Chapter 13 3. The failed reforms of the Xinmang Dynasty

Wang Mang's usurping the Han was really not a crime. When there was a famine, he took the lead in donating money and food; when the annexation of land was serious, he took the lead in donating the land to the country; Can ordinary people not like such a person? Doesn't Confucianism say that the destiny has its ups and downs, and there is abdication in the world?Liu's morality is declining, and Wang Mang follows the sky and responds to people. Doesn't he also conform to the traditional morality in the classics?Therefore, Wang Mang usurped the Han, and the number of prophecies and fates amounted to hundreds of thousands. This is certainly not God's will, but it is by no means a simple fraud, and it can indeed reflect the public opinion at that time.

There were many conspirators in ancient China, but who else could successfully guide public opinion like Wang Mang?Therefore, we can regard Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han as a successful example of elected politics in ancient China. The "abdication" advocated by Confucianism since the Warring States period is finally seen today. Wang Mang's pioneering work could have changed the direction of Chinese history, making the peaceful expression of public opinion the decider of the rise and fall of dynasties. Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han represented a trend of thought in that era: the unified dynasty could be reborn from Nirvana through peaceful means.

How should a declining unified dynasty move toward rebirth?Chen Sheng and Wang Mang opened up two completely different paths.Chen Sheng's path is called "revolution", while Wang Mang's path is called "reorganization". Although both are based on change, the way of change is very different.Chen Sheng's method is to completely overthrow the old era and reshape the new era on a blank sheet of paper; while Wang Mang's method is to reintegrate the national system based on the available resources of the old era. The former is uncontrollable, and it is hard to guess how it will develop; while the latter is theoretically controllable, but it is not within the grasp of the technological capabilities of that era.The former is crude but simple and easy to implement, and its disadvantage is high social cost; the latter has low social cost but is too technically difficult.

Wang Mang's failure lies in his eagerness for success and his overestimation of society's ability to accept new things.On a deeper level, the failure of Wang Mang's New Deal made ancient China lose a possible choice on the way forward. Although there were so-called "abdication" in later generations, they were all just tricks and did not respect the spirit of "abdication". . Since then, there is only Chen Sheng left in China. This is also an expression of public opinion, but it is not a peaceful way, but a vote with blood. Since then, the rise and fall of dynasties in ancient China has become bloody and treacherous.

However, Wang Mang's failure could not only be attributed to the heavy resistance in the reform process, but should be attributed to his character flaws and full bookishness. "Those who kill kings and horses are on the other side of the road", Wang Mang ruined the great country in a daze in a hymn. We know that Wang Mang himself was a major in studying the "Book of Rites", and he is quite expert in theory. Therefore, after he established a new dynasty, facing the rising calls for reform from the masses, he became enthusiastic and attempted to comprehensively revise the existing system and establish a new dynasty. A whole new dynasty.

However, the theoretical basis for his reform is the Confucian classics such as "Zhou Li" that have not been tested in practice. In other words, Wang Mang's reforms were based on books.According to "Zhou Li", he designed a whole set of blueprints for social reforms - all of which look very good. One is to propose the "Wang Tian" policy in response to the increasingly serious land annexation, and the other is to propose a decree prohibiting the sale of slaves and maidservants in response to the human rights of slaves. In addition, there are a series of economic reform measures and countless ritual reform measures.

However, these measures are too pedantic, and most of them cannot be implemented in practice.Some measures were too advanced. Although their intentions were good, under the conditions at the time, they would only increase disturbance. For example, Talisi City and Quanfu are a bit like the prototypes of the current industrial and commercial management departments and banks, which are used to manage the market and stabilize prices; he also collects a new version of "personal income tax", which is intended to be used for social welfare or It is industrial and commercial credit, and it is even considered to be used for mortgages-this set seems not uncommon today, but what kind of era was that!This idea is a little too far ahead.

For another example, he wants to redistribute land, and the standard he sets is that one husband and one wife will receive a hundred acres of land (this one hundred acres was shot by Mencius in "Mencius King Hui of Liang", which lacks realistic basis ), however, based on the national average land at that time, each household could only share 68 mu. Regional differences were not considered here. In densely populated areas, it was far from reaching 68 mu.This is the "lack of digital management" criticized by Huang Renyu. For another example, he also carried out several currency reforms.

The first time was to make big coins in the second year of Jushe. The article said: "Fifty big coins". The second reform of the currency system was in the first year of the founding of the country after the establishment of the new dynasty. The wrong knife, contract knife and five baht coins were abolished, and large and small coins were used exclusively. The small coins were worth one and the big coins were worth fifty. The third reform was in the second year after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the treasure goods system was formulated, with five items, six names, and twenty-eight items.The so-called five things are gold, silver, copper and tortoise shells; the six names are six grades of money, one grade of gold, two grades of silver, four grades of turtles, five grades of shellfish, and ten grades of cloth—so many main and auxiliary coins, Who remembers coming here?

Think about our business is so developed today, how many kinds of main and auxiliary coins are there?It's no wonder that the common people don't get dizzy when they hold Wang Mang's "treasures".Moreover, the ten kinds of cloth coins differ only by one baht at each level, making it difficult to distinguish them. As for the currency such as turtle shells, it is even more necessary to measure them at any time. This system caused a lot of trouble, so the common people simply refused to use "treasure goods" and only used springs and springs.So the reformer Wang Mang was forced to abolish the genus of tortoise shell cloth, follow public opinion, and return to big and small money.

The fourth reform took place in the first year of Tianfeng, when large and small coins were abolished, and two new coins, "Huobu" and "Huoquan", were used instead. It is conceivable that such changes will have an impact on society and the economy, and the impact on industry and commerce will be particularly severe.At that time, people said: "every money is exchanged, the civilian industry will go bankrupt... the craftsmen will starve to death, and Chang'an will stink..." Wang Mang's currency reform has fundamentally deviated from the objective laws of currency circulation. Relying only on his nerd attitude and power in his hands, he recklessly launched retro experiments. It is strange that he does not fail. Therefore, Mr. Peng Xinwei, an expert on currency history, commented: "The failure of the Chinese currency system in the past dynasties has more reasons than the shortcomings of the system itself. Only the failure of Wang Mang's treasure system is completely a failure of the system." The failure of Wang Mang's financial reform was indeed due to the lack of basic currency common sense, but people's understanding of financial common sense had to wait until the era of Adam Smith at least!People in Wang Mang's time did not have such a level of knowledge, which is the so-called "lack of technical level". The lesson that future generations have learned from Wang Mang's failure is: don't touch these landmines.Since then, the financial system of ancient China has stagnated for more than a thousand years. However, traditional historiography only sees Wang Mang's aggressive side—but misses the shining points in his New Deal that far surpassed the times.