There are many different comments on Wang Anshi's political reform in history.

Northern Song Dynasty

In the first year (1086), when Wang Anshi died, Sima Guang once said, "There are many meanings in the article, but ... Fang died unfortunately today, and if he recovered, hundreds of people were vilified. ..... The court should increase the ceremony to shake the superficial wind. " . Sima Guang affirmed Wang Anshi's moral articles, but totally denied Wang Anshi's statesmanship.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, opponents criticized Wang Anshi and his later studies by revising history. Zhu criticized Wang Anshi for many times: "academic misconduct" and "bad scholars", but Zhu personally gave Wang Anshi considerable affirmation.

Southern Song Dynasty to Late Qing Dynasty

Wang Anshi's political reform was based on "insufficient destiny, insufficient words and insufficient ancestors". However, due to his personality, luck, opposition from the old party, wealth and improper employment, the political reform failed, and he was also labeled by the old party as "confusing the ancestral law and harming the country and the people", which accelerated the party struggle in the Northern Song Dynasty. In order to absolve his father and brother from their historical guilt, Song Gaozong traced the "loss of state affairs" from Cai Jing to Wang Anshi according to the discussion of scholars since the first year of Jingkang. In May of the 4th year of Shaoxing, Song Gaozong ordered the reconstruction of A Record of Zongshen, with the keynote of denying Wang Anshi's political reform, which must have a far-reaching impact on later generations. Wang Anshi's statement, as the chief culprit of the national subjugation in the Northern Song Dynasty, was inherited by the History of the Song Dynasty and compiled by the Yuan Dynasty, which became the official conclusion of the feudal era.

After the Southern Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi's political reform was generally denied, but he had different degrees of positive views on some new measures of Wang Anshi. In the new laws and measures, especially the imperial examination reform, the exemption law, the Jiabao law and the Mabao law have been affirmed.

There were Lu Jiuyuan in the Southern Song Dynasty, Wu Cheng and Yu Ji in the Yuan Dynasty, Chen Rukun and Gun Zhang in the Ming Dynasty, and Yan Yuan, Gu Li, Cai Shangxiang, Yang Ximin, Gong Zizhen and Lu Xinyuan after entering the Qing Dynasty. Wang Fuzhi thinks that Wang Anshi's theory of "three deficiencies" is "harming the world and being accused of teaching". For example, Cai Shangxiang thinks that "when Gong Jing was in power, the country was prosperous, the Xihe River was successful and expanded thousands of miles, which is unprecedented since the founding of the People's Republic of China a hundred years ago. After the Southern Crossing, the descendants of Yuan You's sages, as well as Su Cheng's followers, were all angry at the disaster of party ban, which was not enough to attack Cai Jing. It's all nonsense on the grounds of overthrowing the chaos. In fact, the disaster in Qin Hui was caused by Cai Jing. Cai Jing's use is due to Wen Gong. The use of Guishan is due to Cai Jing and has nothing to do with Gong Jing. "

There are two main reasons why they spoke highly of Wang Anshi: First, most of them are from Linchuan, Jiangxi Province, and their admiration for Wang Anshi is actually a manifestation of China's respect and admiration for the fine tradition of "sages in his hometown" in ancient times; Secondly, Yan Yuan and Gong Zizhen's affirmation of Wang Anshi and his reform is inseparable from their similar ideological path.

From late Qing Dynasty to modern times

From historical development to modern times, unprecedented changes have taken place in China, and the call for reform is increasing day by day. Therefore, Wang Anshi's reform began to be positively evaluated. The main figures are Liang Qichao and Yan Fu, who started from the needs of social reality and called for the spirit of reform. For example, Liang Qichao once commented that Wang Anshi was "the only perfect person under three generations". Later, there were more and more studies on Wang Anshi's political reform, and it was not popularized until the Republic of China.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the evaluation of Wang Anshi was mainly from the perspective of class, and later more from the perspective of specific interests. The main researchers are SJGH and Deng Guangming.

transmarine

In the 20th century, Lenin praised Wang Anshi as "a reformer in China 1 1 century".

Huang Renyu, a Chinese-American historian, believes that many of Wang Anshi's reforms involved large-scale business and digital management in China at that time, but they were not accommodated by the bureaucratic culture at that time and lacked relevant technical capabilities, so they could not succeed. According to Mr Huang Renyu, he can push the history of China forward 1000. Because the change is a partial denial of the previous system or law. At first, a few sensitive discoverers noticed the irrationality of the original system. Through hard work, more people demand reform, which not only exerts necessary pressure on the court to promote its innovation, but also urges the court to comply with the requirements of the majority. Wang Anshi's thought of change, and the thoughts of all reformers before and after him, are the civilized achievements of human ideological resistance, and it is these achievements that make human beings have the possibility and direction to get rid of barbaric rule.