"Dream of China in Tokyo" and "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" depict the prosperity and liveliness of the Bianliang in Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty, but Chang 'an in the Tang Dynasty is not as good as it is. After all, there was no curfew in Song Dynasty. According to statistics, the GDP in the heyday of the Northern Song Dynasty accounted for nearly half of the world's total, exceeding the sum of Europe at that time. However, throughout history, the decline and fall of every dynasty began with the financial crisis, that is to say, in fact, every dynasty ended up poor and dead, and the once rich Northern Song Dynasty finally embarked on this road.

To some extent, wealth is the common people's understanding of the Northern Song Dynasty, and it is also a preconceived misunderstanding. For example, when we say that a person has money, we don't just mean that his income is high, but also depends on how much money he has. The Northern Song Dynasty belonged to a group with high income, but could not save money. Undeniably, compared with other dynasties, the Northern Song Dynasty jumped out of the cycle of land tax and poll tax by opening up monopoly markets, private land and improving the status of businessmen, and increased more tax sources, which also made the income of the Northern Song Dynasty reach the peak of previous dynasties during the reign of Song Renzong and Song Shenzong. However, 80 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, various internal and external troubles crushed the financial system of the Song Dynasty. Everyone is familiar with foreign invasions, such as Liao, Xixia and Jurchen. Here, we will focus on internal issues.

First, high salary and honesty.

Let's talk about the first internal problem, salary. Most people mentioned that the Northern Song Dynasty was famous for its generous salary system, that is, high salary and honesty. However, generous salary was actually only the second half of Zhao Kuangyin's policy at that time. There was a simple official in the first half, because the emperor was not stupid. If there are a large number of officials, and every official gets a high salary, what does the emperor eat by himself? Then this starting point is good, and Zhao's children and grandchildren have only implemented part of it. According to statistics, during the reign of Song Taizong alone, more than 10,000 officials won the imperial examinations. After Zongshen, bureaucratic groups expanded rapidly. Song Shi wrote that the official department treats unlimited officials with limited officials, while the household department uses limited wealth to be useless. The huge bureaucratic group has become a huge financial burden. In this case, in order to achieve the difficult balance between the preferential treatment of scholars and the financial revenue and expenditure, the general public's understanding of the generosity system in the Song Dynasty is actually only the generosity system for senior officials (at least five products or more), and the general bottom officials still live in poverty, which also led to the corruption of official management in the late Northern Song Dynasty and accelerated their demise. In addition to the salary of civil servants, military pay was actually the biggest expenditure during the Zhao and Song Dynasties (Song Dynasties). Because there was no place to raise horses and lost its geographical position, the Northern Song Dynasty imperial court tried to use the number of troops to gain local advantages. Since Song Taizong unified the whole country, the number of troops in the Northern Song Dynasty has tripled in the second half century. This makes military expenditure account for more than half of the total expenditure, and it is higher in wartime.

Second, natural disasters.

The above two major expenses, if the country is in good weather, of course, are not a big problem. At best, the emperor couldn't give out the year-end bonus (Song Shenzong Xining two years). But it must be said that the Northern Song Dynasty was not a lucky dynasty, and its second internal problem was God. The global climate entered the Little Ice Age in the Northern Song Dynasty. At this time, the most obvious climate characteristics are two, cooling and drought. During the period of Song Zhenzong, the climate obviously turned cold. Song Zhenzong wrote to introduce Zhancheng (Vietnamese) rice from Fujian to the Jianghuai area to increase the grain output of the Central Plains. Later, Renzong, Britain and Zongshen came, and the climate problem became more and more serious, with frequent droughts. From Wang Anshi's poems at that time, we can see one or two things:

Soft mulberry trees are shaded and harvested, and reed silkworms become dense cocoons; Talk to the villagers about customs, how to be diligent or hungry.

Going to the east river beam in autumn, we have seen the strong drought in Zhongzhou. The sun shines thousands of miles, and the wind blows sand all over the city.

Even though the agricultural technology at that time was constantly updated, it still could not meet the food demand, so the fiscal revenue was greatly affected. Moreover, climate change not only affects the nationalities in the Central Plains, but also affects the nationalities in the North. The low climate and temperature stimulated the northern nationalities to go south, and at the same time weakened the resistance of the Central Plains army. It is reported that in the first year of Jingkang, the defenders in Tokyo and Kaifeng were frozen to death by heavy snow, and countless people died in the Northern Song Dynasty the following year.

Third, the failure of political reform.

Excessive financial leverage, coupled with the hated god, prompted the monarch and ministers in the Northern Song Dynasty to start thinking about countermeasures, which was also the background factor of Wang Anshi's political reform and a series of stupid moves introduced by several emperors later, but it also led to the third internal problem, absurd policies. Let's not talk about the merits and demerits of Wang Anshi's political reform here, but it is undeniable that with Wang Anshi's political reform as the dividing point, in order to promote political reform and improve administrative efficiency, the originally scattered political system gradually concentrated power (concentrated in the ruling party, leading to party struggle). Although the reform failed, power was centralized and foreign policy became inflexible. The frequent use of troops against Xixia in the late Northern Song Dynasty led to the gradual hollowing out of finance. In order to make up for the financial losses, they began to print money crazily from the Song Zhezong period, and the currency depreciated sharply. In Song Huizong, referring to the method of the later Bretton Woods Agreement, he announced that a bundle of money could be exchanged for 1000 cash, thus plundering the folk wealth in disguise. The famous Water Margin and Fang La Uprising are the portrayal of this period. At this point, the fate of the Northern Song Dynasty came to an end together with its financial situation.

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The prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty came from its enlightened tax system and relatively healthy relationship between monarch and minister, and its rich tax revenue was unmatched by previous dynasties. Unfortunately, the congenital deficiency (the territory has no strategic advantage) and the acquired disaster (the Little Ice Age) can only leave a weak figure and an evaluation of poverty and weakness for future generations. Fortunately, Zhang Zeduan held Kaifeng City with a pen, but three hundred thousand imperial troops couldn't hold it, so that our descendants can still see this magnificent dynasty.

refer to

1. Tuotuo and so on. Song Shi

2. Liu Shougang; Lecture on China's Financial History 16, Fudan University Press.

3. Liu; Climate Change in the History of China, Taiwan Province Commercial Press.