually got dark.

Wang Anshi's mother, Mrs. Wu, asked his younger brothers and sisters to bring some dishes. The three of them had another in-depth discussion and agreed to meet again at the end of the ten days. Only then did Wang Anshi reluctantly let Su Ze go back.

When Su Ze returned home, he felt that what happened today was like a dream.

After touching Yanzhixue who came up to him to act cute, Su Ze couldn't wait to close the door, extinguish the candle in the room, climb onto the bed, pick up the book, and prepare to enter the paradise!

(End of this chapter)