The History of China - #26 - W. Han 4: The Rule Of Wen And Jing

Episode Date: June 15, 2014

The reigns of Han Emperors Wen and Jing took enormous strides to stabilize the dynasty both within and without. Lowered taxes, more lenient laws, and normalization of international relationships saw life under Wen and Jing greatly improve. But a blunder dealing with the autonomous Imperial Princes threatens to unmake everything... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Episode 24, The Rule of Wen and Jing Last time, we took an in-depth view of Lü Zhi, the first empress, empress dowager, and grand empress dowager of China, and her 15-year reign of terror as the authority behind the throne of Han, and following her death, the backlash against her tyranny, which resulted in the extermination of her entire clan. This episode, we will cover the reigns of the 5th and 6th Han emperors, their restoration of the dynasty to prominence and security, and their ushering in, bumpy though it was, of a golden era for the Middle Kingdom. Following the Lu clan disturbance that saw the extinguishing of the late Grand Empress Dowager's family line,

her final puppet emperor, Huo Shao, had been deposed and ultimately executed, and the throne offered to the Prince of Dai, Liu Heng. Born in 202 BCE, Prince Heng had been the fifth of nine children produced by the late Emperor Gaozu, but the oldest who had managed to survive Empress Lu's murderous rampage throughout the royal household. He had been born to consort Bo, and at a young age, no more than seven or eight in fact, had been given the Principality of Dai following its former leader Chen Xi's failed rebellion in 196. The Dai Principality bordered on the Xiongnu Empire to the north of Han China, and was

seen by most as a desolate wasteland with little to offer anyone. It would prove, however, to be a key point of defense against the nearly clockwork Xiongnu raids, which you'll recall continued unabated in spite of the Heqin marriage alliance system between the two empires. As such, Prince Heng became well-versed in the northern horse archers' customs, military strategies, and methods of diplomacy virtually from the outset. Though, admittedly, his personal participation in Dai's military actions is unclear. In 180, Prince Heng received word from the imperial capital Chang'an.

The officials behind the Lu clan's recent annihilation had bid him come to the capital and offered him the throne of Han. Though there was some initial hesitation on his and his advisors' part, fearful that these court officials may have sought to control him as an empty vessel, just like the Empress Dowager had done with the last three Han emperors, he was at last convinced of their sincerity and journeyed to Chang'an to accept. Thus, at 23 years old, which is young but still a decade older than either of the last two emperors, Prince Han was enthroned as Han's fifth emperor, Wen. As he had shown during his tenure as the

Prince of Dai, Emperor Wen proved himself to be an apt administrator, diligent, even-handed, and genuinely concerned for the well-being of his empire and its people. In his personal life as well, he is stated to have been prudent and willing to offer forgiveness to those who were penitent. The leaders of the coup d'etat that had installed Wen would serve as his successive prime ministers. Over the course of his reign, one continued to pull back from the execution-happy legalism of the prior Qin dynasty, in large part due to the influence of his wife, Empress Dou, and her strict adherence to Taoist philosophy, especially those of Lao Tzu and the Yellow Emperor, which favored inaction, non-impreventionism, and living within one's means both individually and nationally. Taxes were sharply reduced to between 3.3 and 1.7% for property holders,

and it should be noted that property taxes were the sole sources of income for virtually all of imperial China, and income taxes almost entirely nonexistent for the entire 3,000-year stretch. In spite of the massive decrease in overall revenue, one's concurrent drawdown of expenditures actually amounted to a net gain for the Han government, and histories of his rule tell of government grain stores so brimming with rice that portions of it simply had to be thrown away to rot. In 179 BCE, one decreed that the laws stipulating the arrest,ment and group punishment of parents wives and siblings of convicted criminals were thenceforth abolished with the notable exception of treason that same year he decreed the opening of several governmental assistance programs for those in need loans and tax exemptions were made available to widows, widowers, orphans, and seniors without children.

Additionally, in what might be thought of as the world's first social security program, he ordered that monthly stipends of rice, wine, and meat be allotted to those over 80, and additional stipends of cloth and cotton be given to those over 90. For governmental positions, he is remembered as being the founder of the imperial examination system that determined acceptance and placement of potential court officials via a standardized examination process, a system that would remain more or less intact throughout the imperial period and exists in a modified format as the current Chinese Gaokao testing system. In terms of foreign policy, he also made great strides. I missed this in the

previous episode, because quite frankly there was already more than enough going on internally and to the north of China during Empress Liu's reign to be too concerned with the southern border. But, no real surprise here, Liu had managed to offend the king of Nan Yue, or in their own language, Nam Viet, which you'll no doubt be shocked to learn consists of the northern modern Vietnam, along with much of Guangdong, or Canton, Guanxi, and Yunnan. Its king, Zhao Tuo, or in Vietnamese, Chiu Da, had been a loyal vassal to Emperor Gao Zu, but had declared himself independent after Empress Liu had enacted an economic embargo against his kingdom, and he had begun raiding the southern borders of Han. That tension came to an

end at last when Emperor Wen wrote to King Zhao in 179, humbly but assertively offering him peace and reconciliation with dignity. Zhao accepted, abandoning his claim to emperordom and resuming Nan Yue's relationship with the Han dynasty as a vassal kingdom. As we now know will periodically happen regardless of the qualities of a nation's ruler, in 178 BCE, the capital of Han received a solar eclipse, which was at the time believed to be a portent of great misfortune and heavenly dissatisfaction with the ruling dynasty. Understandably alarmed at this cosmic red alert, Emperor Wen went into crisis mode, and gathered his advisors with a request that they give him honest criticism of his rule thus far, and recommendations of capable individuals to fill key governmental positions.

His able management of this crisis, and earnest desire to accept and grow from the criticisms leveled, ultimately resolved any doubts about the true will of heaven. His able management of this crisis, and earnest desire to accept and grow from the criticisms leveled, ultimately resolved any doubts about the true will of heaven. One would remain its son and emperor. In 175, Emperor Wen released a proclamation over the objections of several of his advisors, permitting, on paper, well, anyone, to mint their own money. Of course, having the capability was the real sticking point here. Money was still restricted solely to copper and tin coinage,

and thus its minting limited to those who had access to those elements. The early beneficiaries of the policy were, in particular, the court official Deng Tong and Prince Liu Pi of Wu, both of whom possessed large-scale copper mines. But this would turn out to be one of Emperor Wen's uncommon stumbles, which would hand imperial authority off to more decentralized powers and weaken their ties to the throne. It would ultimately be up to his son and heir to deal with the fallout of independent minting operations and its repercussions. The following year, in the Xiongnu Empire, the fearsome Ba Zhe Chanyu finally died and was succeeded by Lao Shang Chanyu.

The name Lao Shang, it must be said, literally means old and elevated, and is either a direct and wholly redundant translation of the title Chanyu itself, you know, a little like saying Emperor Your Majesty, or possibly a phonetic transliteration of the proto-Khan's Mongolian name, which was never recorded by the preliterate Xiongnu themselves. Take note, future conquerors! Make sure your civilization has a system of recording events and names, or you will end up like the Xiongnu, who, for all their ferocity,

are ultimately remembered merely as a secondary antagonist in the histories of their weaker but record-keeping southern neighbors, with even their leaders' names sinicized. The tributary Heqin relationship between the Han and Xiongnu was renewed under its new Chanyu, and Emperor Wen gave the daughter of one of his princely kinsmen to the barbarian monarch shortly after his ascension. At the suggestion of a then low-level official named Cao Zuo, the emperor instituted a policy stipulating that material contributions, specifically food, given to the defense effort against the ever-ongoing Xiongnu raids into Han lands would be rewarded by the throne with either titles or pardons for past criminal convictions. As a reward for Chaozhou's great idea, Emperor Wen appointed the minister to his son's personal household. In 167 BCE, the Han Emperor would make a major break with the

system of punishments that had been in effect across China since the reign of Qin Shi Huang more than half a century prior. One at last banned the use of most mutilations and punishment, including facial tattooing and the amputation of the nose or feet. In its place, he laid out what was thought at the time to be a more humane system of punishment, a prescribed number of lashes based on the crime in question. Ironically, the more humane system would in fact prove far more fatal than the previous, and so once again, one's successor

would have to tweak what his father had put into place. As Emperor One approached his 40th birthday, he began to spend more and more of his time and energy contemplating his own eventual mortality, and the possibility of supernatural events. As such, in 165, he would fall under the sway of a self-proclaimed sorcerer, Xin Yuan Ping of Zhao, who came to the sovereign's attention by reporting, of all things, an unusual cloud formation to the northeast of the capital, displaying five colors and shaped like a hat. At the wizard's and his own officials behest, one ordered a temple to the five gods constructed on the northern bank of the Wei River in response. For his meteorological

observation, Xinyuan was rewarded with the title of Superior Lord and gifted several thousand gold pieces. The following year, Xinyuan struck again by ordering one of his servants to leave a carved jade cup at the gate of the imperial palace. To quote Sima Qian's recounting of the event, Xinyuan Ping then remarked to the emperor, There are emanations in the sky which indicate that someone has come to the palace gate with a precious object. When a man was sent to verify this announcement, it was found that a jade cup bearing the inscription, Long Life to the Lord of Men, had in fact been presented at the gate.

Another time, Shen Yuanping announced that, according to his observations, the setting sun would stop its course and ascend to the center of the sky. After a little while, the sun began to move backward until it had returned to the meridian. Thereupon, the sun began to move backward until it had returned to the meridian. Thereupon, the emperor began to number the years of his reign over again, making the 17th year the first year of a new period, and ordered great feasting throughout the empire. End quote. Now this regression of the sun in the sky is truly an astonishing tale.

But today it is understood as having almost definitely been something more along the lines of a partial solar eclipse, which for one with a proper model of celestial motions would be quite predictable. Ultimately though, Xinyuan pushed his luck just a little too far. For his next trick, he intended to make the Jiu Ding reappear. The Jiu Ding, which had featured prominently in our episodes about the early Jiu dynasty, were the nine tripod bronze cauldron that had been holy symbols of imperial authority since the time of Yu the Great of the Xia dynasty, some two millennia prior. They had, however, been lost near the end of the Jiu dynasty, purportedly in the Si River, which was then a major tributary of the Huai River.

Following the victory and formation of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang had dredged the Si River in an attempt to recover the holy vessels, but to no avail. Shen Yun, though, was unfazed and announced, quote, "...the cauldrons of the Zhou Dynasty were lost in the Si River. Now the Yellow River has overflown and runs into the Si. Observing the sky to the northeast, I note there are certain emanations right over Fenyin, which indicate the presence of precious metal objects. That, I believe, is where the cauldrons will be found.

When such an omen appears, however, unless some action is taken in response, nothing will ever come of it." Try as they might, though, once again, nothing would end up coming from the exhaustive search. Now, the sorcerer Xin Yuanping, so drastically misreading the supposedly heavenly emanations, was cause enough to throw his powers into doubt. But along with a letter that found its way to Emperor Wen in the winter of 164, declaring that Xinyuan's whole shtick was a total fraud, his fate was sealed. Sorcerer Xinyuan was arrested, tried, and executed for treason, along with three sets of his relatives. Resolving that he would not get fooled a second time, Emperor Wen subsequently ended his fascination with the supernatural to focus on his worldly duties.

In 158 BCE, the penultimate year of Emperor Wen's reign, Laoshang Chanyu's Xiongnu raiders made a major incursion into modern Inner Mongolia and Shanxi provinces, then organized as Shang and Yunzhou prefectures. Wen visited the camps of the gathered Han army that were preparing to defend the capital itself against a potential barbarian assault. It was on this occasion when he became impressed with Zhou Bo's son, Zhou Yafu, as a military commander.

In stark contrast to his peers, who, upon the emperor's arrival, dropped everything they were doing to make the emperor feel welcome, Zhou remained on military alert and required the imperial guards to submit to proper military order before he would allow the imperial train to enter. Far from taking the disturbance as a slight, the emperor admired the young general's adherence to duty

and would later leave instructions for Crown Prince Qi that if a military emergency were to arise, he should make Zhou his commander of armed forces. Instructions that would come into play after only a few years. In the summer of 157 BCE, at 45 years of age, Emperor Wen of Han met his end. He was succeeded by his eldest son of his wife Empress Dou, the crown prince Liu Qi. In his will, Wen stipulated that he did not want the long, drawn-out, and ornate mourning periods that typified imperial deaths, and shortened the period

to a mere three days. This is important because during such periods of national mourning, weddings, sacrifices, drinking, and the consumption of meat were disallowed, and as such, one sought, even in death, to ease such burdens for his people. As an act of further humaneness, one would break with the grisly tradition of requiring those of his concubines without children to eternally accompany him to his tomb and ordered that they be allowed to return to their family homes to live out their lives in peace before moving on to the reign of prince leo chi i would be remiss if I didn't mention the Empress, now Empress Dowager, Dou. As a young girl, Lady Dou Yifeng had been summoned to the Imperial Palace as a lady-in-waiting for Emperor Hui. Following Hui's death in 188, she had, along with a host of other ladies-in-waiting, been packed up and sent to the far corners of the empire by Empress Dowager Lu Zhi as gifts for the imperial princes. Though she had requested to be sent to her homeland of Zhao, she had mistakenly been sent instead to the Dai

principality and its ruler Prince Heng. The two would fall in love and marry, producing a daughter, Liu Piao, and two sons, Liu Qi and Liu Wen. As empress, Dou became an ardent Taoist and ordered that all of her children, and eventually grandchildren, and other members of the Dou clan study the teachings of Lao Tzu and the Yellow Emperor. And while she was unable to likewise order her husband, Emperor Wen was nonetheless heavily influenced by Taoist philosophy during his reign. When he died, now Empress Dowager Do continued to advise and hold significant influence with her son, though she had neither the inclination nor Prince Qi the lack of personal willpower

to make a repeat of Empress Lu's domination of government. In many respects, Empress Do serves as a welcome counterexample to her predecessor's murderous reign of terror, displaying that no, not all empresses are necessarily psychopaths. The eldest son of Wen and Dou, Prince Liu Qi, was 32 at the time of his ascension to the throne, and I've just got to say, wow, Emperor Wen, having a child at 14 is no mean feat. Prince Qi was enthroned in 156 BCE as Emperor Jing of Han, and his wife-slash-paternal second cousin as Empress Bo. His early reign was marked by a continuance and furtherance of many of the popular policies his father had enacted, relaxation of laws and penalties, further reductions on property taxes, down to as little as 1 30th of the annual crop,

and further continuation of the Heqin marriage alliance with Xiong Nv Xiaonyu. Though his father, Wen, had outlawed tattoo and amputation as punishments for lesser crimes, replacing them with lashes, it was Jing who first confronted the grim reality that whippings tended to be far more fatal than the seemingly less humane punishments they had replaced. As such, he immediately reduced the number of lashes to be meted out, and would do so again 12 years later, in 144. The relationship between Emperor Jing and Empress Bo was strained, at best. As Bo repeatedly failed to produce a male heir, she quickly fell out of favor with her husband and his household.

Following the death of the Grand Empress Dowager in 155, who was also named Bo, and had been the young Empress's backing within the imperial power structure, so too did her security. In 151, Bo would be effectively deposed by her husband, that is, declared no longer the empress, and replaced with his favored consort, Wang Zhi. In spite of his popular policies, there was a major crisis on the horizon for the newly crowned Emperor Jing. The increasing, oh, let's call it self-determination, of his cousins, uncles, and even younger brother within the imperial clan. In all, the imperial princes directly controlled somewhere between one-third to one-half of the Han Empire.

That had seemed all well and good during the reign of Gao Zu, as a method to cement his rule over those regions of the empire not directly administrated through the Junxian prefectural system, as well as allowing them the leeway and personal militaries needed to defend the borders of the empire themselves. But, as the Zhou kings of old could have told the first Han emperor, those close kinship bonds had a tendency to break down rather sharply a few generations in. Jing's father, Emperor Wen, had compounded the issue during his reign by allowing those principalities, who had already enjoyed large measures of autonomy in their internal affairs and laws, to mint their own currencies and collect their own taxes. As a result, by the time Jing

ascended to the throne, many of these Leo princes were effectively ignoring or nullifying whatever imperial laws they found inconvenient to carry out, and were pretty much well on their way to becoming vassal kings in everything but name. Especially domineering in this devolving relationship was the Wu principality, governed by Emperor Jing's cousin once removed, Prince Liu Pi, and with whom the emperor had long endured a highly adversarial relationship. This animosity had come about after the crown prince had accidentally killed Liu Pi's heir apparent in a dispute over a game of chance called Liu Bo, which was commonly played for stakes in early imperial China.

After having been offended by something the heir had said, Prince Qi had thrown the solid wood game board at the heir of Wu, striking him in the head and killing him. So yeah, you can't really say the Prince of Wu didn't have a good reason for, well, hating the now Emperor Jing's living guts. Wu, a large portion of southeast central China that is now southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang provinces, held a particularly strong position in the arrangement, due to its possession of large amounts of valuable resources, including salt and copper mines. One of the emperor's top

advisors, Cao Cuo, drew up a plan to force the principalities into compliance with the throne, by seizing and annexing a prefecture from each of the rogue prince's territories, thereby reducing their overall power. Cao's plan had explicitly noted the high likelihood of this seizure prompting Wu and the other principalities to rebel, but justified the risk by asserting that if they were going to rebel anyway, it would be best that they do so earlier, rather than allow them additional time to prepare and expand their respective forces. Jing approved the plan and enacted it in early 154 BCE. Wu was hit especially hard by the decree.

It stood to lose not one, but two entire prefectures. So, of course, it rebelled and compelled six of the other principalities to join its alliance against the imperial throne, most notably Chu, Jiao Xi, and Zhao. The princes of Qi and Jibei had also initially agreed to join the rebellion, but at the last moment, the prince of Qi had thought better of it and reneged, while the prince of Jibei was placed under house arrest by his commander of the guards and prevented from joining. Additionally, Wu forged alliances with the independent kingdoms to the south of Han,

Donghai, which is modern southern Zhejiang province, and Minyue, which is modern Fujian, as well as pleading with the Xiongnu Chanyu to aid him against the Han. The kings of Donghai and Minyue contributed forces, but while Laoshang Chanyu pledged to intercede, the Xiongnu never did quite get around to entering the war. Thus, the civil war, dubbed the Rebellion of the Seven States, was begun. Emperor Jing followed the instructions of his late father. Remember, in case of emergency, break glass and commission Zhou Yafu? But quickly panicked at the idea of losing to the Seven States.

For their part, the rebellious princes ramped up a propaganda campaign aimed at weakening the imperial court. They claimed he was… they claimed that this was all Cao Tuo's fault. And they sort of had a point. He was the guy who had advised Jing to seize their territories in the first place, after all. Further, they claimed that Cao's true aim was to wipe them all out. They stated in missives that they would be satisfied and give up their rebellion if Chao were executed. Further pressed by another of his advisors, one of Chao's personal enemies as it were, Emperor Jing ordered Chao Chuo's death in an attempt to appease his rebelling princes. The seven princes, for their part, far from being appeased,

turned out to have been fake punting and had no intention of giving up their rebellion they now pressed their attack on the seemingly weakened imperial court by massing against the loyalist principality of liang which was ruled by the emperor's younger brother prince to immediately march to Liang and save it from destruction, but as acting military commander, General Zhou Yafu refused the directive, reasoning that the proper course of action would be to instead cut off the attacker's supply lines and retreat options, and bank on Prince Wu being able to stave off defeat from his capital long enough to starve them into submission. The strategy would prove successful. With the Wu and Chu armies unable to quickly capture Liang, they were forced to attack Zhou's now fortified army in a desperate attempt to re-establish their supply lines. Their attack against General Zhou's army failed, though, and the Wu and Chu attackers quickly collapsed from starvation. In the aftermath of their failure, the rebellious princes were either killed by their own people in order to make peace with Han, as with the prince of Donghai, or committed suicide when it became clear that their cause was lost,

as with the princes of Chu and Zhao. Those who managed to survive the end of the conflict would find themselves in fact forgiven by the emperor as an act of mercy. The rebellion of the seven states had been a critical test of the emergent Han dynasty. Had the seven princes prevailed in the conflict in all likelihood the empire would have been thrown back into the chaos and loose confederations of states that had marked the spring and autumn and warring states periods but with an imperial victory the powers of the princes and the sizes of their respective territories would be drastically reduced over the remainder of Emperor Jing's reign and into his son's. Probably just as important, though, was the psychological victory it had earned. The empire was united under the Han Dynasty, and unification was no longer some fleeting state in between periods of civil strife. It was here to stay.

Secured against rebellion from his princes, Emperor Jing was next faced with the ever-tricky question of succession. As discussed earlier, his first wife, Empress Bo, had continually failed to produce an heir, and as such Jing had named his eldest son from another of his consorts, Li, as Crown Prince Liu Rong. But Consort Li proved herself to be a jealous, spiteful woman, and made the critical blunder of making herself an enemy of the Emperor's elder sister, Princess Liu Piao, after rudely refusing an offer of betrothal between her crowned prince and Piao's daughter, Chen Jiao. By 151 BCE, the Emperor's sister had bent his ear, criticizing Consort Li for her jealousy,

and intimating that if she were ever allowed to become Empress Dowager, she might very well end up like Empress Lu, and kill many of her rival concubines, as had befallen poor concubine Qi. Ultimately, Jing agreed with his sister, and deposed Prince Rong. It would not be Consort Li, but rather Consort Wang Zhi,

who would wind up becoming Jing's second and final empress in 150. After Wang wisely secured Princess Piao's favor by agreeing to the offer of betrothal that Consort Li had so rudely refused. It was toward the end of his 16-year reign that Emperor Jing's tenure was marked by one of its most criticized decisions, the death of General Zhou Yafu, who had been the heroic commander during the rebellion of the Seven States. Having later served as prime minister in Chang'an, however, Zhou had managed to alienate and offend virtually every member of the imperial family, the emperor's brother, Prince Wu, Empress Dowager Dou, Empress Wang, and even Jing himself, thanks to Zhou's stubbornness and inability to reach positions of compromise. In 143 BCE, having since retired and preparing for his eventual death,

he had his son purchase a set of armor and weaponry from the imperial armory to be buried in. But when the armor arrived, Zhou's son refused to pay the deliveryman, who in turn accused the Zhou family of treason. Because, you know, that was just a perfectly reasonable thing to do, of course. In a bizarre turn of events, the emperor himself ordered his former general and prime minister arrested and interrogated. When General Zhou told the interrogators that the purchased armor and weapons were not for any kind of rebellion, but simply to be buried in, here's where things got really strange. He was accused of plotting underground treason, which is to say he planned to use the armaments to betray the spirits of his emperors once he

himself had died. And given the difficulty of disproving thought crime slash spirit crime, Zhou was imprisoned where he committed suicide. There is no word on how his afterlife rebellion might have fared. Emperor Jing of Han would meet his own demise in 141 BCE at the age of 47, only one year older than his father, and after a reign of 16 years. Jing and his father, over the course of their reigns, effectively smoothed out many of the rough edges left over from the legalist Qin before them, as well as the early instability of the Han dynasty itself. It effectively set the stage for the long and storied reign of one of the Han dynasty's most famous or infamous monarchs. Next time, we'll discuss the emperor who, double China's size, expand the authority of the throne, make contact

with the mysterious people of the unknown lands to the far west, and at last cast off the embarrassing tributary status the Han Empire had endeared to the Xiongnu, Crown Prince Liu Che, who the world would come to know as Emperor Wu of Han. Thank you. titles to choose from. For your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or MP3 player, Audible is the nation's leading seller and producer of spoken audio content.