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The Confucian Emperor Wu
 Emperor Wu’s
Confucianism deeply reflected the influence of his advisor Dong
Zhongshu (175?-105? B.C.), who believed that the emperor served to link
heaven with his subjects. If he governed well, heaven would continue to
support him, but if he violated heaven’s intent, heaven could
send various portents to warn him of his misconduct. These portents
could appear in the form of eclipses, floods, droughts, or any other
calamity.... Emperor Wu may have turned to Confucian scholars like Dong
Zhongshu as an alternative to the Huang-Lao school [i.e. a syncretic form of Daoism]. Dong Zhongshu urged
the emperor to ban all members of non-Confucian schools, and he
encouraged the emperor to support the study of Confucian classics. In
the years just before or just after the empress’s death, the
emperor named five scholars to the position of Erudite Scholars, each
of whom specialized in a different Confucian classic: The Book of Changes The Book of Documents, The Book of Songs, The Book of Rites, and The Spring and Autumn Annals.
The selection of these five books as the most important texts marked
the first step in the formation of the Confucian canon. When the
emperor named fifty students to study with the Erudite Scholars in 124
B.C., he created an imperial academy, whose students could enter the
government. It grew quickly, enrolling three thousand students in the
next seventy-five years. Emperor Wu also established schools in each
locality; students in these schools could join the local government,
attend the imperial academy, or be recruited into the central
bureaucracy. [OE, 126-127]
The Way of the Great Learning lies in
illuminating luminous virtue, treating the people with affection, and
resting in perfect goodness....Those in antiquity who wished to
illumine luminous virtue throughout the world would first govern their
states; wishing to govern their states, they would first bring order to
their families; wishing to bring order to their families, they would
first cultivate their own persons; wishing to cultivate their own
persons, they would first rectify their minds; wishing to rectify their
minds, they would first make their thoughts sincere; wishing to make
their thoughts sincere, they would first extend their knowledge. The
extension of knowledge lies in the investigation of things.
From the Son of Heaven to ordinary people,
all, without exception, should regard cultivating the person as the
root. It can never happen that the root is disordered and the branches
are ordered.... [SCT, 330-331] |
The Han dynasty
continued to recruit officials largely by recommendation, but it
required its officials to take examinations after they arrived in the
capital in order to place them in appropriate entry-level positions in
the bureaucracy. Whenever the central government decided to hire staff
a the local level, it asked local officials to recommend talented young
men. After entering the bureaucracy as low-ranking clerks, these men
could work their way up the bureaucratic ranks. [OE, 127]
The Legalist Emperor Wu
 One major [early Han]
departure from Qin policies concerned the treatment of the nobility.
Where the Qin emperor had required all the nobility of the vanquished
kingdoms to reside in his capital, the Han founder created a new
nobility. He gave nine of his brothers and sons the title of king and
the lands necessary to sustain them, and named one hundred fifty of his
most important followers to the rank of marquis. Two-thirds of his
territory remained in the hands of his sons and other relatives. Only
one-third of his empire, the crucial western half containing the
capital, remained under direct administration. We should remember that
the core of the Han-dynasty empire lay in the region around Changan, or
the modern city of Xian in the province of Shaanxi, while the coastal
areas and much of south China remained backwaters largely populated by
non-Chinese peoples. [OE, 114]
At the same time that Emperor Wu strengthened the
bureaucracy, he took strong measures to curtail the power of the
regional rulers empowered by the Han founder. Starting in 127 B.C. he
required that when a given ruler died, his lands were to be divided
among all his sons—not passed down intact to the oldest son as had
previously been the case. Like the Qin founder, he required these
families to move to a new city close to the capital, and he forbade
members of some families to live together. Emperor Wu broke with
earlier practice, too, in his consistent refusal to appoint the sons of
these powerful families to high office. Emperor Wu chose his own
appointees instead. [OE, 127]
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abolition of [the kingdoms of Huainan and Hengshan] in 122 B.C.E. seems
to have been decisive in breaking the power of the kingdoms. In 112
almost all the marquisates that had been inherited since the reign of
Emperor Gao were abolished. By that time the share of the empire ruled
by kings was much smaller than it had been in 141. [MOF, 58] |
Confucian
scholars were useful in devising legitimating ceremonies, drafting
state papers, and educating the next generation of officials, but they
did not determine the main directions of state policy, and frequently
opposed them. Emperor Wu’s regime was inclined to take aggressive
action in all directions as soon as it was free of the restraining
influence of the Grand Dowager Empress Dou. A Han ambush of a large
party of Xiongnu in 134 was followed by annual Xiongnu raids along the
border. These expansionist policies were opposed by many officials,
including one Zhufu Yan...
....But
in 127 Zhufu Yan changed his tune, urging that the Han reoccupy the
territory within the northward bend of the Yellow River, restoring the
Qin line of defenses in that area. His recommendation was followed, and
the Han armies were successful. Zhufu Yan also urged a general policy
of dividing up the territories of marquises among their heirs, on the
Confucian grounds that this would encourage warm family feelings and
filial piety, and accused the kings of Yan and Qi of personal moral
offenses. Both kings committed suicide, neither had an heir, and their
kingdoms came under central control. The linking of efforts to
strengthen central power and calls for an aggressive foreign policy,
the use of Confucian moral concerns to justify “Legalist”
centralization, are striking. Zhufu Yan may have changed his views on
foreign policy because he sensed what Emperor Wu and the powerful
generals wanted to hear. His days of success as a policy adviser were
short, however; the king of Zhao accused him of corruption and he was
executed. [MOF, 56-57]
...A
spectacular burst of military activity began in 121. The Xiongnu,
defeated in 121 and in 119, retreated north, beyond the Gobi Desert.
The Xiongnu retreat from the upper reaches of the Yellow River allowed
the Han to move into that region and on out along the “Silk Road,” the
oasis trade route that linked China with Persia and the Roman Orient.
New commanderies were set up on that frontier from 108 to 104.
Explorations to the northwest under Zhang Qian culminated in the Han
conquest of Ferghana, beyond the present northwest frontier of the
People’s Republic, in 104. A series of conflicts in the northeast led
to the establishment of full Han rule over much of the Korean peninsula
in 108. [MOF, 58]
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The Debate on Salt & Iron
Almost every measure Emperor Wu introduced, whether
sending troops far afield or establishing a Confucian academy, required
funds, yet officials soon found that the revenue from the land tax
could not meet the empire’s growing financial needs. Following the
precedent of the Han founder, Empress Lü had set the land tax at
one-fifteenth (6.67%) of agricultural produce, and it was subsequently
lowered to one-thirteenth in 168 B.C. In 119 B.C., to provide a
supplementary source of revenue, Emperor Wu created government
monopolies for two of the most profitable sectors in the economy: salt
and iron....Because the government controlled the production of iron,
which was used to make farm implements, cooking pots, scissors, and
weapons, it was able to charge artificially high prices for the
products over which it had monopolies. The profits generated from the
monopolies provided an important source of revenue for the central
government. The salt and iron monopolies were so successful that in 115
B.C. the central government also assumed control of the production of
copper and bronze and took the right to mint coins from the
commanderies, which had each been minting their own currency. In 98
B.C. the government created its fourth monopoly over a drink often
translated as wine: a fermented beverage made from grain. [OE, 130]
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The Confucian Literati
In the sixth year of the era Shiyuan [81
B.C.E.], an imperial edict was issued directing the chancellor and the
imperial secretaries to confer with the worthies and literati who had
been recommended to the government and to inquire into the grievances
and hardships of the people.
The literati responded: We have heard that
the way to govern men is to prevent evil and error at their source, to
broaden the beginnings of morality, to discourage secondary
occupations, and open the way for the exercise of humaneness and
rightness. Never should material profit appear as a motive of
government. Only then can moral instruction succeed and the customs of
the people be reformed. But now in the provinces the salt, iron, and
liquor monopolies, and the system of equitable marketing have been
established to compete with the people for profit, dispelling rustic
generosity and teaching the people greed. Therefore those who pursue
primary occupations [farming] have grown few and those following
secondary occupations [trading] numerous. As artifice increases, basic
simplicity declines; and as the secondary occupations flourish, those
that are primary suffer. When the secondary is practiced the people
grow decadent, but when the primary is practiced they are simple and
sincere. When the people are sincere then there will be sufficient
wealth and goods, but when they become extravagant then famine and cold
will follow. We recommend that the salt, iron, and liquor monopolies
and the system of equitable marketing be abolished so that primary
pursuits may be advanced and secondary ones suppressed. [SCT, 361]
The Imperial Secretary
His Lordship [the Imperial Secretary Sang Hongyang]
replied: The Xiongnu have frequently revolted against our sovereignty
and pillaged our borders. If we are able to defend ourselves, then it
means the hardships of war for the soldiers of China, but if we do not
defend ourselves properly, then their incursions cannot be stopped. The
former emperor [Wu] took pity upon the people of the border areas who
for so long had suffered disaster and hardship and had been carried off
as captives. Therefore he set up defenese stations, established a
system of warning beacons, and garrisoned the outliying areas to ensure
their protection. But the resources of these areas were insufficient,
and so he established the salt, iron, and liquor monopolies and the
system of equitable marketing in order to raise more funds for
expenditures at the borders. Now our critics, who desire that these
measures be abolished, would empty the treasuries and deplete the funds
used for defense. They would have the men who are defending our passes
and patrolling our walls suffer hunger and cold. How else can we
provide for them? Abolition of these measures is not expedient! [SCT,
361] |
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So, in the end was Emperor Wu a Confucian Sage, a Legalist Tyrant...or something in between?
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