Editing Sima Guang (section)

===Abolishing the labor recruitment law and the fall of Cai Que and Zhang Dun===
The labor recruitment law replaced [[corvée|corvée labor]] with professional laborers funded by service exemption fees paid by the richest rural households. Similar to the market exchange law, this law primarily became a method for revenue extraction. Sima argued that the law was simply another tax imposed on the commoners. Cai Que's refusal to remove the labor recruitment law led to his [[character assassination]] by the conservatives [[Liu Chi (Song dynasty)|Liu Chi]] and Su Che; this pushed him to resign as chancellor of the right and he was reappointed as the administrator of [[Chen Prefecture (Henan)|Chenzhou]]. Zhang Dun continued to resist and pointed out Sima's hypocrisy regarding the law: in early 1086, Sima said that rich households were harmed by the law, while just 14 days later he said that rich households benefitted from their preferential treatment under the law. Zhang also criticized Sima's demand to abolish the law country-wide in a mere 5 days.{{sfn|Twitchett|Smith|2009|pp=498-502}} Indeed, Sima was impressed when [[Cai Jing]], the mayor of [[Kaifeng]], was the only one who abolished the law in under 5 days.{{sfn|Ebrey|Bickford|2006|p=543}} 21 days after Cai Que resigned, Zhang Dun was demoted to a [[Prefectures of China|prefectural-level]] post after offending Empress Gao during a debate. In spring 1086, Wang Anshi died. The conservative restoration was complete.{{sfn|Twitchett|Smith|2009|pp=498-502}}

Nonetheless, the debate over how to remove the labor recruitment law revealed cracks in the conservative coalition. For example, Su Che (and many other conservatives who were typically closely aligned with Sima) argued that "an entire system could not be abolished overnight without serious repercussions" and that a framework for the replacement system should be formulated first. Su Shi, Su Che's older brother, formed a third faction and proposed that the funds from the labor recruitment law should be used to buy up public lands to grant to volunteer laborers in addition to their wages. Sima did not accept dissent from either group.{{sfn|Twitchett|Smith|2009|pp=502-504}}