 | CHAPTER IV The history of the former Han dynasty |  |
INTRODUCTION
Pan Ku, in writing these annals of Emperor Wen's reign, was very
conscious of the fact that he was also writing many Treatises and
Memoirs which deal with the same period. He wished to avoid undue
repetition, so put much of the material dealing with this period into
those Treatises and Memoirs that naturally required it. He makes cross-references
to the most important of those accounts. These Annals are
accordingly not a complete account of the reign, but rather the annalistic
background to a much longer history, together with an account of those
events that do not fit better into the Treatises or Memoirs. Thus the
great raid of the Huns in 166 B.C. is barely mentioned, for a full account
is given in the "Memoir on the Huns." For a reader who has an adequate
knowledge about the period, such as that to be gained from the
Treatises and the Memoirs, this chapter sums up the period very well,
since it sets every important event in its chronological relations, even
though it does not always point out the significance of each event.
This chapter should accordingly be read, not as an attempt at writing
a modern history of the period, but for what it was intended to be—
an account of Emperor Wen together with a mention of the important
events in the reign, which account is part of a much longer history
that treats elsewhere of special subjects and of the important personages
mentioned therein. For a partial summary of those events and
personages, the reader is referred to the notes and the Glossary.
The chief source for this chapter was chapter X of the SC, which
deals similarily with Emperor Wen's reign. That chapter has not however
come down to us without changes. Into it there has been interpolated
the eulogy from this chapter of the HS (cf. p. 272, n. 1); other
changes may also have been made. Pan Ku however had the original of
that chapter. He did not follow it slavishly; some material in it has been
transferred to the relevant Treatises in the HS, for example the account
of the circumstances leading up to the abrogation of the law considering
wives and children as accomplices to a crime (cf. 4: 5b) and to the abolition
of mutilating punishments (cf. 4: 14b). In other cases, material
IV, V, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, and Hou III, IV, V; the HS chronicles
events in each of these years. Some interesting edicts have also been
added, as for instance the ones on 4: 7a, b, and on 16b, 17a. Sometimes
deliberate corrections have been made in the SC account. The long
discussion concerning the appointment of an heir-apparent (4: 5b-6b)
is given in the SC as a conversation between the Emperor and his officials;
the HS quotes it as an exchange of written memorials and edicts. We
know that the imperial court kept in its files duplicates of all imperial
edicts, in order to check any forged edicts; cf. Glossary, sub Tou Ying.
Pan Ku had access to the imperial records and probably compared the
SC versions of these imperial edicts with the copies in the court files.
Thus from them he added the statement that this discussion was taken
from written, not oral documents. This change thus shows his care
and faithfulness to his sources.
Pan Ku probably also had available some sort of annals kept at the
imperial court, which listed such events as the Emperor's travels in and
out of the Palace and also portents, eclipses, drouths, earthquakes, deaths
of emperors, empresses, vassal kings, lieutenant chancellors, etc. The
material in the HS annals for the years omitted in the SC account can
be traced to such annals and to what would be found in the imperial
edicts of those years. These palace annals were probably distinct from
the source from which was taken the chronological record of officials
in part B of chapter 19, for this record and the rest of the HS partly
duplicate, usually supplement, and occasionally contradict each other.
Pan Ku's chapter on Emperor Wen is thus not a copy of the chapter in
the SC, but an independent composition, which took that chapter of
the SC as its principal source, copying it verbatim where it did not need
correction, because that was the best means of securing an accurate
record, just as the SC had previously copied its source material. Sources
were not mentioned by either author, for history was not written to
credit sources, but to give facts.
Emperor Wen came to the throne under exceptionally favorable circumstances,
for he was chosen for the place by the most influential persons
in the empire, who consequently took the responsibility for him.
Hsiao-hui, Kao-tsu's heir, together with Hsiao-hui's descendants, had all
died; the attempt of the Empress Dowager née Lü to continue her
family's influence by enthroning spurious sons of Hsiao-hui had been
frustrated by the action of Kao-tsu's immediate followers, who were her
the leaders of the imperial clan gathered in conclave at the capital. Liu
Chiao, Kao-tsu's sole surviving brother, was old and possibly ill, for he
died the next year. He remained in his kingdom of Ch'u. The other
leaders of the clan were all there: the wife of Liu Po, Kao-tsu's oldest
brother, who was the chief priestess in the ancestral worship, the wife of
Liu Chung, Kao-tsu's next oldest brother, and Kao-tsu's cousin, Liu
Tse, the oldest active male member of the clan. The choice lay between
Liu Hsiang, King of Ch'i, the oldest son of Kao-tsu's oldest son, and Liu
Heng, King of Tai, Kao-tsu's oldest living son. The latter was chosen,
because his mother's family had not the unpleasant reputation possessed
by that of Liu Hsiang. Primogeniture was thus considered as merely
an important, but not a necessary requirement for the succession.
Liu Heng showed the proper reluctance to accept the throne and was
duly installed. He was personally a modest and unaffected young man
in his twenty-second year, who had already reigned as King of Tai to
the seventeenth year.
His character is perhaps best shown in his edicts, which deserve to
rank among the greatest official pronouncements of all time. Pan Ku
esteemed them highly, for he quoted them extensively. The edict ordering
the cessation of prayers for the Emperor's personal happiness (4: 15b),
that on the peace with the Huns (4: 17a, b), and the very remarkable
testimentary edict (4: 19a-21a) are especially noteworthy.
Emperor Wen accepted whole-heartedly the Confucian doctrine that
the ruler exists for the welfare of his subjects and put that doctrine into
practise. He reduced the taxes and lightened the burdens of the people,
economizing in his personal expenses and avoiding any grand displays.
One later story is that he even attended court wearing straw sandals!
He asked the people for criticism of his rule (in his case this request was
sincerely meant) and he sought for capable commoners to assist in the
administration. He ordered the various divisions of the empire to recommend
their best men to the imperial court, and selected amongst them
by a written examination. These recommendations and examinations
seem not however to have occurred regularly, but only when there was
a special imperial call. Emperor Wen stressed agriculture by his personal
example in the sacred field and by his edicts, and was much worried
by famine and scarcity, even going so far as to abolish the land tax on
cultivated fields (soon revived by his successor). While he was thus
personally a Confucian in his belief and government, he was no bigot.
He established Erudits for the non-Confucian philosophies; candidates
studied these philosophies as well as the Confucian teachings; Chia Yi
as a result of Emperor Wen's personal influence, Confucianism was
given such a preponderant influence that the prohibition by Emperor Wu
in 141 B.C. of non-Confucian philosophies was a natural consequence.
During this reign, the Huns began making serious inroads after having
been quiescant during the preceding two short reigns. Kao-tsu had had
trouble with them, and had made peace with them, cementing it by
sending a princess of the imperial family to be a wife of the Hun emperor,
the Shan-yü. In 177 B.C. the Huns invaded the Chinese borders
and occupied Ordos. After the death of Mao-tun, the greatest Shan-yü,
which happened soon after 174 B.C., the Huns, in the winter of 167/6
B.C., made their greatest raid. Hsiao-wen's pacifistic policy of economizing
seems to have left him without adequate defense or they found a
lightly defended road around his defenses; led by the Shan-yü, thousands
of Hun horsemen came south through the passes in the present eastern
Kansuh, down the Chien and Wei River valleys, where they burnt the
Hui-chung Palace, and rode to Kan-ch'üan, in sight of Ch'ang-an. Emperor
Wen immediately made strenuous efforts for defence, and the Huns
left. In 162 B.C. peace was made with them, but in the winter of
159/8 they raided again. During this period there were thus begun the
sporadic invasions by the Huns which were to lead to the military expeditions
of Emperor Wu.
The only rebellion during this period was that of Liu Hsing-chü, King
of Chi-pei, who believed himself inadequately rewarded for having previously
taken the lead in eliminating the power of the Lü clan. This
rebellion was quickly put down. It made Chia Yi realize the danger of
vassal kingdoms, and he advised the Emperor to divide up the great
fiefs in order to weaken their power. Emperor Wen rejected his advice,
but in 164 B.C. he quietly began putting it into effect, dividing up two
kingdoms among nine scions of their kingly families. This policy was
continued, urged by Chao Ts'o, and led to the rebellion of the Seven States
in the next reign. Eventually this policy so enfeebled the power of the
imperial clan that Emperor Wu could at one stroke dismiss with impunity
half of the marquises who were members of the imperial clan.
The superstitious practises which were to deface Emperor Wu's reign
likewise began with Emperor Wen. He was doubtless a personally
devout man who accepted the universal belief that the gods could be
influenced by certain practises. The periodic famines natural to north
China were thought to come from the anger of the gods; Emperor Wen,
in his efforts to aid his people, was thus drawn into special religious
practises for the cultivation of the divine favor upon his people. In
this religious propensity: Kung-sun Ch'en and Hsin-yüan P'ing encouraged
him to extend the imperial worship and formulated the new rites
required. The latter person led the Emperor into other superstitious
practises, making a yellow dragon appear, hiding and dramatically finding
a jade cup inscribed, "Prolongued life to the Lord of Men," and also
hiding a three-legged cauldron at Fen-yin, which, when found, would
appear to be a lost cauldron of the Chou dynasty. He conducted an
unsuccessful search for it; it came to light only much later, in 113 B.C.,
when it made a great stir. He is said to have seen the sun twice at its
zenith on the same day, and as a consequence to have induced Emperor
Wen to begin again the numbering of the years of his reign. Although
Hsin-yüan P'ing's deceits were discovered and he was executed in 164
B.C., the precedent had been set of an emperor favoring those who could
bring special favors from the gods or spirits. Emperor Wu brought it
to fruition.
Emperor Wen's reign was thus a period of beginnings: of the Confucian
influence, of trouble with the Huns, of the division of fiefs, and
of important imperial superstition. It was the first really long reign
in the dynasty and it established many of the practises of the dynasty.
It was thus natural that this Emperor should have been posthumously
entitled the Great Exemplar of Emperors.
Personally Liu Heng was an admirable, though not entirely perfect
character. He is generally considered to have been one of the best
rulers of China. He showed genuine statesmanship. Thus he ended
the desultory war and rebellion of the kingdom of Nan-yüeh without
any fighting: he found in north China the cousins of its ruler, Chao
T'o, made large gifts to them and cared splendidly for the tomb of
Chao T'o's parents, then, in a tactful letter, he set forth satisfactory
boundaries for Nan-yüeh and told its ruler that there could not be two
emperors in the world. Chao T'o promptly changed his own title from
that of Emperor to King and acknowledged himself a subject of Emperor
Wen. The latter had so arranged matters that by so doing Chao T'o
would gain much and lose nothing except an empty title and a tribute
which was repaid by gifts from the imperial court. Thus Liu Heng
strove by all means to maintain peace.
He honestly worked for the best interests of his people and set their
advantage above his own. He sought for and accepted even the severest
criticism. He discouraged corruption and restrained the severity of his
officials, so that capital punishment became a rare thing. He ameliorated
the severities of the law, abolishing mutilating punishments and
the country became prosperous and there were made the accumulations
of wealth and population which enabled Emperor Wu to conquer the
surrounding world. Emperor Wen tried to maintain an even-handed
justice, even getting his mother's younger brother, Po Chao, who had
been responsible for the murder of an imperial attendant, to commit
suicide. Yet he does not seem to have punished his own Heir-apparent,
Liu Ch'i, when the latter killed his cousin, Liu Hsien, in a drunken dispute
over precedence while gambling. While Liu Heng seems to have been
a morally admirable, yet slightly weak character, it is only his due that
he has been extravagently admired ever since.
| CHAPTER IV The history of the former Han dynasty | |