Falsifying Three Articles Attributed to Wang Anshi

Since the Southern Song Dynasty, the discrimination of Wang Anshi's poetry and prose has achieved important results. But some work remains to be done in this regard. The newly unearthed epitaph of Yu, wife of Mr. Song, should have been written by Wang Gongyi, and the epitaph signed "Wang Anshi" was distorted by later generations. The Reply to the Letter of Thanks from Royalty was included in The Writings of Wang Anshi by mistake. The royal relative in the letter was Zhao Shu'ang, and the author of the letter was Zhang Zao. The Proposal or Transforming Xuanwu Lake into Field contained in The Jingding Chorography of Jiankang has been regarded as an article by Wang Anshi, but some words in the article indicate that it may have been written finished at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty.