 | THE HISTORY OF THE FORMER HAN DYNASTY The history of the former Han dynasty |  |
His subversion of the unwritten state constitution and the consequences
thereof
Soon after he ascended the throne, Emperor Wu evidently determined
to rule as well as to reign. In attaining that goal he made in the fundamental
unwritten constitution of the state an important change which
has had far-reaching effects upon Chinese history.
In the conduct of government the Han practise had previously been
that the emperor delegates his power to his important officials, especially
the Lieutenant Chancellor, and confines his own activity chiefly to the
appointment and dismissal of his high officials. All important matters,
such as the issuance of important governmental orders and the confirmation
of all capital sentences, came to the emperor for final approval; in
deciding such matters, the emperor seems to have ratified, without
questioning, the decisions of his high officials. When important officials
disagreed, it seems to have been the custom to convoke the members
of the imperial court, including the high officials, the heads of bureaus,
the Erudits, the Gentlemen, etc., to a discussion, at which the emperor
presided; the consensus of opinion reached at this assembly was then
adopted by the emperor. This limitation of imperial power had been
embodied in and strengthened by the custom that the emperor rarely or
never acts on his own initiative; he merely approves or disapproves the
suggestions of his officials (cf. HFHD, I, 16, 17). Government business
came to the high ministers, who usually decided matters and, sometimes
after convoking their own subordinates, submitted their decisions to the
emperor for ratification. While the emperor was thus theoretically an
absolute monarch, in practise his official acts were determined by the
group of officials with whom he had surrounded himself. This constitutional
practise seems admirably designed, but its continuance required a
degree of self-denial and freedom from overweening ambition not to be
found continuously in any line of rulers.
This custom, which made the emperor chiefly the personnel manager
of the government, was plainly a Legalistic (and Taoistic) practise. It
was called "governing by non-activity" and was strongly advocated by
Han Fei and by Chuang-tzu (Cf. W. K. Liao, Complete Works of Han Fei
Tzu, vol. I, ch. VIII; Fung, History of Chinese Philosophy, I, 330-5).
Since the Ch'in government adopted Legalist practises and the early Han
rulers adopted Ch'in practises, this imperial abnegation of ruling power
came almost certainly to the Han dynasty from the Ch'in, along with
many other governmental institutions and offices. Hsiao Ho, the actual
had been thoroughly trained in Ch'in procedures before he joined the Han
forces. This conception of the imperial power was furthermore not
contradicted by Confucian teachings. While the Book of History does
not plainly represent any of the ancient sages as explicitly following it,
yet the practise is quite in harmony with what these sages are represented
as doing and with other Confucian teachings. For example, Shun urges
Yü, his successor, to give up his own opinion and follow that of others
(Book of History, II, ii, 3; Legge, p. 53); in the "Great Plan," the ruler
is directed to consult with the ministers, officers, common people, and
the divining instruments (ibid. V, iv, 25). The Confucian theory was
that the ruler should serve as a model, and his subordinates would
accordingly become virtuous without the ruler's interference. Mencius
called the ruler who enforces his will by physical force a Lord Protector
(pa) in contrast to the true king (wang), who governs by moral suasion.
Thus it was quite possible to read Confucian sanction from the Classics
into the practise of turning the actual work of government over to the
ministers and bureaucracy. At the same time it was possible for sincere
Confucians to allege that this practise was one of the "evils inherited"
from the Ch'in dynasty (HS 6: 39a) and to reinforce by this argument
the Emperor's natural ambition to dominate the governmental mechanism
of which he was the head, urging that only by such a change could
this anti-Confucian practise be removed. Szu-ma T'an makes imperial
initiative in government a Confucian teaching (SC 130: 9; trans. in L. C.
Porter, Aids to the Study of Chinese Philosophy, p. 51). Thus criticism
of the change could be stifled by an appeal to the Confucian philosophy.
Such a change, from passivity to imperial initiative in government,
was foreshadowed when Emperor Wu, early in his reign, showed himself
ambitious, active, and dominating. At first he followed the earlier
practise of leaving matters to the decision of his Lieutenant Chancellors.
But after the death, in 131 B.C., of T'ien Fen, his uncle and Lieutenant
Chancellor, Emperor Wu took the government into his own hands. He
did not allow any of his Lieutenant Chancellors to remain in office long
enough to gain prestige. They were tripped up on some one of the many
vague laws and were sentenced for crime. None of them held office for
more than four years, except the incompetent and subservient Shih
Ch'ing, who did not know enough to interfere in government business.
The others all died or were dismissed in disgrace. From 121 to 88 B.C., a
period of thirty-three years, during which there were seven Lieutenant
Chancellors, only Shih Ch'ing died a natural death; the others were all
condemned for some crime or other. The result of this continual overturn
of the outstanding government official was that government business
Lieutenant Chancellor, and that the ministers became merely the agents
of the throne, instead of actually controlling the government.
Thus Emperor Wu altered the constitution of the state, and the
emperor became the ruler, an absolute monarch who directed the government
in person, instead of merely reigning and delegating his powers to
the most capable subordinate he could discover. This profound change
naturally had important consequences for subsequent history.
In the first place, it removed an important check to misgovernment.
As long as the Lieutenant Chancellor was ruling, it was possible for
complainants to criticize this official; once the emperor actually assumed
the direction of matters, it was no longer possible to criticize the government
for its mistakes, since the emperor was above criticism. Szu-ma
Ch'ien, in pleading for Li Ling, was actually criticizing the Emperor;
such criticism was lese-majesty, for which Szu-ma Ch'ien was punished
severely. Thus by placing the ruling power above criticism, the imperial
government was deprived of the corrective power that comes from popularly
expressed criticism. Emperors Wu and Wang Mang ruined the
country, bringing about serious depopulation and banditry; yet critics
could not ask to have the ruling authority changed, as they had done in
the times of Emperors Wen and Ching, when the Lieutenant Chancellors
were criticized. The very serious mistakes in Emperor Wu's reign, such
as his economic policies, the loss of Li Ling, and the rebellion of the
Heir-apparent Li, were made possible by the absence of effective criticism
for governmental policies.
In the second place, the emperor's private secretaries, the Masters of
Writing or the Palace Writers, instead of the Lieutenant Chancellors,
came to be the most powerful officials in the government. These
secretaries became the sieve through which all official documents passed.
Since the emperor could not possibly examine all memorials and documents,
and since he remained enclosed by the barrier composed of his
entourage and palaces, the person who selected what reports and documents
were seen by the emperor could largely determine the emperor's
decisions. Emperors Wu and Hsüan were alone able to a certain extent,
by their personal activity, to break through this barrier; other emperors,
who were not so active or able, usually succumbed to the restrictions
thrown about them. There accordingly came into being the curious office
of Intendant of Affairs of the Masters of Writing (Chih Shang-shu Shih),
the occupant of which, by controlling the imperial secretaries, controlled
the emperor and the government. The Lieutenant Chancellor now
became, not the dominating official in the government, but a convenient
figurehead, a position to which some aged Confucian scholar could be
Intendant of Affairs of the Masters of Writing was usually concurrently
Commander-in-chief, and important government matters, such as
important appointments, were usually decided by him. Occasionally
emperors tried to nullify the power of the Intendant of Affairs of the
Masters of Writing by appointing two persons to this post, to check each
other, but, in such cases, the stronger of the two, by using the threat of
legal condemnation afforded by the complicated and vague laws, usually
dominated the other. Thus the attempt of the emperor to grasp the
governing power in person merely drove that power to subterranean
places.
Thirdly, it now became possible for persons who held no official positions
to dominate the government through their possession of the imperial
confidence. Hence intrigue became rife in the court. Since the emperor
had little or no contact with the public and was naturally suspicious of
self-seeking among his courtiers, the persons whom he trusted could
dominate the government. The most important of these persons was
his mother, the Empress Dowager, obedience to whom was required by
the Confucian virtue of filial piety. She, being a woman, was also
immured in the palace, and so came to depend upon her close relatives.
They were blood relatives or connections of the emperor and their position
in the court depended upon the possession of the throne by this
particular emperor, hence he could be confident that their interests were
fundamentally identical with his own. Consequently they were trusted
and given high positions. Thus Emperor Wu's seizure of governmental
control inaugurated the periods of intrigue and domination by imperial
maternal relatives, which so defaced the succeeding periods of his dynasty
and resulted in the downfall of the Former and Later Han dynasties.
The foregoing consequences of Emperor Wu's over-ambitious overturn
of the state constitution did not for the most part manifest themselves
until the reigns of succeeding emperors. By his own penetration
and activity he minimized them during his own reign. He was, for
example, so far-sighted as to see to it that his successor should have no
living mother. Emperor Hsüan, because of his unusual upbringing,
likewise avoided these consequences. But under rulers of lesser ability,
they became inevitable. All the reigns after Emperor Hsüan suffered
from them.
| THE HISTORY OF THE FORMER HAN DYNASTY The history of the former Han dynasty | |