Biography
Family Background and Early Years
Wang Anshi was born on December 19, 1021 (the thirteenth day of the eleventh lunar month in the fifth year of the Tianxi era under Emperor Zhenzong of Song). His father, Wang Yi, courtesy name Sunzhi, rose to the post of Vice Director in the Ministry of State Ceremonial. According to Cai Shangxiang's Qing-dynasty *A Critical Chronology of Wang Jinggong*, which cites the *Gazetteer of Antiquities of Qingjiang County*, Wang Yi was then serving as an administrative assistant in Linjiang Military Prefecture (administrative seat at present-day Linjiang Town, Zhangshu, Jiangxi), and "his son Anshi was born here; later generations therefore named the hall Weisong." However, the *History of Song: Biography of Wang Anshi* and most early sources describe him as a native of Linchuan in Fuzhou, leaving two accounts of his birthplace: Linchuan and Linjiang Military Prefecture. Wang Anshi was intelligent from childhood, loved reading, had a remarkable memory, and could compose readily.
When Wang Anshi was thirteen (1034, the first year of the Jingyou era), his grandfather Wang Yongzhi died, and he accompanied his father to Linchuan for three years of mourning. In 1037 (the fourth year of Jingyou), Wang Yi was transferred to serve as assistant prefect of Jiangning Prefecture, and Wang Anshi moved with him to Jiangning. Jiangning thereafter became his second home, and he also retired there late in life. In his poem "Recalling the Past, Shown to My Younger Cousins," he recalled his youthful ambitions in lines expressing self-confidence and a desire to emulate the ancient ministers Ji and Xie, showing that from an early age he aspired to assist a ruler and bring order to the realm. In 1039 (the second year of the Baoyuan era), Wang Yi died while serving as assistant prefect of Jiangning. Wang Anshi, only nineteen, remained at home in mourning and was deeply grief-stricken.
Entering Official Service and Local Appointments
In the third lunar month of 1042 (the second year of the Qingli era), Wang Anshi went to Kaifeng to take the examinations and passed the metropolitan examination. According to *Moji*, the examiners originally ranked him first, but when Emperor Renzong reviewed the paper he saw the phrase "ruzi qi peng," derived from the *Book of Documents*, and considered it inauspicious; Wang Anshi was therefore lowered to fourth place and the original fourth-place candidate, Yang Zhi, was raised to first. This account appears in Song-dynasty anecdotal writings and has been questioned by later scholars, but Wang Anshi's fourth-place ranking in the first class is treated as factual. After passing, he was appointed Collator and Signing Administrative Assistant of the Huainan East Circuit Military Commissioner's Office and went to Yangzhou.
In 1045 (the fifth year of Qingli), Han Qi became prefect of Yangzhou and Wang Anshi's superior. According to *Shaoshi Wenjian Lu*, Wang Anshi often read until dawn and sometimes went to the office before he had time to groom himself. Han Qi mistakenly thought he had been drinking through the night and admonished him not to waste his youth or abandon his studies. Wang Anshi later remarked that Han Qi did not truly understand him. The episode was taken as an illustration of his aloof temperament.
After completing his term, convention allowed him to submit writings and seek examination for an appointment in the imperial institutes, but Wang Anshi did not take that route. In 1047 (the seventh year of Qingli), he was transferred to serve as magistrate of Yin County in Mingzhou (present-day Yinzhou District, Ningbo, Zhejiang). During four years there, he began to display his administrative abilities. He directed water-control works, constructed and repaired dikes and ponds, dredged Dongqian Lake, and improved irrigation. During the lean season he also lent grain to the people, to be repaid with interest after the autumn harvest, thereby replacing old grain in public granaries while also assisting local households. These measures later served as precedents for such New Policies as the Green Sprouts Law and the Service Exemption Law. He also emphasized local education, expanded schools, and submitted a memorial to Du Qi, Fiscal Commissioner of the Two Zhe Circuits, setting out a water-control plan. After it was approved, he personally inspected water facilities throughout the county and recorded the journey in the *Record of Travels in Yin County*.
In 1051 (the third year of the Huangyou era), Wang Anshi served as assistant prefect of Shuzhou (present-day Qianshan, Anhui). Chancellor Wen Yanbo recommended him to Emperor Renzong for his indifference to fame and profit and his adherence to regulations, asking that he be commended as an example to improve public morals. Wang Anshi declined, saying he did not wish to encourage a custom of promotion outside normal channels. Ouyang Xiu also recommended him for a remonstrance post, which Wang Anshi declined on the grounds of his elderly grandmother. Ouyang Xiu then recommended him as an adjudicator in the Imperial Herds Directorate on the reasoning that he needed a salary to support his household. Wang Anshi later served as prefect of Changzhou and Judicial Intendant of Jiangnan East Circuit. While in Shuzhou, he wrote poetry describing local hardship, lamenting heavy taxation and the suffering of the people and expressing shame that, as a "father and mother" official, he could not relieve them.
The Ten-Thousand-Character Memorial and His Growing Reputation
In 1058 (the third year of Jiayou), Wang Anshi was transferred to serve as an adjudicator in the Expenditure Bureau of the Three Fiscal Commissions and went to the capital to report for duty. Drawing on years of local administrative experience, he composed the long "Memorial to Emperor Renzong on Matters of State," systematically setting out proposals for reform. He argued that the state's growing weakness and poverty had become a serious danger both at home and abroad and that the root problem was failure to understand proper institutions and regulations. He advocated emulating the way of the ancient sages, reforming institutions, and establishing concrete methods for cultivating talent. The document became known as the "Ten-Thousand-Character Memorial," but Emperor Renzong did not adopt it.
Thereafter the court repeatedly offered Wang Anshi posts in the imperial scholarly institutes, but he persistently declined. Scholar-officials came to believe that he had no interest in fame or office and regretted not knowing him personally. In 1060 (the fifth year of Jiayou), the court ordered him to participate in compiling the *Veritable Records of Imperial Activity*. He declined several times before accepting. Soon afterward he became an Academician of the Jixian Institute and Drafter, and he reviewed criminal cases in the capital. While serving as Drafter, the court prohibited the drafting office from requesting changes to the wording of edicts. Wang Anshi argued on principle that laws should not be made in this fashion, offending powerful officials. In 1063 (the eighth year of Jiayou), his mother Lady Wu died, and he resigned and returned to Jiangning for mourning.
During Emperor Yingzong's reign (1063–1067), Wang Anshi was repeatedly summoned to the capital but declined, citing mourning obligations and illness. His standing among scholar-officials nevertheless continued to rise. He maintained friendships with senior officials such as Han Wei and Lü Gongzhu, while his scholarly ideas spread through teaching and social contacts.
Emperor Shenzong and the Xining Reforms
In 1067 (the fourth year of Zhiping), Emperor Shenzong Zhao Xu ascended the throne. Long admiring Wang Anshi's reputation, the emperor appointed him prefect of Jiangning and soon summoned him to court as a Hanlin Academician and lecturer. According to Ye Mengde's *Shilin Yanyu*, Emperor Shenzong privately asked Han Wei about Wang Anshi's situation. Han Wei replied that Wang Anshi had ambitions for statecraft and was not content to grow old in seclusion, and advised that he be summoned with proper ceremony. In the fourth lunar month of 1068 (the first year of Xining), Wang Anshi appeared before the emperor and argued that the first task in governing was to establish methods for renewal, urging Emperor Shenzong to emulate Yao and Shun. He then submitted the "Memorial on a Century of Peace in Our Dynasty," explaining why the Song had enjoyed more than a century of relative peace while also arguing that the society of his own day faced serious crises and that the time for major action was the present.
In 1069 (the second year of Xining), Emperor Shenzong appointed Wang Anshi Vice Councilor, placing him among the chief policy makers. Wang Anshi declared that changing customs, establishing institutions, and correcting current conditions were urgent. The Commission for Planning the Regulations of the Three Fiscal Commissions was established under Wang Anshi and Chen Shengzhi, with Lü Huiqing handling its daily business, and more than forty supervisory officials were dispatched as new measures were promulgated. Fiscal policies included the Equitable Transport Law, Green Sprouts Law, Market Exchange Law, Service Exemption Law, Equal Tax Law on Fields, and Agricultural Water Conservancy Law; military measures included the General Command Law, Baojia Law, and Horse-Raising Law. In 1070 (the third year of Xining), Wang Anshi was appointed Jointly Manager of Affairs with the Secretariat-Chancellery, formally becoming chancellor and taking full charge of the New Policies.
At first Emperor Shenzong generally accepted Wang Anshi's advice. Problems nevertheless emerged in implementation: in some localities the Green Sprouts Law involved compulsory lending and exactions; the Service Exemption Law increased burdens on poorer people; and the Equitable Transport and Market Exchange laws affected wealthy merchants' interests. Opposition became intense. Senior statesmen such as Sima Guang, Wen Yanbo, Han Qi, and Fu Bi formed a powerful opposition bloc. Divisions also emerged among the reformers, including conflict between Zeng Bu and Lü Huiqing. In 1074 (the seventh year of Xining), amid a severe drought in Hebei, opponents claimed that the New Policies had provoked Heaven's anger. Wang Anshi was removed from the chancellorship and sent out as prefect of Jiangning.
In 1075 (the eighth year of Xining), Emperor Shenzong recalled Wang Anshi as chancellor. During this second term, disagreements between ruler and minister over reform gradually deepened: the emperor became more cautious toward the New Policies, whereas Wang Anshi insisted on pressing ahead. The death of his son Wang Pang also left him physically and emotionally exhausted. In 1076 (the ninth year of Xining), he again left the chancellorship and was sent to administer Jiangning. From then on he retired in Jinling and no longer directly participated in government.
Retirement in Jinling and Final Years
After retiring to Jiangning, Wang Anshi built a residence at Baitang outside the eastern gate of the city, later called Banshan Garden, and took Banshan as his art name. He often rode a donkey on excursions, associated with monks and local elders, and immersed himself in the landscape. He continued to follow public affairs but no longer took a direct role in politics. In 1080 (the third year of Yuanfeng), he was enfeoffed as Duke of Jing. In 1085 (the eighth year of Yuanfeng), Emperor Shenzong died and Emperor Zhezong succeeded. Empress Dowager Gao governed as regent, recalled Sima Guang as chancellor, and the New Policies were gradually repealed.
On the sixth day of the fourth lunar month in 1086 (the first year of Yuanyou), Wang Anshi died in Jiangning at the age of sixty-six. In the intercalary second month of that year, the court posthumously granted him the title Grand Protector. In 1087 (the second year of Yuanyou), he received the posthumous name Wen. His disciple Lu Dian and others composed his epitaph.
His Family, Early Years and Success in the Examinations
Wang Anshi, courtesy name Jiefu, styled Banshan, was a man of Linchuan county in Fuzhou. By the History of Song he "loved reading from boyhood and never forgot a page once seen," and wrote "with the brush flying, seeming careless at first, but when the piece was done all who saw it admired its excellence"; and his friend Zeng Gong showed his writings to Ouyang Xiu, who spread his reputation. At the palace examination of the second year of Qingli, 1042, the examiners had placed Wang Anshi's paper first, but the phrase "the young man and his friends" in his rhapsody being thought inauspicious and unfit to head the realm, Yang Zhen was made first instead; and such was his magnanimity that he never once spoke of having been placed first. He was then raised to the highest grade of the doctoral examination and made registrar of Huainan; and whereas by the old rule a man whose term was complete might present writings to seek a post in the academy, "Wang Anshi alone declined." Transferred to be magistrate of Yin county, he "raised dikes, opened the ponds, and made the advantages of water and land; he lent grain to the people to be repaid with interest, so that new and old might be exchanged, and the people of the county found it convenient." Serving as assistant in Yangzhou he often read all night, so that on duty he had no time to wash and dress, and the prefect of Yangzhou, Han Qi, seeing his dirty face, suspected him of drinking at night and urged him not to neglect his studies; and Wang Anshi, making no defence, said only that Lord Han did not know him — until Han Qi, discovering that he read all night, found him very talented.
His Memorial to Emperor Renzong and His Repeated Refusal of Office
In the Jiahu period, having been brought to the capital and made a judge of the finance commission, Wang Anshi wrote the Memorial to Emperor Renzong on Affairs, saying that inwardly he could not but be anxious for the altars of state and outwardly could not but fear the barbarians, that the realm's resources grew daily poorer and its customs daily worse, and that men of purpose everywhere feared the realm would not long be at peace; and he asked the cause, answering that the trouble lay in ignorance of law and institutions. He held that the root of the disease was that the rulers did not understand law and institutions and that the cure lay in following the way of the ancient sages and reforming the system, and he set out his own basic proposals on the policy and method of using men, advising the court to reform the examinations and value talent; and he added that it was because the realm's talent was insufficient, so that though the emperor had the virtue of reverence and frugality, the ability of intelligence and wisdom, and the mind of benevolence that loves men, yet if talent failed he could not in the nature of things reform the affairs of the realm. Thereafter the court several times offered him posts in the academies and he firmly declined them, so that the scholars thought he had no thought of fame or office and the court, wishing repeatedly to employ him, feared he would not serve. By the History of Song, the next year he was made a diarist, and declined for days: the clerk of the palace gate brought the edict to hand him and he refused it, and when the clerk bowed to him in turn he hid in the privy, and when the clerk laid the edict on the table and left he sent after him to return it, submitting memorials eight or nine times before accepting. In office at the capital he found that the court had ruled that the chancery of the secretaries might not apply to alter the wording of edicts, and holding that legislation should not be so, he argued it out and offended the great ministers. In the eighth year of Jiahu, 1063, his mother dying, he resigned and returned to Jiangning.
His Audience under Shenzong and His Conduct of the Reform
So early as the Zhi Ping period, when Shenzong was prince of Ying, Han Wei was his tutor, and whenever he expounded the classics and the prince praised him, Han Wei would say that this was not his own view but that of his friend Wang Anshi, and he recommended him to take his place; so that the prince wished to see the man, and on his accession made him prefect of Jiangning, and within months summoned him to be academician of the Hanlin and expositor in waiting. In the fourth month of the first year of Xining, 1068, Wang Anshi first came to court, and being asked what should come first in government he answered that the choice of method came first; and asked what he thought of Emperor Taizong of Tang, he answered that the emperor should take Yao and Shun as his model and what need was there of Taizong, since the way of Yao and Shun was "most simple and not troublesome, most essential and not remote, most easy and not difficult," only the scholars of a degenerate age could not comprehend it and thought it beyond reach. One day after the lecture, when the ministers had withdrawn, Shenzong kept Wang Anshi to sit with him, saying that Taizong of Tang must have had Wei Zheng and Liu Bei must have had Zhuge Liang before they could act, and that those two were indeed men not born once in an age; and Wang Anshi answered that if the emperor would truly be a Yao or a Shun he would have his Gao, Kui, Ji and Xie, and if a Gao Zong his Fu Yue, and that those two were men of whom a man of the way would be ashamed and not worth mention; for with so great a realm, so many people and a hundred years of peace, scholars were not few, yet it was always lamented that there were none to help in government, and the reason was that the emperor's choice of method was not clear and his sincerity not complete, so that even with sages like Gao, Kui, Ji, Xie and Fu Yue, they would be hidden from him by petty men and would depart with their gifts wrapped up. And when Shenzong said that in what age were there no petty men, for even in the time of Yao and Shun there could not but be the four criminals, Wang Anshi answered that it was just because he could discern the four criminals and put them to death that Yao and Shun were what they were, and that if the four criminals had been allowed to spread their slander and malice, then Gao, Kui, Ji and Xie would never have consented to eat their pay in idleness to the end of their days. In the second month of the second year of Xining, 1069, he took the government as assistant administrator and directed the reform; and the court set up the commission for regulating the three finance offices, making the administrator of the privy council Chen Shengzhi co-head it, Wang Anshi bringing in his associate Lü Huiqing. The laws on farmland and water, on the green shoots, on the equitable transport, on the tithing, on commuted service, on market exchange, on horse-breeding and on the square-field measurement followed one after another, and were called the new laws, with more than forty supervising officers sent out to publish and enforce them throughout the realm. In the twelfth month of the third year of Xining he was made chancellor. In the course of the reform, when the censor-in-chief Lü Hui listed ten faults of his and Shenzong dismissed him, Wang Anshi recommended Lü Gongzhu in his place; when Han Qi's memorial of remonstrance arrived and Shenzong, moved, wished to follow it, Wang Anshi asked to retire, and Sima Guang's answering edict containing the words "officials in a ferment and the black-haired people in commotion," Wang Anshi in a rage memorialised in his own defence, and Shenzong apologised in mild terms, sending Lü Huiqing to convey his will, while Han Jiang again urged him to keep Wang Anshi. And Wang Anshi, coming to thank him, spoke of how ministers within and without, the attendants, the censors and the courtiers were forming factions, and said that the emperor, wishing to overcome the vulgar customs of the realm by the true way of the former kings, was being weighed against those customs: that whichever weighed heavier, the men of the realm went over to it; that power weighs against things, so that a mass of a thousand jun turns with the addition of a few ounces; and that now the wicked, wishing to ruin the true way of the former kings and to obstruct what the emperor did, had brought the matter to the point where the addition of a few ounces of force, though the force be small, would turn the power of the realm over to the vulgar customs. Shenzong agreeing with him, Wang Anshi went back to his duties and Han Qi's advice could not be carried out.
The Opposition to the Reform and His Two Dismissals
As the new laws went forward, the censors Liu Shu, Liu Qi, Qian Yi, Sun Changling, Wang Zishao, Cheng Hao, Zhang Jian, Chen Xiang, Chen Jian, Xie Jingwen, Yang Hui and Liu Zhi and the remonstrating officials Fan Chunren, Li Chang, Sun Jue and Hu Zongyu all, being unable to get their views accepted, left office one after another; and when he abruptly made Li Ding of Xiuzhou a censor, the drafting officials Song Minqiu, Li Dalin and Su Song returned the commissions, and the censors Lin Dan, Xue Changchao and Fan Yu condemned Li Ding as unfilial, and all were dismissed; and the Hanlin academician Fan Zhen, thrice memorialising against the green-shoots law, was stripped of office and retired. When Lü Huiqing went into mourning, Wang Anshi, not knowing whom to rely on, found Zeng Bu and trusted him. He answered Sima Guang's charges one by one and criticised the scholars' habit of following precedent, declaring his resolve to persevere; and afterwards, when Shenzong wished to make Sima Guang vice-commissioner of the privy council, Sima Guang took the occasion to plead again for abolishing the new laws, and being refused, resigned and left the capital. In the spring of the fourth year of Xining the strange portent of violent winds in Jingdong and Hebei terrified the people, and Shenzong endorsed a note to the secretariat to keep business quiet and calm in answer to the heavenly change and to discharge the levies of the two circuits, but Wang Anshi held it back and would not issue it; and when the people of Kaifeng, evading the tithing, cut off fingers and wrists, and the prefect Han Wei reported it and Shenzong asked Wang Anshi, he said it could not be known and that even if it were so it was nothing strange, for the scholars themselves were astonished at the new measures and much more would twenty myriads of households be misled by foolish men, and they should not on that account dare to do nothing; but Shenzong said that the people's words, if hearkened to together, would prevail, and were not to be disregarded. In the spring of the seventh year of Xining, the realm long dry, starving people wandering, Shenzong's grief showed in his face and he sighed in court, wishing to abolish every law that was bad; and Wang Anshi said that drought and flood were constants from which even Yao and Tang could not escape and were no cause for imperial anxiety, but that human affairs should be ordered to meet them; and Shenzong said that this was no small matter, that what he feared was precisely that human affairs were not ordered, that the commutation money was now taken too heavily and men murmured, and that from the close ministers to the imperial kin all spoke of the harm, and that the two palaces wept, fearing disorder in the capital and thinking that drought would lose them the people's hearts; and Wang Anshi said that he did not know which of the close ministers it was, but that if the two palaces had said it, it was the doing of Xiang Jing and Cao Yi; and when Feng Jing said that he had heard it too, Wang Anshi said that the disaffected among the scholars looked to Feng Jing, and that was why he alone heard such words, for he himself had not. Zheng Xia, who guarded the security gate, memorialised, painting the distress of the wandering folk leading their old and their young as a picture to present, saying that the drought was caused by Wang Anshi and that if Wang Anshi were removed heaven would surely rain; and he too was banished to the south of the mountains. That year Wang Anshi was dismissed from the chancellorship, and memorialised that Lü Huiqing be made assistant administrator and that Han Jiang be recalled in his own place, the two of them holding to the laws he had made; and Lü Huiqing, having grasped power, fearing Wang Anshi's return, used the occasion of the Zheng Xia case to ruin his younger brother Wang Anguo. In the second month of the eighth year of Xining he was made chancellor again and came at speed on the order. The Meaning of the Three Classics being finished, he was made vice-director of the left of the secretariat and vice-attendant of the chancery, with his son Wang Pang made academician of the Dragon Diagram. Wang Pang declining the post and Lü Huiqing urging the emperor to grant his request, the breach between them grew the wider; and Lü Huiqing being attacked by Cai Chengxi and waiting at home for orders, Wang Pang stirred the censor-in-chief Deng Wan to impeach Lü Huiqing again for corrupt dealings with the magistrate of Huating, Zhang Ruoji, and a case was opened to try it, so that Lü Huiqing went out as prefect of Chenzhou. In his second chancellorship Wang Anshi repeatedly pleaded illness and asked to be released, and after his son Wang Pang died he was the more unable to bear his grief and urgently asked to be freed from business, so that the emperor, the more weary of him, made him military commissioner of Zhennan army and concurrent chancellor and prefect of Jiangning; and the next year he was made master of the Jixi abbey and enfeoffed as duke of Shu.
His Retirement at Jiangning, His Last Years and After
Retiring to Jiangning, Wang Anshi chose a place outside the city called Baitang, had a channel dug to drain the water and earth heaped up to build a house; and because the main dwelling was seven li from the east gate of Jiangning and seven li from the main peak of Zhongshan, being halfway, he named it the Halfway Garden. Living below Zhongshan he would often go with a staff into the neighbouring villages, where an old man named Zhang was most familiar with him, and whenever Wang Anshi walked to his door he would call out "Lord Zhang," and Zhang would answer "Your Excellency"; and one day, having called out at Zhang's door, he suddenly laughed aloud and said that in all the time he had been chancellor there was but one character of difference between them. He died in the first year of Yuanyou, 1086. His honours after death went back and forth: in the third year of Zhenghe, 1113, he was enfeoffed as prince of Shu and given a place in the sacrifices to Confucius; but in the first year of Jingkang, 1126, the grand master of remonstrance Yang Shi declaring Wang Anshi's learning erroneous and asking that his princely title be taken away, that the abolition be proclaimed at home and abroad and the image of him in the sacrifices destroyed so that perverse doctrines should not mislead scholars, an edict reduced him to a place in the temple court. By the histories, after his death he was buried three li east of the southern slope of Zhongshan in Jiangning, between the old pagoda of Baogong and the Thatched Hall; and his mother lady Wu, his brothers Wang Anguo and Wang Anli and his son Wang Pang were buried on the same southern slope. When in the early Ming the Dulongfu Wanzhu peak of the southern slope of Zhongshan was chosen by Zhu Yuanzhang for his own tomb, the nearby antiquities of Jiangshan temple, the Baogong pagoda and the Bagonde water were moved away, and the tombs of Wang Anshi and his family with them, by one account to Qilin gate and by another back to their native Jiangxi. His native village is Shangchi in Dongxiang county of Jiangxi, founded in the Northern Song and now more than a thousand years old, whose surviving buildings are chiefly of Ming and Qing date, with more than a hundred ancient structures and a dozen or more sites connected with Wang Anshi; it was listed among the first group of provincial scenic sites in 1985 and proclaimed a provincial protected site in July 2000, its chief places being the ancestral hall, the Xiyin temple, the Longan hall, the Jinggong bridge, the Jinggong weir, the Jinggong villa and the gateway of the Jingguo lineage. The Wang Anshi memorial hall at Fuzhou was completed and opened in November 1986, a garden of Song-style buildings in the manner of a Jiangnan garden; and Yin county has an exhibition on his achievements there, in seven parts covering his chronology, his measures in Yin, the rebuilding of the East Lake, the promotion of learning, his poems on Yin, his enduring monument and the new face of the lake district.
Anecdotes of His Life
By Zeng Minxing's Record of the Unique Awakened, when Wang Anshi was chancellor a connexion of his son's wife, a young man of the Xiao family, came to the capital and Wang Anshi invited him to dine; and the young man coming in full dress the next day expecting a great feast, and the hour passing noon, he grew very hungry but dared not leave, and after a long while was told to sit, with no fruit or vegetables served, and after three rounds of wine two sesame cakes were brought, then several pieces of pork, and presently rice with only a dish of vegetable soup beside it; and the young man, being proud and wilful, ate only the middle of the cakes and left the edges, whereupon Wang Anshi took the remnants and ate them himself, and the young man, much ashamed, took his leave. By Shao Bowen's Record of Things Seen and Heard, Wang Anshi's wife lady Wu once bought him a concubine; and when the woman came to serve him Wang Anshi asked who she was, and she said that her husband, a great officer of the army, having lost the boats carrying the rice he was transporting, had lost all his property and still not made it good, and had sold her to pay the debt; and Wang Anshi, asking how much had been paid for her and being told nine hundred thousand, was moved, and calling her husband had them made man and wife again as before, giving them all the money. And someone told Wang Anshi's wife that her husband liked shredded venison, because at table he ate no other dish but finished that plate; and the lady asking where the venison had been set, they said directly in front of him, and the next day she changed the places and put the venison farthest from him, whereupon it appeared that Wang Anshi ate only what was nearest him and never knew that the venison was on the table at all.