The Yijing and Chinese Politics: Classical Commentary and Literati Activism in the Northern Song Period, 960-1127

4. Inner Roots of Ordering the World: The Yijing of Zhang Zai, Sima Guang, and Shao Yong

77 The civil governance of Hu Yuan’s times stood on two pillars. One pillar was a policy that kept the military establishment at bay by constantly rotating military generals, and having the best armies stationed in the capital, Kaifeng, under the direct control of the emperor .¹ Another pillar was the aggressive recruitment of civil officials into the government through expanding the civil service examinations and granting appointments to relatives, dependents, and retainers of major civil officials. For the first six decades of Northern Song, these two pillars had produced remarkable results. The Song military generals no longer had the power like the Tang military governors to challenge the authority of the central government, and the civil officials were increasingly in control of the government believing that they ruled the empire with the emperor.² But by the 030s, as the civil bureaucrats like Fan Zhongyan, Ouyang Xiu, and Yin Zhu were increasingly vocal in demanding active participation in governing, problems began to arise. First of all, the constant rotation of military generals and the presence of a huge army in the capital added extra costs to the government expenditure. Worse still, the increase in military expenditure did not stop the Khitan Liao and the Jurchen Xixia from continuing to invade the Song’s northern and northwestern territories. To appease the two northern neighbors, 4 Inner Roots of Ordering the World: The Yijing of Zhang Zai, Sima Guang, and Shao Yong [I am] to pursue the Will of Heaven and Earth, and the Way of the people; to continue the ancient learning of past sages; to work for harmony and peace for ten thousand generations to come. —Zhang Zai, “Zhang zi yu lu,” Zhang Zai ji 78 The Yijing and Chinese Politics the Song government offered them annual contributions, adding yet another burden to the government’s finances. Meanwhile, the expansion in the size of the civil bureaucracy was causing problems as well. The number of civil bureaucrats entering into the government was so large that sinecure positions had to be created to keep them employed. This expansion in the size of the bureaucracy not only led to red tape and inefficiency, but also to a large increase in the government payroll. Hence, two reforms—one led by Fan Zhongyan and the other by Wang Anshi—were carried out respectively in the 040s and in the 060s to address these military, bureaucratic, and financial problems. Despite their differences in emphasis and in scope, the goals of these two reforms were similar. They were to resolve the problems of the “three excesses”—the excessive size of the army (rongbin), the excessive number of officials in the government (rongguan), and the excessive government spending (rongfei).³ For Fan Zhongyan, his “ten-point” reform focused on tightening the standards for the recruitment of civil officials, streamlining the procedures for advancement in central government, improving provincial administration, and upholding local law and order by creating militias among the peasants.⁴ Although Fan’s reform lasted only for one and half years from 043 to 044, his reform was significant, according to James T. C. Liu, “as the first attempt to improve on a system that had been largely unchanged and uncriticized since the beginning of the Song.”⁵ Wang Anshi’s reform, by contrast, was larger in scope and more revolutionary in intent. Lasting for almost two decades from 068 to 085, Wang’s reform addressed the problems of the “three excesses” by overhauling the structure of the bureaucracy, the military, and the economy. It included replacing the civil service examination system with a nationwide school system; strengthening national defense by conscription and better methods to rear horses; establishing the Finance Planning Commission to centralize economic planning; and creating various programs to regulate trade, currency exchange, and the market.⁶ As Peter Bol has pointed out, the enormous scope of Wang’s reform was in effect to alter the nature of the Northern Song government. The reform was intended to build an activist government “which sought to manage social and economic development in the interest of all.”⁷ Born in 020, Zhang Zai spent all of his adult life witnessing the implementation of these two reforms. Although he was too young to participate in Fan Zhongyan’s reform and was dead while Wang Anshi’s reform was still underway, his life coincided with the mid-Northern Inner Roots...