In 1069, Wang Anshi became assistant chief minister of the Song dynasty and began his New Laws. Asked by Emperor Shenzong what came first, he answered: “To change customs and establish laws is the most urgent task today.”
Wang is famous for three sentences: “Changes in heaven are not enough to fear. The ancestors are not enough to follow. What people say is not enough to heed.” Scholars long accepted them as his. In 1986, the historian Gu Jichen argued that Wang never said them. The earliest record of them is in the Veritable Records of Shenzong.