Four important reforms in Chinese history

2016-07-19 Source：Cultural-China.com

［Shang Yang's Reforms］

In 356 BC, with the support of Duke Xiao of Qin, Shang Yang enacted a series of reforms in the state. The content of the reforms include: creating the household register system to enhance management; implementing criminal responsibility sharing system; making the harboring of a criminal a crime as severe as surrendering to the enemy; awarding military exploits; imposing an outright ban on private wars; depriving nobles of hereditary privileges; awarding farming and weaving; promoting county system; abolishing the nine-square land system; opening crisscross footpaths between fields; allowing land trade; encouraging breaking up large family clans; taxing according to the numbers of household and people; unifying the system of weights and measures.

Shang Yang's reforms laid a foundation for the rise of the Qin State, but his severe penalties intensified social contradictions, leaving hidden troubles for him and the sustainable development of the Qin State.

［Reform by Emperor Xiaowen］

Emperor Xiaowen implemented a drastic policy of sinicization, intending to centralize the government and make the multi-ethnic state easier to govern. These policies included changing artistic styles to reflect Chinese preferences and forcing the population to speak the language and to wear Chinese clothes. He forced his own Xianbei people and others to adopt Chinese surnames, and changed his own family surname from Tuoba to Yuan. He also encouraged intermarriage between Xianbei and Han.

In 494, Emperor Xiaowen moved the Northern Wei capital from Pingcheng (in modem Datong, Shanxi) to Luoyang, a city long acknowledged as a major center in Chinese history. The shift in the capital was mirrored by a shift In tactics from active defense to passive defense against the Rouran. While the capital was moved to Luoyang, the military elite remained centered at the old capital, widening the differences between the administration and the military. The population at the old capital remained fiercely conservative, while the population at Luoyang was much more eager to adopt Xiaowen's policies of sinicization. His reforms were met with resistance by the Xianbei elite, in 496, two plots by Xianbei nobles; one centered around his crown prince Yuan Xun, and one centered around his distant uncle Yuan Yi. By 497, Xiaowen had destroyed the conspiracies and forced Yuan Xun to commit suicide.

Unfortunate for Emperor Xiaowen, his sinicization policies had their downsides---namely, he adopted the Jin Dynasty social stratification methods, leading to incompetent nobles being put into positions of power while capable men of low birth not being able to advance in his government. Further, his wholesale adoption of Han culture and fine arts encouraged the nobles to be corrupt in order to afford the lifestyles of the Han elite, leading to further erosion to effective rule. By the time of his grandson Emperor Xiaoming, Northern Wei was in substantial upheaval due to agrarian revolts, and by 534 had been divided into two halves, each of which would soon be taken over by warlords.

Emperor Xiaowen implemented a drastic policy of sinicization, intending to centralize the government and make the multi-ethnic state easier to govern. These policies included changing artistic styles to reflect Chinese preferences and forcing the population to speak the language and to wear Chinese clothes. He forced his own Xianbei people and others to adopt Chinese surnames, and changed his own family surname from Tuoba to Yuan. He also encouraged intermarriage between Xianbei and Han.

［Reform Instituted by Wang Anshi］

The Northern Song "Dynasty suffered poverty as well as weakness. The redundancy of officials and soldiers, and extravagant expenditure resulted in a severe financial crisis. Ever since the early years of the Song Dynasty, peasant uprisings had increased and the royal government faced political crisis. Although it maintained a large army, they lost every battle in the war with the Liao Regime and the Western Xia Regime. Therefore, it had to pay them a great deal of money every year. Since its founding, the Northern Song Dynasty had struggled in misery and crises, never having a strong national power.

A sense of misery impelled many reformers of political foresight to initiate reform and seek the way to build a prosperous country with efficient military forces. In 1069, Song Shenzong, Emperor who was eager to find the way of governing the country, appointed Wang Anshi, vice prime minister, to carry out reform. The reform was pursued mainly in financial and military areas.

The chief content and purpose of Wang Anshi's political reform lay in bringing about national prosperity and powerful military forces. He restrain-ed himself from putting forward such crucial proposals as reducing the number of redundant officials, cutting down redundant expenditure and controlling annexation of land. His reform achieved remarkable success .in the increase of national revenue, the construction of water conservancy works, and they improvement of combat effectiveness. In spite of this, the old liners were stilt strongly opposed to the reform, throwing obstacles in its way. After Song Shenzong's death, the conservatives came to power, and the reform ended in failure.

［The Hundred Days' Reform］

In the 103 days from June 11 to September 21, 1898, the Qing emperor, Guangxu (1875-1908), ordered a series of reforms aimed at making sweeping social and institutional changes. This effort reflected the thinking of a group of progressive scholar-reformers who had impressed the court with the urgency of making innovations for the nation's survival. Influenced by the Japanese success with modernization, the reformers declared that China needed more than "self-strengthening" and that innovation must be accompanied by institutional and ideological change.

The imperial edicts for reform covered a broad range of subjects, including stamping out corruption and remaking, among other things, the academic and civil-service examination systems, legal system, governmental structure, defense establishment, and postal services. The edicts attempted to modernize agriculture, medicine, and mining and to promote practical studies instead of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. The court also planned to send students abroad for firsthand observation and technical studies. All these changes were to be brought about under a de facto constitutional monarchy.

Opposition to the reform was Intense among the conservative ruling elite, especially the Manchus, who, in condemning the announced reform as too radical, proposed instead a more moderate and gradualist course of change. Supported by ultraconservative and with the tacit support of the political opportunist Yuan Shikai (1859-1916), Empress Dowager a Xi engineered a coup on September 21, 1898, forcing the young reform-minded Guangxu into seclusion. Ci Xi took over the government as regent. The Hundred Days' Reform ended with the rescindment of the new edicts and the execution of six of the reform's chief advocates. The two principal leaders, Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and Liang Qichao (1873-1929), fled a-broad to found the Baohuang Hui (or protect the Emperor Society) and to work, unsuccessfully, for a constitutional monarchy in China.

The conservatives then gave clandestine backing to the anti foreign and anti-Christian movement of secret societies known as Yihetuan (or Society of Righteousness and Harmony). The movement has been better known in the West as the Boxers (from an earlier name---Yihequan, or Righteousness and Harmony Boxers). In 1900 Boxer bands spread over the north China countryside, burning missionary facilities and killing Chinese Christians. Finally, in June 1900, the Boxers besieged the foreign concessions in Beijing and Tianjin, an action that provoked an allied relief expedition by the offended nations. The Qing declared war against the invaders, who easily crushed their opposition and occupied north China. Under the Protocol of 1901, the court was made to consent to the execution of ten high officials and the punishment of hundreds of others, expansion of the Legation Quarter, payment of war reparations, stationing of foreign troops in China, and razing of some Chinese fortifications.

In the decade that followed, the court belatedly put into effect some reform measures. These included the abolition of the moribund Confucian-based examination, educational and military modernization patterned after the model of Japan, and an experiment, if half-hearted, in constitutional and parliamentary government. The suddenness and ambitiousness of the reform effort actually hindered its success. One effect, to be felt for decades to come, was the establishment of new armies, which, in turn, gave rise to warlordism.