Great Song River Landscape -- The Elites and Their Time: The Elites and Their Time

Author: Zheng Xiting
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-11-01
Features: This book narrates the process of Wang Anshi's decisive reforms, aimed at achieving economic recovery, curbing monopolies, and ultimately strengthening the nation and avenging national humiliation. However, this process involved conflicts with imperial relatives, the old faction, the existing bureaucratic class, and vested interests. It also faced obstruction and opposition from elite figures of the time, such as Confucian scholars, historians, and literati. In the end, Wang Anshi was forced to resign as prime minister, and all his new policies and reforms were abolished. Subsequently, within less than forty years, the Jingkang Incident occurred, leading to the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty and the decline of the vast riverlands of the Great Song.