Emperor Wu (r. 140-87 BCE)
Confucian Sage or Legalist Tyrant?
Confucian Sage or Legalist Tyrant?
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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. 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]
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The Great Learning
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 thoughout 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 Book of Rites It is only when things are investigated that knowledge is extended; when knowledge is extended...; [it is only] when the state is well governed that peace is brought to the world. 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 Legalist Emperor Wu
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....
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....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]| The 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] |
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...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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