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Emperor Wu of Han
Also Known As Emperor Wu Shared style. Three rulers the atlas holds separately all bear it; this is the Han one.
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Emperor Wu of Han reigned for fifty-four years from 141 BCE and did two apparently opposite things with equal seriousness. He made the Confucian classics the basis of official learning, appointing academicians for the Five Classics and founding an imperial academy to train officials in them, which set the shape of Chinese state ideology for two thousand years. And he spent decades and enormous sums on the pursuit of physical immortality, keeping at court a succession of fangshi, masters of methods, who promised transmuted gold that would confer deathlessness, contact with spirits, and the discovery of the immortal isles in the eastern sea. He established the state cult of Taiyi, the Grand Unity, and in 110 BCE climbed Mount Tai to perform the feng and shan sacrifices, rites so rare that nobody could say with confidence how they had been done before. The chief account of all this was written by his own court historian, Sima Qian, who reports the immortality projects and their repeated failures with unmistakable dryness.
Facts
Disputed
Lifespan or FloruitThe source gives this year as about, its own approximate estimate rather than a fixed date. How Its Legacy Is ContestedWhether his reign established Confucianism as a state orthodoxy 4 Michael Nylan's The Five 'Confucian' Classics (Yale University Press, 2001) examines the traditional account crediting Emperor Wu of Han with elevating Confucian classics on the advice of the scholar Dong Zhongshu while setting other schools of thought aside. Nylan's revisionist historical method, examining the actual administrative record of the reign, finds the imperial court went on employing officials trained in Legalist administration and coercive economic policy throughout Wu's reign, that the Confucian canon was not yet fixed in the form it later took, and that classicists in fact competed for imperial attention with other kinds of specialists rather than simply displacing them as the traditional account suggests. Nylan notes both readings agree that after this reign, mastery of the classics became the established route into imperial office. Attestation
HistoricityHistorically attested; the principal account is the history of Sima Qian, who served at his court and whose treatise on the feng and shan sacrifices reports the immortality projects and their failures Attributions
Mythic AssociationKept a succession of fangshi, masters of methods, who promised transmuted gold, contact with spirits and the immortal isles of the eastern sea; expeditions were sent and none returned with anything 2 TraditionPerformed the feng and shan sacrifices at Mount Tai in 110 BCE, rites so rarely carried out that the court had to reconstruct them from disputed scholarship 2 Life
Lifespan or Floruit Office HeldEmperor of the Han from 141 to 87 BCE, one of the longest reigns in Chinese history 3Tradition: Confucianism Identity
Also Known AsLiu Che, his personal name; Han Wudi, the martial emperor of Han. Wu is a posthumous title, not a name, which is why three separate rulers are called Emperor Wu 1 History
Historical NoteEstablished academicians for the Five Classics in 136 BCE and an imperial academy in 124 BCE, making mastery of a defined body of ancient texts the qualification for holding office 4Tradition: Confucianism Historical NoteInstalled the cult of Taiyi, the Grand Unity, as the supreme object of imperial sacrifice, reordered the seasonal and ancestral rites, and reformed the calendar in 104 BCE 5 Position Profile
Key TextThe court history written by his own historian Sima Qian is the chief account of his reign, including the immortality projects and their repeated failures, told with unmistakable dryness. 4 Learn More
The Classics Made the Business of the State
The measures were administrative and their consequences were civilizational. In 136 BCE academicians were established for each of the Five Classics, the texts on ritual, poetry, documents, changes and chronicle that the tradition traced to antiquity. In 124 BCE an imperial academy was founded to train students in them, with examination and appointment to office at the end of the course. Recommendation of candidates on the grounds of filial conduct and integrity became a route into the bureaucracy. Taken together these turned a body of texts into a career, and a career into a hereditary intellectual culture.
The thinker most associated with the change is Dong Zhongshu, whose memorials argued that the ruler should honour one tradition and set the others aside, and whose reading of the classics tied the conduct of the emperor to the behaviour of the natural world through the correspondences of yin, yang and the five phases. On that account an eclipse, a flood or a failed harvest is a comment on government, which gave the classicists a permanent instrument of criticism as well as a permanent role.
Modern scholarship has qualified the older picture of a single decisive establishment of Confucianism in this reign. The court continued to employ legalist administrators and to run a state economy on frankly coercive lines, the canon itself was not fixed in the form later ages assumed, and the classicists competed with other specialists for imperial attention throughout. What is not in doubt is the direction: after this reign, mastery of a defined body of ancient texts was the recognized qualification for governing China, and it remained so, with interruptions, until 1905.
The Masters of Methods and the Mountain
The other half of the reign is told in the treatise on the feng and shan sacrifices that Sima Qian placed in his history, and it is one of the sharpest pieces of religious reporting in the ancient world. A sequence of fangshi came to court. One proposed that cinnabar be transmuted into gold, that vessels made from that gold would extend the life of anyone who ate from them, and that a man so extended could meet the immortals of the eastern isles. Another claimed contact with the spirits and was married to a princess and loaded with seals of office before being executed when his methods produced nothing. Expeditions were sent out to sea to find Penglai. None returned with anything.
Alongside the search ran a genuine reconstruction of state religion. The cult of Taiyi, the Grand Unity, was installed at a new altar complex as the supreme object of imperial sacrifice, the ancestral and seasonal rites were reordered, and in 104 BCE the calendar was reformed. In 110 BCE the emperor went to Mount Tai and performed the feng and shan, sacrifices to Heaven on the summit and to Earth at its foot, which were held to be the prerogative of a ruler whose reign had been validated by peace and good omen. Nobody at court could say how the rites had been carried out in antiquity, and the ceremony was reconstructed from disputed scholarship, with the emperor performing part of it alone.
The two projects were not felt to be in tension at the time. Both belong to a single account of the world in which correct ritual, correct government and the order of nature are the same subject.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The fangshi he kept at court, and the search for the immortal isles, belong to the older stratum of Chinese practice that later fed into organized Daoism.
The texts his academicians were appointed to teach were those the tradition attached to this teacher, three and a half centuries earlier.
This source names Emperor Wu of Han directly: "Reliable for Dong's rise under Emperor Wu of Han (reigned roughly 140 to 87 BCE) and his advocacy, traditionally dated to 136 BCE, for making Confucianism the Han empire's unifying ideology..."
This source names Emperor Wu of Han directly: "Dong Zhongshu rose under Emperor Wu of Han and is traditionally credited with persuading the emperor, around 136 BCE, to make Confucianism the Han empire's unifying ideology: non-Confucian scholars..."
He performed them at Mount Tai in 110 BCE, the first emperor of the Han to do so, and the ceremony had to be reconstructed because nobody knew the ancient form.
He appointed an academician for each of them in 136 BCE, which is the act that made them a canon rather than a reading list.
The reading of the classics promoted under him tied the conduct of the ruler to the behaviour of the natural world, so an eclipse or a flood became a comment on government.
The eastern peak, where the sacrifice to Heaven is made on the summit and the sacrifice to Earth at its foot.
His court historian, who wrote the treatise that is the chief source for the religious policy of the reign and reports its failures without comment.
Belongs to Tradition
His academicians and imperial academy turned the classics into a career, and the career into the intellectual culture of the Chinese state.
Commonly Conflated with (See Note)
A different ruler six centuries earlier. Wu is a posthumous title meaning martial, not a personal name, so several emperors carry it and are distinguished by dynasty.
A different ruler, and the two stand on opposite sides of the question of state religion: the Han emperor built an establishment, this one dismantled two.
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