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Emperor Wu of Han

Emperor of China from 141 to 87 BC

  • 47 min read
  • 13 chapters
Traditional portrait of Emperor Wu of Han from an ancient Chinese book.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain

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During his reign, Emperor Wu led the Han dynasty through its greatest territorial expansion. At its height, the Empire's borders spanned from the Fergana Valley in the west, to northern Korea in the east, and to northern Vietnam in the south. Emperor Wu successfully repelled the nomadic Xiongnu from systematically raiding northern China, and dispatched his envoy Zhang Qian into the Western Regions in 139 BC to seek an alliance with the Greater Yuezhi and Kangju, which resulted in further diplomatic missions to Central Asia. Although historical records do not describe him as being aware of Buddhism, the cultural exchanges that occurred as a consequence of these embassies suggest that he received Buddhist statues from Central Asia, as depicted in the murals found in the Mogao Caves.

Emperor Wu is considered one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history due to his strong leadership and effective governance, which made China, under the Han dynasty, one of the most powerful nations in the world. Michael Loewe called his reign the "high point" of "Modernist" (classically justified Legalist) policies, looking back to "adapt ideas from the pre-Han period." Especially later in his life, some of his most trusted advisers were proponents of Shang Yang, but did not necessarily support Shang Yang's harsh punishments. Emperor Wu adopted the principles of Confucianism as the state philosophy and code of ethics for his empire and started a school to teach future administrators the Confucian classics. These reforms had an enduring effect throughout the existence of imperial China and an enormous influence on neighbouring civilizations.

Names and dates

The personal name of Emperor Wu was Liu Che (劉徹). The use of "Han" (漢) in referring to emperor Wu is a reference to the Han dynasty of which he was a part. His family name is "Liu"; the ruling family or clan of the Han dynasty shared the family name of "Liu", the family name of Liu Bang, the founding father of the Han dynasty. The character "Di" (帝) is a title: this is the Chinese word which in imperial history of China means "emperor". The character "Wu" (武) literally means "martial" or "warlike", but is also related to the concept of a particular divinity in the historical Chinese religious pantheon existing at that time. Combined, "Wu" plus "di" makes the name "Wudi", the emperor's posthumous name used for historical and religious purposes, such as offering him posthumous honours at his tomb. The emperor's temple tablet name is Shizong (世宗).

Regnal years

One of Han Wudi's innovations was the practice of changing reign names after a number of years, as deemed auspicious or to commemorate some event. Thus, the practice for dating years during the reign of Wudi was represented by the nth year of the [Reign Year Name] (where nth stands for an ordinal integer) and "Reign Year Name" for the specific name of that regnal year. This practice was continued by later emperors until the Ming and Qing eras, whereby the emperors of the two dynasties used only one reign name for their entire reign (unless interrupted, as in the case of Emperor Yingzong of Ming).

Calendar reform

In 104 BC (1st year of the Taichu (太初) era), a new calendar was put into effect: the Taichu calendar (太初曆). This calendar came about due to the observations of three officials (Gongsun Qing (公孫卿), Hu Sui (壺遂) and Sima Qian (author of Shiji)) that the calendar then in use was in need of reform. Among other reforms, the Taichu calendar made the zheng month (正月, also known as the first month) the beginning of a new year, rather than the tenth month in the Zhuanxu calendar. From then on, the Chinese calendar had retained the property of having the first month as the beginning of the year. Before the Taichu calendar was finalised, more than 20 scholars were consulted, including Luoxia Hong, Deng Ping (鄧平) and Sima Ke (司馬可); the finalised calendar was mainly based on the calculations of Deng Ping and Luoxia Hong.

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