This policy Tui En Ling granted all sons of lords of feudatory states, instead of only the first son, with noble titles and right to inherit those states. Therefore, lords were required to divide their states into many smaller and less powerful ones, until they vanished decades later.
Emperor Wudi also used other excuses to abolish some lords who disobeyed him. Sang Hong Yang about BC — 80 BC , a talented person from a business family, was one of the most exceptional chancellors of the exchequer in Chinese history, who assisted Emperor Wudi and implemented a series of economic policies and reforms to increase revenue, and develop national treasury. He was also, in the history of China, the first minister who valued industry, commerce, and trade as important as agriculture.
Sang Hong Yang's excellent work guaranteed the economy of the Han Empire run well and made sure the Emperor Wudi never felt lack of money, even after having initiated many large scale military activities. In the year BC, Emperor Wudi accepted and implemented a suggestion from philosopher Dong Zhongshu that made Confucianism the only philosophy and behavioral standard officially; many Confucianism colleges were established afterward.
This was another important policy that Emperor Wudi published, which had significant influences on both Chinese culture and philosophy. Students of the newly established Confucianism Academies became an important source of officials of the Han Empire. Besides that, Emperor Wudi also commanded local officers to nominate certain numbers of talented people to the central government each year, based on morality. This system Cha Ju Zhi then became an important means to select officials in the next centuries.
Outside of the administrative authorities, Wudi also implemented a system to monitor local governors. Under Emperor Wudi's reign, ability triumphed class origin. Liu Che liked her at first sight and took her back to his royal palace. A few years later, this singer gave birth to Emperor Wudi's first child. Then she became his second queen after giving birth to the crown prince. Surprisingly, Wei Qing, the former slave with no military experiences, became the first general in the Han Dynasty who obtained large areas of land from Xiongnu the Huns in battlefields.
Afterward, the former powerful Xiongnu never could threaten the Han Empire again. The continuing campaigns, including the settling down of homeless people in the new commanderies, consumed large amounts of money, so that the state treasury soon fell into a precarious situation. Emperor Wu started selling official titles to increase the state income, began recruting troops from among the peasantry and using the poverty of many peasants that sold themselves as slaves to the government. The tax burden was increased twofold.
The peasants had to deliver a higher amount of grain to the local government, and the central government decided over an issue would decide the financial politics for the next two thousand years: The state monopolized the production and sales of salt and iron and could thereby decicisely increase its income.
Coins were furthermore to be cast sic! There was a heated debate at the court over the issue of the state monopoly. Almost as soon as he began his reign, he presided over an examination of Confucian scholars , and the court put some of those who were successful in the exam in official positions. Then the ruling court started a Confucian academy. In this way, he presided over the establishment of the Confucian Imperial Examination to select people for government positions.
Those who passed the examination were guaranteed to be literate and knowledgeable about Confucian political philosophy.
This was the main way that people were selected for government positions in most of the big regional dynasties during the next 2, years. The previous emperors of the Han Dynasty were hard-pressed by the Xiongnu's threat from the north. During Emperor Wu's reign, between and BC, the Han ruling court and the army started winning major battles.
They conquered Xiongnu territory and greatly expanded the empire's territory in the north and west. At the same time, Han armies also defeated armies and navies to the south, and the empire expanded into what are now northern Vietnam, Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong.
In this way, by about BC, the size of the Han empire was more than double what it was at the beginning. Between and BC, trade with Western countries brought wealth to the rulers and merchants. Emperor Wu's court sent envoys to the West , and a large-scale trade developed on the Silk Road routes involving large caravans that traveled between Chang'an,which was the capital of the empire, and the Western countries.
In this way, the Han's knowledge of the outside world, philosophy and religion, and technology increased. Han Wudi accepted Dong Zhongru's proposal of "rejecting the other schools of thought and respecting only Confucianism" which ended the period of "contention among one hundred schools of thought". Afterwards, Confucian thought became gradually an orthodox theory and had a far-reaching influence on Chinese philosophy.
He also restrained other thoughts but made Confucianism a state ideology. While unifying the state ideology, Han Wudi strengthened the centralized state power and weakened local forces. He realized the malpractice of eupatrid and established the Imperial College to train qualified officials and talents to strengthen feudal centralization. Han Wudi was not only a statesman but also of great talent.
Yuefu poems had a great influence on later periods.
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