Green Sprouts Policy Lends to Song Farmers
1069
Wang Anshi's most ambitious reform went straight to the root: the Green Sprouts program offered government loans to farmers at twenty percent annual interest - usurious by modern standards, but a fraction of what private moneylenders charged. The goal was to break the rural debt cycle that turned free peasants into tenant serfs each drought year. Conservative officials were horrified. The farmers, cautiously, borrowed.
In context
Also in 1069 (3 other events on record)
- Wang Anshi's New Policies begin · East Asia · Politics
- Harrying of the North · Europe · War
- Death of Virarajendra Chola Opens a Succession Crisis · South Asia · Politics
Before and after in East Asia
Before and after in Politics
Era
High Middle Ages (1000–1300), one of 1,306 events from that era on Saeculum.