Chapter 40 Changes in "World Time"

According to Braudel's concept of "world time", we can say that before the 12th century, the pendulum of "world time" was in the east, in China—in Luoyang, in Chang'an, in Bianliang, and in Quanzhou.However, after that, the pendulum began to swing quietly to the west, to Italy on the Mediterranean coast, then to Spain, to the Netherlands, to the United Kingdom, and finally to North America. The "Wang Anshi Reform" was at such a historical moment, although no one felt the change at the time. The reason for the great shift of "world time" is not natural or resource-based, but institutional, firstly the political system, and then the economic and cultural system.

Since the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, Europe has entered a long "Dark Middle Ages". The Black Death and the Great Famine broke out in the 9th century.When the population of Bianliang and Lin'an exceeded one million, the European cities at the same period were much smaller, usually only a few thousand people, and the largest cities, such as Venice, Naples and Paris, had a population of only tens of thousands.By the eleventh century, however, Europe was undergoing some unprecedented social changes. In 1085, the year when Song Shenzong died, Pisa, the first city after the Middle Ages where citizens elected executive officers, appeared in northern Italy, which meant the birth of a "free city".Beginning in the 11th century, a large number of landless European serfs fled the castles and manors controlled by feudal lords and came to cities without personal control. According to European laws at the time, as long as they lived in the city for one year and one day, they could automatically Therefore, there is a proverb that says: "The air of the city makes a man free." Urban self-government is the soil of commercial freedom, and freedom has become the legal right of the new bourgeoisie. They do business here and try to establish self-government institutions. , the free elections in Pisa took place against this background.

Just two years after Pisa became a "free city", in 1087, also in Italy, Bologna, the first university in human history, appeared in the city of Bologna, where many free scholars gathered to study ancient Roman codes and medicine.By 1158, Emperor Federico I issued a decree granting the independence of the University as a research site.The establishment of an independent university system created a relationship of equal restraint between the European intellectual elite and state power. These two events that took place in Wang Anshi's era are of watershed significance.Free cities give birth to free commerce, free universities give birth to free ideas, and free commerce and ideas are the two cornerstones for human civilization to move towards modern society.

Compared with these new changes in Europe, although China in the Song Dynasty had the largest, most populous, and most prosperous city cluster in the world at that time, and established a business model and industrial and commercial civilization far ahead of Europe at the same time, however, innovation in social systems On the contrary, Wang Anshi's reform has strengthened the government's control ability unprecedentedly.Legal ideas such as "free people", "autonomous cities", "principle of legality of private property", and "limitation of monarchy power" that emerged in Europe have no germinating soil for China, which emphasizes centralization .During the long period of feudal autocracy in China, cities and schools have always been firmly controlled by the regime. This is the fundamental reason why Eastern and Western civilizations have taken different evolution paths.Looking at the future of China, the degree of freedom of cities and universities is still an important indicator of whether we can truly build a modern political civilization.

Therefore, the 11th century to the 12th century is often called the period of the great divergence of Chinese and Western civilizations, and it is a critical moment when the pendulum of "world time" swings from east to west.Interpreting "Wang Anshi's reform" under such a background of time and space should have a new experience.