History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 935: Later Lord Li Yu (Part )

It was Li Ping who pushed for the reform of the well-field system. Li Ping and Zhu Yuan, two Taoist priests, were like Crouching Dragon and Phoenix. At the beginning, they were entrusted by Li Shouzhen of Hezhong to come to Southern Tang to ask for reinforcements. Li Jing had already agreed to send troops, but before they could go out, Li Shouzhen was wiped out by Guo Wei, and the two stayed in Southern Tang from then on. During the "Three Expeditions to Huainan", the two had made military achievements and were appreciated by Li Jing, but later Zhu Yuan defected to Zhou, and Li Ping was implicated and deprived of real power. This has been detailed in the previous article.

After Li Yu ascended the throne, a new emperor appointed new ministers. With the demise of the "Four Evils and Five Demons" group, officials who had been suppressed by them were reused one after another, including Pan You.

Pan You was originally from Youzhou. His grandfather Pan Gui was a general under Liu Rengong. Liu Shouguang killed his father and brother. Pan Gui's son Pan Chuchang fled to Huainan and was taken in by Xu Zhigao. Pan You was the son of Pan Chuchang. As a descendant of a general, Pan You was actually a top student. He was jointly recommended by Chen Qiao, the secretary of the Central Secretariat, and Han Xizai, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Revenue. He entered the court during the reign of Li Jing and later became Li Yu's staff. He was regarded as a confidant of the Qiandi Palace by Li Yu. After ascending the throne, he promoted him to the secretary of the Central Secretariat and the imperial edict writer, and affectionately called him "Pan Qing". Previously, Li Yu's letter advising Liu Xiong of the Southern Han to surrender was written by Pan You. It is said that Pan You did not add any punctuation when drafting it, and it was completed in one go.

Pan You also took it upon himself to revive the Southern Tang Dynasty. He repeatedly submitted memorials criticizing the current political situation, bitterly complaining that the entire court was just sitting there doing nothing. His words were foul and fierce. Li Yu talked to him privately several times and asked him about his true attitude towards the civil and military officials. Pan You did not hide his feelings, "Your Majesty, please don't misunderstand me. I am not targeting anyone. I am saying that everyone in the court is rubbish!"

Li Yu issued several imperial edicts to commend him and praised his frank advice, but he couldn't dismiss all civil and military officials at once, and the personnel transfer had to be done step by step.

Seeing that Li Yu did not have the courage to cut off his own arm, Pan You was so angry that he wrote seven petitions in a row, announcing his retirement.

Since you say that all the civil and military officials in the court are rubbish, and that all are waste except for the treacherous ministers, then you tell me who can be used?
Pan You immediately recommended a man of great talent, Li Ping, to Li Yu.

Pan You was very fond of Taoism and had a good personal relationship with Li Ping, who was also a Taoist priest. Li Ping was good at talking nonsense and could fool Li Jing, so he could fool Pan You as well. Pan You often asked him for advice on Taoism. Once, Li Ping calculated with his fingers and said that your father, Comrade Pan Chuchang, had become an immortal official in the heavenly palace, which made Pan You very happy.

Upon hearing Pan You's recommendation, Li Yu summoned Li Ping, an old minister of the previous dynasty, with an attitude of giving it a try, and asked him how to improve the economy of the south.

Li Ping strongly recommended the "Well-field System" in "The Book of Zhou".

Li Yu himself was a literary youth who was "fond of antiquity and devoted to farming". He believed that Li Ping's retro-style advocacy was simply the reincarnation of Yao, Shun and Yu, so he immediately asked him to take the lead in supervising the reform of the "well-field system" and handed the important task of reviving the national economy to Li Ping.

Land annexation has always been a chronic disease that agricultural societies cannot avoid. The rich and powerful plundered the wealth of the poor, which led to serious polarization, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The same is true for today's capitalists, except that they have mastered a tool called "finance", which is more efficient and more covert, and appears to be so civilized that it has unknowingly divided the entire society.

Restraining land annexation is a difficult problem that every dynasty has to face. The difficulty lies in the fact that the ways to solve the problem seem to be ever-changing, but in summary, there is only one way, which is to snatch the bone from the dog's mouth and transfer wealth from the powerful to the poor. Therefore, reforms to curb land annexation throughout the ages have always faced strong obstruction from vested interest groups, and even emperors find it difficult to overcome this resistance.

Li Ping's reform of the "well-field system" is very similar to Wang Anshi's reform in the Northern Song Dynasty a few decades later. To be more precise, Wang Anshi's reform is very similar to Li Ping's reform. However, Li Ping is not Wang Anshi, and Li Yu is not Song Shenzong. Wang Anshi's reform failed, let alone Li Ping! According to the research on Wang Anshi's works by later generations, it is found that Wang Anshi was indeed influenced by Li Ping's reform. Li Ping was the guide on Wang Anshi's road to reform.

As expected, Li Ping's "Well-Field System" soon failed due to the strong obstruction of vested interest groups.

After Li Ping's reform failed, the most angry person was not Li Ping, but his recommender Pan You.

Pan You wrote chapter after chapter, denouncing the treacherous officials in power, who brought disaster to the country and the people. He wrote a long novel with tens of thousands of words. He was not satisfied with just denouncing the treacherous officials, so he even denouncing Li Yu, saying that he could not distinguish between loyalty and treachery, and that he led the country into an abyss of no return. He said that he was the King of Xia and the King of Shang, and the Sun Hao of the Eastern Wu, and that he would not be able to escape the fate of destroying his country and his family, and would definitely become a laughing stock for all eternity...

Li Yu was very angry after being scolded so much that the consequences were serious. At this time, Zhang Li and other treacherous officials took the opportunity to fan the flames, accusing Pan You of being instructed by Li Ping to insult the emperor. They have always been proud of their achievements and think they are old officials of the previous dynasty and do not take your majesty seriously. They messed up the reform because of their limited ability and put the blame on the loyal officials and the wise emperor...

Li Yu ordered that Li Ping and Pan You be arrested and thrown into prison to await their fate. Upon hearing the news, Pan You committed suicide at home, and Li Ping also hanged himself in prison.

The killing of Li Ping and Pan You later became one of the excuses for the Song Dynasty to raise troops. After Li Yu lost his country and joined the Song Dynasty, he also regretted killing these two people.

As for Zhang Li and others, they will be described in detail later. On the surface, the failure of the "Jingtian System" reform was due to Li Yu's credulity to slander and being delayed by political struggles, but the fundamental logic was that Li Yu did not have enough courage and ability to shake the vested interest groups and break through the cage of the powerful class, so he was bound to fail.

When capitalists control the financial lifeline, emperors, kings, presidents, prime ministers...are just spokesmen for interest groups. In history, five presidents of the United States have been assassinated, and only Reagan survived. Most people only know Lincoln and Kennedy, but don't know that there are two other presidents - Garfield and McKinley, who can tell you how powerful the vested interest groups are.

Looking back at the so-called reforms promoted by Li Yu, it was really an attempt to avoid the important issues and focus on trivial matters, and ultimately it irreversibly went down the path of increasing currency issuance.

When talking about the reform of Ma Yin in Nanchu, it was mentioned that Ma Yin, who cast iron coins, made the economy of Nanchu develop rapidly and achieved great success. Let's go back to the original example. Ma Yin increased the currency to inject liquidity into the market because Nanchu was in a relatively stable and peaceful development period. It was like Village A, where the currency circulation was insufficient due to the highly developed economic activities. The reason why Nanchu's economic activities were highly developed was that Ma Yin adopted the method of the great counselor Gao Yu, making Nanchu a tea trade distribution center, a trade hub and a logistics center for the Central Plains and the southern vassal states, which were exactly what the Southern Tang lacked the most.

At any time, reforms must be based on the basic national conditions of the country, and cannot mechanically copy the so-called "advanced experience".

When Li Yu encountered difficulties in reviving the national economy, the Song Dynasty promptly removed the fuel needed for the disaster and donated three barrels of gasoline to the Southern Tang, which was in trouble.

In June 962, Zhao Kuangyin issued an edict to Li Yu, asking him to return the families of the Henghai Army, Huaishun Army and others in the south of the Yangtze River; in July 6, Zhao Kuangyin issued another edict to Li Yu, asking him to return all the Central Plains soldiers and their families who had been stranded in the Southern Tang since the time of Chai Rong of the Later Zhou Dynasty to the present day, as well as the people of Yangzhou who had been forced to move south by the Southern Tang government.

Population is one of the important strategic resources, especially in times of war. The so-called economic recovery, encouraging farming and weaving, etc., have a prerequisite, that is, sufficient labor. Population resources are the most important strategic resources. Restoring the economy and expanding the military are all nonsense. Whether it is a war between two countries or an invasion by nomadic peoples, in addition to robbing money and food, they also want to rob people, especially skilled craftsmen with culture or skills.

With a single imperial edict, Zhao Kuangyin drew away a large number of laborers and young men from the Southern Tang. In return, the Song Dynasty also repatriated a number of old, weak, sick and disabled Southern Tang captives who had almost no ability to work or fight.

In addition, the Song Dynasty also launched a trade war against the Southern Tang Dynasty - Zhebowu.

Zhebowu is different from Huituwu. Huituwu is also called "Boyiwu", the core of which is "Yi", which can be simply understood as a state-owned supply and marketing cooperative between the two countries, responsible for foreign trade import and export business; while the core of Zhebowu is "Zhe", that is, merchants must sell goods to the government, and the government will give merchants equivalent tea and salt.

The Zhebo Service was like a firewall for foreign trade. Commercial activities were strictly controlled by the government, limiting the scale and profits of trade. In other words, the Song Dynasty easily controlled the economic lifeline of the Southern Tang through the Zhebo Service.

At the same time, the Song Dynasty also strictly prohibited merchants and tourists from leaving the country to go to Southern Tang.

It looks familiar, just like the trade war and trade blockade that the United States is waging against us today. Anti-monopoly, anti-dumping... anti-exchange services are their ancestors.

The economy of the Southern Tang Dynasty was in urgent need of recovery. It needed both exports to earn foreign exchange and imports of in-demand commodities to meet domestic demand. However, the Song Dynasty implemented an all-round economic blockade and trade suppression at this time, making it difficult for the Southern Tang Dynasty's commodities to be effectively exported to earn foreign exchange, and urgently needed commodities could not be supplied in a timely manner.

Economic recovery? If you can recover, I lose. - Zhao Kuangyin
There are many so-called military fans and even many so-called military experts on the Internet who talk about all-round and three-dimensional warfare, saying that modern warfare is no longer as simple as two armies fighting head-on, but includes public opinion warfare, financial warfare, information warfare, etc. Please look through the history books left by our ancestors. Our ancestors have already mastered this method. Aren’t "The blue sky is dead, the yellow sky should be established" and "Purge the emperor's side and punish Chao Cuo" public opinion warfare? Aren't the market and the business of trading a part of the trade war?

War has never been a group fight.

The sad thing is that many public intellectuals either worship foreign things or have ulterior motives, and always deliberately belittle Chinese culture and attribute all advanced things to Western wisdom... The air abroad is always sweet, even if it contains foreign farts.

Thanks to my old friend "Yang Kui" for the monthly ticket support!

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(End of this chapter)