Emperor Wu of Han (141-87 BC): Expansion of the Han Empire

Emperor Wu of Han, born Liu Che, ruled China from 141 to 87 BC, the longest reign of the Han dynasty. Known by his posthumous title Han Wudi, the “Martial Emperor”, he ended decades of appeasement towards the Xiongnu nomads and launched campaigns that roughly doubled the territory of the empire. At home he created state monopolies, strengthened central power and made Confucian learning the foundation of official education, shaping the Chinese state for two thousand years.

Early life and accession

Liu Che was born in 156 BC, a son of Emperor Jing and his consort Wang Zhi. He was not the original heir. In 150 BC the crown prince Liu Rong was deposed, Wang Zhi became empress and her son was made heir. When Emperor Jing died early in 141 BC, Liu Che came to the throne aged 15.

He inherited a strong position. His grandfather Emperor Wen and father Emperor Jing had kept taxes low and avoided costly wars, and the treasury and granaries were full. The Rebellion of the Seven States in 154 BC had broken the power of the regional kingdoms. Yet the empire still paid gifts to the Xiongnu under the heqin peace policy, and Xiongnu raids continued.

In his first years the young emperor was restrained by his grandmother, Grand Empress Dowager Dou, who favoured the Daoist-influenced Huang-Lao school of government. When two of his Confucian ministers proposed reforms in 139 BC, she had them removed, and both died in prison. Only after her death in 135 BC did Emperor Wu rule fully in his own right.

Confucian learning and government

Emperor Wu is remembered for elevating Confucian scholarship. In 136 BC he appointed official scholars, called erudites, for each of the Five Classics: the Book of Songs, the Book of Documents, the Rites, the Book of Changes and the Spring and Autumn Annals. In 134 BC he ordered commanderies to recommend men of filial piety and integrity for office. In 124 BC the Imperial Academy was founded with 50 students attached to the erudites.

The scholar Dong Zhongshu is traditionally credited with persuading the emperor to favour Confucian teaching. Gongsun Hong, a scholar of the Spring and Autumn Annals who had once been a pig farmer, became chancellor in 124 BC, the first holder of the office who had not already been ennobled as a marquis. Over time, knowledge of the classics became the normal route into government service.

The reality was more mixed. Emperor Wu also relied on harsh law-enforcing officials such as Zhang Tang, who applied laws severely and used informers. Historians often describe Han government as Confucian in its public language but legalist in its methods. The emperor further concentrated power in an inner court of personal advisers, sidelining the regular ministers.

Wars against the Xiongnu

Emperor Wu’s greatest project was the war against the Xiongnu, the nomadic confederation that had dominated the northern frontier since the Battle of Baideng in 200 BC. In 133 BC a plot to ambush the chanyu at Mayi failed when he discovered the trap, and open war began.

From 129 BC Han cavalry armies struck north. The commander Wei Qing, a former household servant whose sister Wei Zifu became empress in 128 BC, won the first victories. In 127 BC Han recovered the Ordos region inside the great bend of the Yellow River and founded Shuofang commandery there. In 121 BC Wei Qing’s nephew Huo Qubing, then about 20, led two campaigns into the Hexi Corridor, after which the Xiongnu King of Hunye surrendered with tens of thousands of his people.

In 119 BC came the largest campaign of all. Wei Qing and Huo Qubing each led about 50,000 cavalry across the Gobi Desert, supported by much larger numbers of infantry and supply troops. Huo Qubing pushed far into Mongolia, and the chanyu was driven north. The victory cost Han heavily in horses and men, and it did not destroy the Xiongnu, but it removed the immediate threat to the heartland.

Expansion in every direction

Emperor Wu’s armies also advanced on other frontiers:

• West: The envoy Zhang Qian brought back knowledge of Central Asia, and Han garrisons and commanderies extended through the Hexi Corridor to Dunhuang. In 104–101 BC the general Li Guangli fought a costly war against Dayuan (Ferghana) to obtain its famous horses.
• South: In 111 BC Han conquered the kingdom of Nanyue, covering modern Guangdong, Guangxi and northern Vietnam, and divided it into nine commanderies. The Minyue kingdom of Fujian was subdued soon afterwards.
• Southwest: Campaigns into Yunnan brought the kingdom of Dian under Han suzerainty in 109 BC.
• Northeast: In 108 BC Han destroyed the kingdom of Gojoseon in the Korean peninsula and set up four commanderies, the best known being Lelang.

By the end of the reign the Han empire reached from Korea to Central Asia and from the Mongolian steppe to the South China Sea.

Money, monopolies and taxes

The wars drained the reserves built up under Wen and Jing. To pay for them, Emperor Wu turned to new financial measures, many designed by the merchant’s son Sang Hongyang. From about 119 BC the state took over the making and sale of salt and iron. In 118 BC a new standard coin, the five-zhu (wuzhu), was issued, and from 113 BC minting was restricted to the central government; the wuzhu remained the basic Chinese coin for some 700 years.

Other measures included heavy taxes on merchants’ property, encouraged by rewards for informers, the sale of ranks and offices, and systems of “equable transport” and “balanced standard” through which the state bought and sold goods to profit from price differences. In 98 BC a liquor monopoly was added. The measures raised large sums but were deeply unpopular. Six years after Emperor Wu’s death, scholars and officials argued over them in a famous court debate later recorded as the Discourses on Salt and Iron.

Religion, the court and the search for immortality

Emperor Wu took a keen interest in ritual and the supernatural. In 110 BC he performed the feng and shan sacrifices at Mount Tai, rites claimed by only a few rulers in Chinese history. He funded magicians who promised contact with immortals and elixirs of long life, and several who failed to deliver were executed. In 104 BC a new calendar, the Taichu calendar, was introduced. His reign also saw the start of the practice of naming eras, with names applied retroactively to its earlier years.

His court was also a place of danger. In 99 BC the historian Sima Qian defended the general Li Ling, who had surrendered to the Xiongnu, and was castrated as punishment. Sima Qian nonetheless completed the Records of the Grand Historian, the main source for the reign.

The witchcraft scandal and last years

In 91 BC the official Jiang Chong, an enemy of the crown prince, accused members of the court of using witchcraft against the ageing emperor and claimed to find evidence in the prince’s palace. Fearing for his life, Crown Prince Liu Ju had Jiang Chong killed and rose in arms in Chang’an. Several days of street fighting left thousands dead. The prince fled and took his own life, and his mother, Empress Wei Zifu, also killed herself.

The emperor later came to believe his son had been wronged. In 89 BC he issued the so-called Luntai edict, rejecting a plan for military farming colonies far to the west and expressing regret for the burdens placed on the people; some modern scholars question how far the edict marked a real change of policy. Emperor Wu died on 29 March 87 BC and was buried at Maoling, west of Chang’an. His eight-year-old son became Emperor Zhao, with the general Huo Guang, Huo Qubing’s half-brother, as regent.

Myths and facts

Myth: Emperor Wu single-handedly created the Silk Road. His policies opened official contact with Central Asia, but goods, including silk, had moved across the steppe for centuries before. The name “Silk Road” itself was coined by a German geographer in 1877.

Myth: He banned all schools of thought except Confucianism. The famous slogan about “dismissing the hundred schools and honouring only Confucianism” is a later summary, not a law of his reign. Other traditions, including Daoism and legalism, continued to influence government and court.

Timeline

• 156 BC: Birth of Liu Che.
• 141 BC: Accession as emperor at the age of 15.
• 136 BC: Erudites appointed for the Five Classics.
• 133 BC: Failed ambush at Mayi ends the heqin peace with the Xiongnu.
• 127 BC: Han recovers the Ordos region.
• 121 BC: Huo Qubing’s Hexi campaigns; the King of Hunye surrenders.
• 119 BC: Battle of Mobei; salt and iron monopolies begin.
• 111–108 BC: Conquest of Nanyue, Dian and Gojoseon.
• 91 BC: Witchcraft scandal and death of the crown prince.
• 87 BC, 29 March: Death of Emperor Wu.

Why it matters

Emperor Wu turned the Han state from a cautious kingdom into a continental empire. The frontiers, institutions and Confucian education he established defined imperial China, and the Han name became the name of the Chinese people. His reign also showed the costs of empire, with exhausted finances and a bloody succession crisis.